It's an offence to drive a vehicle on a public road which has been modified in such a way so that it no longer complies with the emission requirements it was originally designed to meet. This would include removal or modification of the DPF or EGR system.

Specific requirements, like MoT requirements, exist but I disagree that a blanket offence applies in the UK.

The requirement is that thevehicle Type Approval is valid at time of registration - it's already clear that VW owners, in the UK, are not being forced to have modifications carried out to eliminate the dieselgate issue.

Manufacturers often update the engine ECU under warranty - it's not covered by new Type Approval.

Read this then.

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-rules-for-mot-to-te...r

I covered that in the bolded part of my post - the EGR isn't tested during a MoT - the DPF is checked for but not tested - the MoT may be failed but that's not an offence - and no blanket offence exists

Edited by RT on 09/02/2017 at 08:27

I covered that in the bolded part of my post - the EGR isn't tested during a MoT - the DPF is checked for but not tested - the MoT may be failed but that's not an offence - and no blanket offence exists

I think you'll find it does. See the excerpt below taken from the UK.gov website.

Legal requirements and the MoT test

From February 2014 the inspection of the exhaust system carried out during the

MoT test will include a check for the presence of a DPF. A missing DPF, where one

was fitted when the vehicle was built, will result in an MoT failure.

A vehicle might still pass the MoT visible smoke emissions test, which is primarily

intended to identify vehicles that are in a very poor state of repair, whilst emitting

illegal and harmful levels of fine exhaust particulate.

It is an offence under the Road vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations

(Regulation 61a(3))1

to use a vehicle which has been modified in such a way that it

no longer complies with the air pollutant emissions standards it was designed to

meet. Removal of a DPF will almost invariably contravene these requirements,

making the vehicle illegal for road use.

The potential penalties for failing to comply with Regulation 61a are fines of up to £1,000 for a car or £2,500 for a light goods vehicle.

So - what constitutes a modification - all the cars I've had in the last 30 years have had dealer updates to the ECU under warranty to improve "driveability" - since individual cars aren't tested for Type Approval, just a nominated specimen there's no means of testing a car after modification.

Some cars had DPF's fitted before the mandatory date, their removal would still comply with the Euro 4 regulations in place at the time.

As a result of dieselgate, many VWs have non-compliant software yet their owners are not committing an offence by not having updates done.

I don't advocate removal/disabling of EGR, cat, DPF, Adblue or anything like that - but the above regulation is unenforceable OTHER than the specific MoT test for visual component presence, smoke and CO - no other test is available.

Ive had the DPF ripped out my taxis and they pass it's taxi test and MOT'S no problems. As far as I've been told, the MOT testers are not trained mechanics and don't have the mechanical training to actually open up the housing and check if a DPF is present or not

MOT testers are 'Mechanics' IIRC they have to have been a mechanic for something like 4 years to do the MOT training. However, MOT testers are not allowed to disassemble anything to inspect.

They can only look and prod at things. You could take a car for an MOT with just 2 wheelnuts on each wheel with a wheel trim over the top and they can't fail it because they can't see it.

I would add, that some of them are still idiots with very little knowledge like the ones that failed my car on service brake a few months back. They had a complete lack of knowledge and couldn't even work out that 515.6 is more than 50% of 1000. Instead tried to convince me that putting bags of sand in the boot would increase the braking effort of the rear wheels even though the car does not and has never had a load sensing brake proportioning valve. Their loss as I won't use their garage for MOT's again.

If that ever happens, and I accept that it is 'IF', anyone who has modified a vehicle in such a a way so that it no longer meets the emission requirements it was originally designed to meet would be committing an offence and could face prosecution. Examples of this would be the removal or modification of a DPF or EGR system.

Other than that I accept your point that it wouldn't be easy to enforce.

I would think there are alot of drivers/owners out there who don't have a clue that it's been done to their cars if they bought it secondhand and are not at all mechanically minded. It would be unfair to prosecute them.