BAR= Bureau of Automotive Repair. An agency of the State of California that regulates the auto repair industry.
The catalytic converter is a good example of foolishness. Where does the energy to keep it at the proper temperature come from? The fuel tank. You the consumer pay for the catalytic converter when you buy the car and replacing it when it is stolen or it fails. Then you pay for the fuel to keep it hot enough to act as a catalyst. So why do we need it? It enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a faster rate. It does in the exhaust system what would happen anyway in the atmosphere just quicker. If the exhaust is already clean when it hits the catalyst nothing will happen. In 1980 I was at a Bosch fuel injection school, think lambda sond, and it was explained to us that the system would go too rich then too lean and back again. By design. When I asked why, they said if it didn’t work that way the catalyst would never get hot enough to work. My answer was why are we wasting fuel to do something that will happen anyway. Because they want to see it clean in the pipe. When smog testing you could not have exhaust system leaks and the test probe had to go 18 inches into the tail pipe. I asked how much fuel did it burn extra? 20-30 percent was his answer. Don’t get me wrong, I want clean air but this is nuts. That 20-30 percent extra fuel has air quality costs too. More wells need to be drilled, more crude has to be shipped, more crude has to be refined and more gasoline needs to be shipped. All of that adds to air pollution doesn’t it.
