CRC Guaranteed To Pass: 2 Good 2 B True?

For years now, CRC has advertised their product Guaranteed To Pass.(G2P) as a method of passing 'pesky' (vehicular) emissions tests.  They also go so as to say that G2P doesn't "cheat or fool" emissions tests.  Well, if it isn't cheating or fooling the emissions test, what does it do?

Their words are that G2P will "superclean the entire fuel system."  I'm not 100% certain, but I suspect that a better description would be that it coats and conditions your fuel system.  By either description, it temporarily reduces your vehicle's emissions and they are confident enough to guarantee that this boost in performance will be enough to pass the test.

In the event that it doesn't work, and any Internet search will reveal enough anecdotes and self-reports to show that this happens, there are conditions to the guarantee.  You need your G2P receipt.  That's completely standard, so no problem here. You need documentation of "before and after" emissions tests.  In other words, you can't use G2P in a preventive fashion and have any hope of receiving your money back.  You must document that your vehicle failed the test and then failed the test again after using their product.  Finally, you need to produce either a Provincial Waiver or a bill for repairs that did allow the vehicle to pass the emissions test.  Whoops!  That's a third emissions test required to get your money back.  I'm not sure if this is just typical legal rigmarole or if this is the sign of a company that isn't all that confident in its product.

But that's not really the point.

So, back to the whole 'what does it do?' issue.  I think the scenario is very much like the following example:

A teacher takes pity on one of his/her students and lets them retake a failed test, this time with complete access to their textbook and notes.  The test wasn't designed for students to have access to these materials.  And the student passes, but is that really a surprise?  A short time after writing the test the student could be tested again, without aids, and is more likely to fail than pass.  The test, which is supposed to measure what they have learned ended up testing something else, something less rigorous.  When we look at the piece of paper that says the student passed the course, what does it really mean?  Is it any indicator of future success?

How is this any different than G2P being used for emissions tests?  Annual emissions tests are supposed to measure the likely amount of pollution your car will produce for the year (or more) until your next test.  It is administered in order to assure that the vehicles on the road meet a minimum emission standard.  Use of G2P makes the test become an estimate for the pollution emissions expected for the first 3,000 miles driven after the product is applied.  If you use an additive that has a temporary effect, like G2P, what is it really testing?  The G2P label and literature state that you should "use every 3,000 miles to improve fuel economy, acceleration and reduce emissions."  This amounts to a legal disclaimer limiting the company's legal responsibility for people 'misuse' of their product.  What kind of misuse?  The kind that almost assuredly occurs in 95% (or more) of all usage -- using the product to pass the mandatory test and forgetting all about it until the next emissions test.  So, in effect, the product as it is being used is cheating and fooling the test.  What about the remaining 7,000, 22,000, or 72,000 miles that the vehicle travels before the next emissions test?  The test has no idea what will happen then, but, if the vehicle failed the test before applying G2P it is almost certainly going to be falling short of these standards after it wears off.

So, people use G2P to cheat the testing/monitoring system put in place by the government, whether or not it was designed for this purpose. Who cares?  I do, and you should, too.  Looking at things from one perspective, if you allow people to blatantly cheat the system and their sponsor to flaunt their cheating product by advertising on your open airwaves, why bother testing at all?  Let's keep every junk-bucket on the road until it won't move anymore.  Air quality is overrated and has very little to do with automobile emissions anyway, and automobile emissions have little if anything to do with respiratory health.  Right?

If you believe this, then you are almost assuredly one of the following (pick one): idiot, jerk.  Actually, describing what I think of you requires stronger language than I want to use in this blog.  Suffice it to say that I think you place the value of your self, life, needs and convenience above those of the other 7 billion people on Earth combined.  If God made the decision of whether a soul went to Heaven or Hell on the fly instead of at the natural end of life your fate would already be decided and you'd be taking an elevator ride down.  There's a reason that the term 'shortcut' is often used with implicit negativity, i.e. there is cost built into shortcuts that makes us think twice before using them.  I guess in your mind if the cost is paid by someone else then that makes it okay.  I call that "the right to make it someone else's responsibility."  That's a rough definition of (lesser) evil, hence the 'going down' prediction above.

If it is not okay for people to cheat the system by taking shortcuts at the expense of others then why don't governments take action?  Shouldn't this product be outlawed?  Why hasn't it been?  I've felt this way for years and naïvely thought that the government would eventually get around to it.  That clearly isn't happening. I guess the only answers come come from this list: too expensive, impractical and apathy.  To these I reply:

1. How can it be too expensive to outlaw/enforce and yet not too expensive to maintain a now flawed testing system?  (I guess they need the sales tax dollars?)
   
2. If it is impractical to outlaw/enforce against the use of this product then why are coloured license plate covers illegal?  You know, the ones that make it harder to impossible for cameras to read the license plates of red-light-runners and toll-road-abusers, not to mention difficult for citizens to be able to identify license plates of vehicles being used in the commission of a crime.  They're against the law, though I see so many of them I wonder how much, or even if, the law is being enforced.  Still, the law discourages at least some people from using them.  The same should be true for G2P, banning it should make it hard enough for people to get it (because retailers are generally law abiding people, or at the very least, afraid of prosecution) that enforcement should be relatively trivial.
   
3. If the government is apathetic toward situations like these, why did they run for office in the first place, and more importantly, why did we vote for them?

So there seems to be three reasons for the government not to act, and I believe I've reduced them all to excuses.  Get off your asses, governments, and do something to protect the air that you breathe.  That's right, it's your lungs that are suffering, too.  If you won't act on the public's behalf, the act in your own self-interest -- politicians are good at that, aren't they?

And to the people at CRC, if you want to continue selling and marketing G2P and do so ethically and morally, either improve the product to last at least a full year or stop pretending you don't know how nearly all your customers use your product.  You obviously know or you would have called the product something less leading like "CRC Emission Reducer", or "CRC Air B Clean", which implies a generic year-round usage as opposed to "G2P" which basically tells the customers to cheat, and how to cheat.  A legal disclaimer is just that, it absolves the issuing entity of legal responsibility but does nothing about waiving moral or ethical responsibility.  I like to call this "Avoid jail, enjoy Hell."

Enjoy Hell, cheaters.  Hope the bucks were worth it.