Since moving to Norway, I’ve been so pleased with the limited pollution – clean air and water, the nature, etc. The high proportion of electric vehicles in Oslo where I live also helps.

But then, once every couple weeks or so, I am driving and see a vehicle spewing an insane amount of pollution out of its tailpipe. Presumably because something is wrong with it. Maybe the owner is oblivious, or maybe the know (at least it doesn’t look like something they have tried to do, they are not “rolling coal”). It cannot be legal to drive around like that. Is there somewhere to report these vehicles so that they can be required to visit the mechanic and fix whatever is making them spew exhaust?

by bad_Pianist_

11 comments

  2. it’s old oil in the motor most probably, they are killing their engine for being cheap.

  3. I assume this will be picked up on the compulsory check that every car needs to go through every second year.

    Generally, cars pollute more when starting in the cold and you can see a lot of exhaust until the engine warms up properly

  4. You must have way too much free time if you’re trying to make life harder for people who already have it tough enough.

  6. Smoke from the tail pipe is caused by a lot of
    different factors, but some is normal on most cars.

    Black smoke like in the photo means that the car is burning more fuel than needed (rich air fuel ratio), blue smoke is usually burning engine oil and white/grey smoke is water. A lot of thick white smoke is usually coolant, grey-ish thinner smoke is usually condensation. In colder weather condensation is very normal, especially with a cold engine. My car has some condensation after starting, and then it clears out after 15-20 minutes of driving. Totally normal

  7. Emissions is part of the biannual mandatory inspection, so anyone driving around in a car with issues in that regard will be taken off the road if they don’t fix the underlying issue.

  8. Can be normal in some cases. For example pre-EURO5 diesels didn’t have particulate filters. Everything that the engine produces is spewed out. And with wide open throttle (WOT), then the diesel engine goes to rich mixture mode, which injects more fuel than burned. Partially burned diesel fuel turns to soot, particle matter, which looks like black smoke. This is a normal operation of the engine.

  10. Way too rich air fuel mixture in diesel engines causes this.
    There can be simple causes for this, like a turbocharger that’s going bad, or has a stuck VNT mechanism, boost leaks etc.

    It’s literally just soot though, not really a hazardous pollutant at all in small amounts like this.

    It used to be a problem back in the day when most diesel engines were like this at all times when stepping on it.

    But now, even while spewing soot, diesels are generally just as clean if not cleaner than equivalent gasoline engines in terms of greenhouse gas, nOx and hydrocarbon emissions. This is due to catalytic converters, that both diesel and gas engines all have these days, in combination with diesel engines inherently higher efficiency. So for the same amount of fuel consumed, gas engines are cleaner. But for the same amount of power output, diesels are cleaner due to burning less fuel for the same amount of work done.

  11. How about you leave people the fuck alone? What’s next? I saw my neighbors eating red meat twice this month, I’m calling the carbon police to fuck them up?

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