Safe Speed Forums

Ther terms "CRAZE" and "CASH IN" say it all in my book.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Do they do a carbon footprint test for the carbon footprint test?

Or... How much energy would the test its self use?

_________________
Andrew.

And how many of those areas aren't already checked when the car is serviced?

...and how many of them, for that matter REDUCE carbon emissions anyway?!

What a load of cobblers!

Yep..same as "green" electricity and all the other premium priced goods and services that claim to be good for the environent.

But I suppose if you are stupid enough to buy into the hype you deserve all you get.

Seems like every other advert on TV now makes some reference to "climate" as part of its selling pitch

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

I don't give a monkey's about the environment any more. The environment is just a stick with which we are beaten and it's getting me pretty sore. I no longer recycle anything, things used to get separated like a good boy, kichen waste in the composter (for the foxes an rats), bottles in the blue box along with paper (which blew everywhere, but not magazines, they won't take them) tins too, in they went. Sod it. I took them stupid bulbs out that take ages to warm then interfere with the remote on my home cinema. Now I can see and change trak on my CD's.

That fat Scottish pillock tells me that the 2ppl rise in fuel duty when oil is at an all time high is "to send out the right message", IE don't drive your car you peasent, then he gets in his company Jag and is driven a couple of hundred yards to Downing Street.

Coal fired power stations are no good, look at the CO2!!

Nuclear is no good, look at the bloody radioactive waste!!

Wind power is no good, what about when the wind doesn't blow and won't anyone think of the birds hitting then and they look horrid!!

Hydroelectric is no good, Look at all those rare newts that will drown!!

Don't go on hoilday or you'll be making CO2, then someone says that planes use less fuel per passenger km that summat else.

Go by train, what damn trains and why is it ok to do 185 mph in a train but if I do 71 in my car I not only kill inicent babies, but the extra fuel used to go 1 mph faster kills some rain forest some where.

eat fruit and veg, but not stuff flown in from some where foriegn, think of the CO2, and they pay 'em buttons, but buttons is better than no buttons!!

Bio fuel was the answer last week, now the bleeding obvious rocketing in commodities has hit home, we don't like that any more either.

Yes, this matter got a little bit of press coverage recently, although it was easy to miss. It relates to what will happen to the CO2 figures of today's brand new ultra-low fuel consumption vehicles when they get old. It's a whole new can of worms.

Imagine 10 years from now you pick up an old 120,000 mile Toyota Prius out of the "bargain cars" section of the Autotrader for £1500. A few months later the hybrid motor breaks down. Replacing it will cost more than the car is worth, so you will just get the motor disconnected and run the car on diesel only. What you will then have is an overweight diesel runabout with not-so-good CO2 emissions.

With other low-consumption vehicles like the Polo Bluemotion (which is one of the only cars in the free road tax band), the problem could be even more immediate. It achieves it's low fuel consumption (and hence low CO2 rating) through (among other things) the use of special hard compound tyres. These tyres cost a fortune, so when they wear out, how many cash-strapped owners are gonna plump for a set of Kumhos instead? Again, the manufacturer-quoted CO2 figure will go out the window.

Now I'm sure none of you believe in the Global Warming bogeyman any more than I do, but the problem is this...

With the Government offering VED exemptions, CC exemptions etc. to your ultra-low CO2 vehicle that no longer is, they may view your "modifications" as a matter of tax evasion. And you won't want that. Knowing this Government the way I do, I would expect them to confiscate the car, stick you for arrears, interest, recovery fees, impound fees and probably a meaty fine on top. Cars like the Prius and Bluemotion could end up being liabilities that no-one wants to touch.

Could today's obsession with CO2 drive us into a new era of disposable motoring, where cars are economically inviable as soon as they come out of the 3 year warranty period? Given the energy cost of manufacturing a new car, the hypocrisy of this would be obvious.

Or will we, and the garages that service our cars, be forced into a whole new world of checks, controls and legislation? All of which will have to be paid for by the motoring public and by all the small independent garages that are forced out of business because they can't afford to achieve full compliance.

Could we all end up having to take our cars to a main dealer by law? thus creating an artificial monopoly that will have to be regulated by... ...yes, you guessed it, another Government regulatory body. Which, of course, will have to be paid for. By us.

Could we end up with thousands of "CO2 cameras" by the side of the road? I'm not sure whether such a thing is possible, but I'm sure the Government are happily paying companies huge wedges of YOUR money right now to research it..

_________________
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Yes, they are already in the planning stage. It is manned roadside tests at the moment but...

There is already a: South Yorkshire Vehicle Emissions Testing Partnership

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Yes but all of those 'tests' will save you money, too.

_________________
www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

I don't believe that CO2 emissions will SIGNIFICANTLY increase over the life of a (reasonably well-maintained) car. Other emissions might - Co, oxides of Nitrogen, etc but I doubt that CO2 would. It's rpetty much directly related to fuel consumption and at 17 years old with nearly a quarter of a million miles on it, my car does about the same to the gallon as it did when it was new.

I also don't believe that we are close to being able to test CO2 emissions at the roadside - not in any meaningful sense anyway! They certainly don't get tested in the MOT and I can't imagine any garages check them during servicing either!

This particular example is unlikly to apply.

IIRC the prius battery pack is guaranteed tor 8 years. Whilst the Japs make good stuff, they are also good at making things last just as long as they want them too!

I doubt if any priuses will last ten years without requiring a replacement battery pack (at, what, 3 grand a go or more)

Indeed, if I am proved right on this, thre average prius will depreciate to zero by well before year 8 (how much would you pay for a car that you believed only had a year or twos life left in it)

On the green front, my old Landcruiser (at 14 years and counting) beats the prius hands down!

_________________
"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

When it comes to "conventional" cars, I totally agree with you. This was one of the great things about electronic fuel injection - it never goes out of tune. Component wear still occurs, of course, but this doesn't tend to have an impact on emissions until well past 150,000 miles, at which point a car either gets an overhaul or goes to the scrapper anyway.

Hybrid cars, however, use a lot of technology that is a bit more of an unknown quantity. I'm sure Toyota have run the Prius up to 500,000 miles+ on their test course without any problems at all, but pre-production testing can never fully reproduce the ravages of time and a string of careless, cost-cutting owners who skip services and fit substandard "pattern" parts. We shall see.

_________________
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

I may be being a bit harsh on the prius.

A breif check on e-bay sugests that there are infact 8yr plus priuses available and they do seem to be holding ther value resonably well (whether or not they would have done so in the absense of tax and CC breaks is questionable though).

However, they all seem to be low milage (50-70,000 miles, some as low as 30,000!) single owner cars.

There are higher milage examples of rather newer cars available but few (if any) high milage old ones

There must be higher milage examples of older priuses out there, but where are they??

On a more general note. It would be interesting if DVLA made available info on vehicle models along the lines of "What percentage of this model registererd in (say) 1998 are still on the road in 2008"

It would make interesting reading, Soo interesting that I suspect many (*)manufacturers would object strongly!

(* Not all however. Marques like Porche, Land Rover and Rolls Royce would come out smelling of roses )

_________________
"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"