Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Quote:
The idiotic thing is, ZDDP has been killed for the express purpose increasing the life of the catalytic converter from typically 100K to 150K miles..... but, that part only costs about $300 so I consider that incredibly stupid strategy when the side effect is to significantly reduce the operating life of the engine which costs about 30X as much as a catalytic converter.
Cats are made from a finite precious metal. Their efficiency decreases over their life span. We're probably seeing reductions for "future potential" life spans they may need to operate over and at increased levels of efficiency before being rendered inert under future standards.
That really isn't it at all. The EPA just thinks they can reduce emissions by making the cats live longer, reasoning they will spend more miles in their "working great" region as opposed to their "just about to fail emissions test" region if the cats life span exceeds the car's.
I have no idea why you would think platinum is going to 12X cost, unless you mean the dollar may devalue drastically in the near future due to massive deficit spending of the government...... that may be true, but it will make everything get more expensive as well.