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Okay, I just wrote Jim a nice big thank-you for being such a mensch, and here I go with the bat. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Adney [SMTP:jadney@vwtype3.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 10:04 PM To: type3@vwtype3.org Subject: Re: [T3] For whom the bell tolls... I have heard this argument frequently over the internet, but usually it takes the form of "Well, I have a 59 Chevy that doesn't smoke a bit, so I KNOW that it is justoÂœ³n as any new car." Actually, that argument is not accurate. On the other hand, I had a 1964 Mercury Park Lane Fastback (gawd! The lines on that car!), that *every single year* got between 285 and 447 parts per million of hc emissions. That *easily* passes the 1974 emissions standards in AZ (I'd like to see a 1989 car pass the standards for a 99), and the 285ppm would probably bring you to the brink of the 1981 revision. That *is* 18 years ago, and new cars *do* put out less than that (the x's Jetta was getting like 101ppm). Understand though, that this was for all intents and purposes a stock motor, that was only getting regular maintenance (and getting beat on by a 21-year old at every stop light), so it was an average car. Steve is right, if your engine is running correctly, and tuned to specification, there is no reason why (especially the FI jobs) can't be running very clean, if not to the standard of the 'brand new' cars. - Which is a fairly decent misnomer, as with the *hundreds* of pounds of plastic on every new car that will *never* go away, along with all the wasted resources from not recycling properly, and throwing away the car when it's only a few years old... The list goes on, and I'm losing my thread. The issue is a ridiculous one; an automaker is dumping hundreds of gallons of toluene into the environment every month, and to get enviro spiffs from the EPA, they make a small group of kooks that drive old air-cooled VW's give up their cars, so the automaker can spend less on fines, *and keep dumping hundreds of gallons of toluene into the environment every month!!!* This *is* the bottom line. How many (let's just be ridiculous, and add in all the rest) air-cooled VW's are registered in America? Balance that against the rest of the 'new' cars. Then balance that against the tens of thousands of aluminum cans you see lying on the sides of the road *every f'ing day!* Then, balance *that* against every city bus or 18 wheeler, belching huge, black clouds of benzoapyrenes into the alvºeathe. Or the huge black clouds dumping out of the back of every jet in *every* airport of *every* city. If you want to talk about pollution, we could go into spent nuclear fuel rods, that lie in decaying concrete bunkers in remote places in the south west. *That's* what I don't want my (future) children to have to deal with. A fraction of the population that's driving old cars that are *better maintained* than *any* new car, doesn't concern me. - That's another thing. Do your neighbours (who don't drive VW's) take as close care of their vehicles as you do? Probably only if they drive old cars (by choice). People who drive these old cars do it because we *like* them, so we take better care of them. I'm going to stop now, and go sit by a tree and meditate. My blood pressure's a little up. I think I need a cup of tea. My apologies to the list. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe? mailto:type3-request@vwtype3.org, Subject: unsubscribe