Pep Boys and Baja imports

[MJH]

The Pep Boys -- Manny, Moe & Jack -- aren't smiling. Last week, the Philadelphia-based national automotive aftermarket and service chain agreed to pay $5 million in civil penalties for importing and selling Chinese motorcycles, recreational vehicles and engines that did not comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements.
Baja Inc., the Phoenix-based supplier of the ATVs and other vehicles, is also settling with the federal government. It has agreed to pay $25,000.
"Equipment imported into the United States that does not meet our pollution control rules is bad for human health and the environment, and unfair to those companies that play by the rules," the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said in a statement released May 10.
The vehicle- and engine-importation case is the largest ever brought by the government under the Clean Air Act. The complaint alleged that Pep Boys and Baja imported and sold at least 241,000 illegal vehicles and engines between 2004 and 2009 -- sales that resulted in 620 tons of excess hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions and more than 6,520 tons of carbon monoxide emissions, the EPA said.
Under the settlement the EPA reached with Pep Boys and Baja, the two firms are required to offset the excess emissions from the vehicles and engines sold, and Pep Boys will need to export or destroy more than 1,300 noncompliant vehicles and engines. The firms will also need to reimburse consumers for emissions-related repair expenses and offer free extended emissions warranties on certain vehicles and engines.
At least 45 models imported and sold by Pep Boys and Baja failed to meet federal emission standards; the vehicles and engines were built by more than 35 manufacturers in China.
-- LA TIMES
May 17, 2010 | 11:04 am

[ChinaV]

About time federal agencies starting doing their jobs and checking imports from China. The sad part of this is that it's the greedy American companies that have to pay the bill instead of greedy Chinese companies that created the problem.

There's a reason the Chinese are winning the global trade war and both sides are to be blamed the problem.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[MJH]

The liability begins at the port, vehicles have to meet specification and sidestepping that is the liability of those that do it, Baja did it and then handed it to PEP Boys.
They did not fine Baja in force because it would have shut them down and then all that bought Baja products would then be what higher and drier, higher and drier then they are already are with those products and with Baja “supporting” them?
I will go out on a limb here and say that none of the products they sell have any sort of servicing documentation, some do not even have owners manuals or parts books.
I would say that documentation as well as it not spitting out excessive hydrocarbons is important…before its sold to consumers.
So once it enters the port its the liability of who imported it, its totally and wholly their responsibility and linked legally through agency. The hammer fell were it should under the law.
Baja should not have got off lite, they should have gotten the full penalty. The virtual model they are offering is not something that should be favored by anyone. They are avoiding accountability and responsibility.
The “coming soon” is BS they should all be required to have documentation! Not just EPA conformity but all that is needed to support the products. There are all kinds of people searching for information on the products.
The whole industry is like an episode of Jerry Springer.

[jape]

Meanwhile fat westerners (I won't just single out the USA) all over the world produce billions of tons of emission gasses in keeping themselves in relative luxury with air-conditioning, heating and surrounded by throw away consumer goods. They rape and destroy the earth and its peoples to ensure they can 'cruise ' in comfort a few more miles, a few more years. And on the other hand a few billion Chinese and Indians race to catch up, doing just the same things and self-indulgent self- satisfied intelligentsia talk about it on the Internet using high-tech, high emission devices and methods and congratulate themselves on a very minor victory that is meaningless compared to what they themselves produce in their own complacent lives.

Total hypocrisy, nonsense, a farce. Get real. The world is destroyed by evil and greed and stupidity and that is led by the western world at this phase of history. Nothing changes, just the faces of the fools as they clap and the innocent as they suffer and die.

[ChinaV]

The world is destroyed by evil and greed and stupidity and that is led by the western world at this phase of history. Nothing changes, just the faces of the fools as they clap and the innocent as they suffer and die.

I'm afraid the Chinese have caught up Jape. The progress of China is far beyond what the average Westerner can imagine. They have more air conditioners, more cars, bigger cities, and far less accountability and awareness when it comes to environmental matters.

So the EPA did their job and checked emissions, I think that's a small victory. Now the DOT should do their job and get the rest of the junk off the road. I'm sure the world would be "shocked" to find out how much of the safety approvals on these machines are bogus. I'm not trying to advocate for big brother, but we do have agencies in the western world for a reason. Imagine what the greedy corporations would push on us ignorant consumption pigs if these agencies didn't exist.

We could go on and on for hours citing examples of why the west sucks and why so many Chinese companies make poor products. I just find it a little disappointing that as the west has become more enlightened about sustainable development, countries like India and China have chosen to take the same path that screwed things up for everyone so badly.

Think I'll go burn some petrol...

Cheers!
ChinaV

[jape]

G'day ChinaV, I don't exempt myself from consideration, just that I know what I do, I choose to do it and find my own balances where possible.

I believe the emissions and gas laws mentioned are a smoke-screen (;-0), not that in an equal and positive world they wouldn't have value but that they hide the root causes which are simple human nature. And they tend to hide the facts of the initial part of these equations, the raw materials - where they come from, by whom and how they are sourced/mined, who is suffering in the processing and manufacturing, the slavery and powerlessness that is the part of life for so may on this planet. The source of most of this is the wants and the simple greed of the plain ordinary self-satisfied citizen too complacent to think and to ready to punish any that are caught out supplying their greed (the greed is NOT that of the Chinese or the USA companies, it is OURS, the consumers), and then to crow about it. These laws started in part in California, one of the richest and most self absorbed societies of anywhere in the world, from an outside viewpoint anyway. They can afford the lies they delude themselves with, they live on the fat of others. Few hunger there, none are murdered in their beds alongside their children, by 'smart' missiles. It is a cruel delusion to think they are helping to save the world from the evils they themselves deal in.

I resent no-one who wants what I have.

The world is still and always was and will be one complex organism, not easy to redress the wrongs or balance the diverse wishes of the populations, but certainly not dealt with by fining a paltry few companies a paltry few million while the 'powers' and 'leaders' are so obviously corrupt and evil over generations.

I do like a rant on a grey saturday morning. As you say, lets go for a ride and forget about it all, cruise along while Rome burns!