DOJ sues eBay for selling ‘rolling coal’ devices; fines could hit $2 billion

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 857 points –
cnbc.com

Rolling coal is the practice of tampering with a vehicle's emissions control system, causing it to spew black clouds of sooty exhaust.

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Wait I thought people were just tampering to get higher performance or something, idk. But they're literally doing it to make the vehicle spew worse than it already does? Wtf and why? What is wrong with people?

Running the diesel engine extra rich so it vomits extra sooty exhaust instead of properly burned, cleaner exhaust, because they feel the need to compensate for their small member by annoying everyone else.

Since getting an electric car they've started cutting me off, brake checking me and then doing the soot farting thing. It's like they need to make up for my car's lack of tailpipe emissions in a way that really lets me know they're doing it.

It’s not LIKE that. It 100% IS that. That is the entire intended point of rolling coal.

That is one reason I debadged my Tesla.

(The other reasons are Elon Musk and also I think it looks better being totally smooth)

why?

They see it as a "fuck you" to liberals/environmentalists.

Honestly, that's how I read it, so message received. It's not the sort of thing you say or do if you're trying to win friends and influence people, though.

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Wait I thought people were just tampering to get higher performance or something, idk

Some folks are, but their goal is to not spew a bunch of black smoke because black smoke means incomplete combustion, which in turn means less power than they could've had if they'd managed to shove more air in.

"Rolling coal" is an entirely different thing based purely on idiocy and spite.

It looks tuff, bro!

The worst thing is the people who intentionally spew Priuses (back when they were the only semi-electric cars around) and bicycles with soot, as some sort of "fuck you for trying to not pollute, hur hur" thing.

Because it lets the world know how MAGA you are.

Those types of tuners also exist, and depending on the tune they can actually in some cases slightly improve fuel economy (depending on driving style). I tuned my Audi A3 to "Stage 1+" and actually have seen slightly better fuel economy doing highway driving to which I attribute the new ECU/TCU tunes allowing me to stay in gear longer during acceleration I guess?

The smoke is a symptom of over-fueling a diesel which does actually make more power, all else being equal.

A little smoke is a symptom of making more power. A lot of smoke just means you failed to add enough air to go with it and are pointlessly polluting and wasting fuel.

(Side note: my diesel VW, which is modified for more power but also is typically fueled with 100% biodiesel, produces less smoke than it did stock.)

To a point. After that you're just making more smoke, and washing out the cylinders, drastically reducing the engine's life. I take some consolation in the fact that most of the bros rolling coal will absolutely not be able to afford a replacement engine once they trash theirs.

1 in 100 are children who do it to "own the libs" the rest do it because it increases fuel efficiency and power.

Power maybe. Fuel efficiency, no.

Fuel efficiency yes. These newer diesel motors go into dpf mode around 300 miles to burn off any diesel soot. Which in turn uses more diesel and tanks the fuel economy. I get why some guys do it especially when the egr system goes up. But rolling coal is fucking stupid. Terrible on the motor too.

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