Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Stellantis To Pay $300 Million Fine Over Diesel Emissions
With civil penalties out of the way for Stellantis, it’s time for the Department of Justice to bring the criminal penalty hammer down over FCA US allegedly cheating diesel emissions standards on certain Ecodiesel-equipped Ram 1500s and Jeep Grand Cherokees. Reuters reported that criminal sentencing for the company happened on Monday, although three FCA employees still need to be tried for conspiracy. Honestly, I’m not sure what this criminal penalty for diesel emissions will do. While an extra $300 million is a lot to you and I, it’s a slap on the wrist for such a large corporation like Stellantis. Then there’s the question of where the money goes. It would be nice if the entire penalty went towards righting environmental wrongs through processes like reforestation; according to the EPA, criminal penalties may be paid to the U.S. Treasury and/or used for restitution, though the EPA media release on this judgment doesn’t specify which the $300 million will go towards. Still, some form of justice is warranted. The government noted FCA US had previously paid a $311 million civil penalty and more $183 million in compensation to over 63,000 people as part of a class-action diesel lawsuit.
Chevrolet Threatens To Void Flippers’ Warranties
When the mid-engined C8 Corvette first launched, GM found itself experiencing a bit of a problem. While MSRP was entirely reasonable, early-delivery models were being flipped for tens of thousands of dollars over MSRP. Looking to keep profits in-house and ensure that early units go to first owners who’ll cherish them, GM has put in place an agreement that would blacklist and void the warranties of Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Cadillac Escalade-V, and GMC Hummer EV flippers. Here are the clauses in GM’s customer acknowledgement form for Corvette Z06 buyers, verified to be real by The Autopian. While there are ways that really clever flippers might be able to get around this, like registering the car to an LLC and selling the LLC including all assets, GM’s new rules should make it a lot more difficult to casually flip high-demand models. Honestly, it’s about damn time some controls came down as flipping is bad for almost everyone. A void warranty is a fairly severe turn-off for would-be second-hand buyers, plus blackballing flippers just seems like a solid practice. If anything, the $5,000 back to spend on servicing, accessories, or car payments is just icing on the cake for buyers intent on actually enjoying their Z06s.
Hyundai’s On A Five Month Sales Slide
Hey, now that July’s over, let’s check on the new car market. According to Automotive News, Hyundai and Kia sales are down for the fifth month in a row Much to the annoyance of everyone, it seems like the car market is still indeed fucked. A 68-percent year-over-year inventory drop is bad news, especially considering that catching up to market demand gets tougher with each month this inventory shortage rages on. Mind you, there is a tiny tidbit of good news here: Veloster sales are up and the only Veloster sold in America is the N. Are people just revenge-buying hot hatchbacks? If so, kudos, that rules pretty hard. In one bright spot, combined sales of electric vehicles, hybrids and plug-in hybrids rose 12 percent at Hyundai and 86 percent at Kia, the companies reported Tuesday, though volumes remain low. Hyundai said it ended July with 14,784 light vehicles in U.S. inventory, down slighty [sic] from 17,922 at the close of June but off sharply from 46,113 at the end of July 2021.
Texas Temporarily Suspends Commercial Vehicle Weight Limits For Disaster Relief
Overloading can be a funny thing. While it’s really easy to max out the GVWR of a subcompact car one one good hardware store run, overloading is generally regarded as dangerous and illegal, especially in the commercial vehicle world. Rarely is it ever government-sanctioned, but it’s 2022 and here we are. Commercial vehicle size and weight limits have been temporarily suspended in Texas, so long as disaster relief is the purpose for overloading. Texas Farm Bureau reports that these limits were initially lifted in March due to a drought, then amended in July. While hauling 20,000 pounds of hay on two 7,000 pound axles behind a half-ton pickup truck probably isn’t advisable, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a picture like that coming out of the Lone Star State. Still, weight and size restrictions are largely a cost-benefit balance from a legislative perspective, and the benefits of drought relief and possible fuel savings make potential for road and property damage seem possibly worth it. The oversize and overweight permitting requirements under Transportation Code Chapters 621 through 623, as well as Title 43, Chapter 219 of the Texas Administrative Code, are for all divisible and non-divisible vehicles and loads. Examples of disaster assistance include, but are not limited to, vehicles engaged in the transportation of relief workers, food, hay, water, clothing, equipment, medical supplies, materials, fuel, shelter and other supplies to the disaster areas, as well as vehicles used to restore utilities and to remove debris from the disaster areas listed in the disaster declaration.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. It’s officially Tuesday, aren’t we just rolling through the week? Speaking of rolling, I have a question for you: what’s a set of wheels you’ve been lusting after lately? Maybe you want soft 8s to finish off your ratty Nova, maybe you want to be a hotboy and run gold BBS RS wheels on your ‘80s ride, maybe you’re looking into shaving unsprung weight by picking up some SSR Type Cs. Whatever the case, I’d love to know what wheels you just need to have.
Lead photo credit: Stellantis
I know Jason has had a similar conversation about his love of ‘strong’ language, but it’s basically impossible to write about his fleet without using the word shitbox, so there are some extenuating circumstances.
Relax, friend. It’s not that serious. Sheesh.
– Tom Morello (a black dude)
also the thing about Cain is in the bible
There are some South American markets we design vehicles to handle twice the rated GVWR. If it’s flat(ish), it’s a seat. If a person can grab it and have a 1″ toehold nearby, someone will hang-on.
To be honest, the weight is less of a concern for me than our general commercial licensing weight restrictions or our lack of inspections. Mind boggling that I can go from a 2400lb hatchback to a rotted out dually with 25,999 on the tongue with no training.
If we want to run heavier axle weights, that’s fine but then we need our engineers to design stronger pavements (and bridges), and those stronger pavements and bridges will cost more.
In good news, I talked with my partner, and since we were planning on getting a vehicle next year anyways to replace her ancient (yet lovable) ’06 Kia, we’re gonna become a one car household and order a Maverick this September. Never thought I’d buy a truck, but…it’s cheap, it’s a hybrid, it’s small enough my partner is willing to drive it, and lord knows I could use a truck.
Anyone wanna guess how many trees you can fit in a 2012 Hyundai Accent? It’s 74 (and 5 of them were over 6ft!). Also, it’s still driveable even with over 1000 liters of water/sports drinks and a passenger, albeit a little hard on the clutch. I’ll miss the damn thing, but man I would love to have a bed for all the tools and other shit I’ve forced into that poor car.
As for wheels…I wish I had a set of black Saab 900 tri-spokes. My favorite wheel of all time, and they look good on anything (probably). Over/under on whether they’ll look good on a Maverick?
Function over form all day e’ry day!
Ultimately, I would really like a set of gunmetal C7 Z06 wheels, but the offset on those is significantly different and requires stupidly large spacers – so I’ll need to figure out a better way to push the actual hub surface of the wheels out that far instead.
Criminal penalties for the manufacturers who allegedly cheated on diesel emissions strike me as just being a quicker and easier way to tax the companies, while at the same time putting them in a bad light. It’s our version of “mordida,” and doesn’t do the average citizen any good, at least in my view.
As for GM wanting to put the squeeze in “flippers:” I’m all for it. However: to be really fair, they’d have to lay in some fine print on this policy exempting the buyers who got charged those “demand pricing” markups by greedhead dealers. It’ll hurt BaT, though…..
Knowing that – they did not really pollute any more than they would have if they did it “the right way”. In an effort to speed things up, in all likelihood, it made it illegal, though nothing is different in how the vehicle operates.
I’m trying to get better about noticing wheels. They’re always the last part of a car that I pay attention to. Whenever I check out the comments of a car blog that say “Ew, I love everything but those garish wheels!” or “I love the rims on that one!” I always have to scroll back up to take a second look at the pictures to see what all the fuss is about. I pay attention to swoopy bodywork, headlights, taillights, fenders, spoilers, even side mirrors and door handles; I just don’t notice the wheels for whatever reason. On the one hand, it’s one less thing for me to be tempted by when I’m buying a new car; on the other hand, I’d like to be part of the conversation.
93-95 Ranger Doe Track wheels: https://www.wheelcollision.com/store/H3074-03074AXXX-RANGER.htm
I’d love that style of wheel in larger sizes and different finishes for anything truck-ish. When I had a Bronco on order, I was looking at a way to get them in a compatible size. Similar aesthetic to slotted wheels, but just a little different. I don’t really have a target vehicle to put them on anymore, but I’ve always liked how they look. I’m probably the only one though.
Wheels, it kind of bothers me that my black steelies don’t always match, but not enough to spend money on fixing. It’s more important to me that I have a full size spare and five matching tires to rotate properly.
Worse than the warranty thing (which doesn’t affect the flipper once the car is sold), getting blacklisted is probably more detrimental.
I (and a lot of people I know) have been doing it my whole life, and every time I get into a GM rental I’m reminded how lucky I am.
You can’t threaten me with a good time 🙂
I want some Citroen BX alloy rims for the electric Triumph GT6. The ones with the smooth covers. Another possibility is some alloy rims from Jigsaw Racing IF I can find them, but I don’t think that company is around anymore. I’m going to go full-retard on the aero with this car with the goal of getting energy consumption down to around 120 Wh/mile at 70 mph.
For the custom electric microcar/tricycle/velomobile thing, I’m in the process of building up some 16×1.4″ DOT spoked rims with 12ga spokes. The spokes are getting custom wheel-disc covers to reduce drag, and I’ve got some Mitas MC2 low rolling resistance tires to fit on them when I’m done assembling the wheels.
I want to see manufacturers adopt delivery date pricing. High MSRP early, perhaps even extremely high, then falling over time.
Or early production auctions, auctioning them to dealers, with the dealers often acting as commissioned agents for early buyers.
Those who make the cars should be able to claim additional profits when they do especially good work.
Voiding warranties is not a good way to address this. It interferes with the free market, and doesn’t reward the automaker for building something especially desirable.
Flippers are taking a calculated risk in a free market, and should still get some reward when it goes well.
How is it that such big businesses in the most capitalist of countries are leaving money on the table??
The whole way this has been handled has just left a bad taste in my mouth. A dealer near me will order me a CT5 Blackwing at sticker with no waiting list and I think I’m going to go that direction instead.
