Lupo 3L for sale in USA (78 mpg)!!! - Page 2 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

BackroadBomber · 08-24-2012, 05:54 PM

In new York state you can register a home-built vehicle as long as you can show ownership for all major parts. Emmisions testing goes by year of the engine. So I could buy this car, cobble in an older tdi, (no emmisions regulations) get it inspected for safety, get issued a vin number for a homemade vehicle, then toss the original engine back in and viola! It's only illegal to replace the cars engine if it changes the registration class in nys. (like, 4cyl to 6 cyl, gas to diesel, etc) So 4cyl diesel to 4 cyl diesel doesn't warrant re-registration or a another inspection. Now if I only had $7500 lol

rmay635703 · 08-27-2012, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NachtRitter

Keep readin'. See what it says about the Nissan Skyline GTR. Importer put a few million into crash testing and upgrading those so they could be imported but didn't quite do it right. Ended up getting arrested and fined a million. Not very many importers that will touch importing cars that were not certified for the US anymore. And there is nothing sold within the US that is even close to being similar to the Lupo, so all the destructive testing, modification, and safety certification still has to be done.

Hey, go for it... It's only $7500. Let us know how it goes with the registration.

Crash and emissions tests were posted here a while ago for the Lupo, I wonder why they aren't good enough?

niky · 08-27-2012, 10:53 PM

Because they weren't tested in the US to US standards.

While the European, Australian, Chinese (their crash testing speed has now officially been raised to the same level as Euro-NCAP) and now, the ASEAN market all accept the same NCAP standards for crash-testing, the US still has its own specific, bespoke, standards, that are different from everyone else's.

As seen with issues with BMW in the past... building a car to one set of crash standards does not ensure it will meet the same results when tested under another. This could be due to specific reinforcement needed for certain speeds, or airbag activation schemes, or any number of things.

rmay635703 · 08-28-2012, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by niky

Because they weren't tested in the US to US standards.

As seen with issues with BMW in the past... building a car to one set of crash standards does not ensure it will meet the same results when tested under another. This could be due to specific reinforcement needed for certain speeds, or airbag activation schemes, or any number of things.

Yes they were, or so I thought, why would the US government host and post these then?

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...htsa-4765.html

niky · 08-28-2012, 12:13 PM

My bad.

The issue is, if this is specifically a non-US variant, you have to find a way to certify that it is built in the same manner as a US market variant. Makers don't always build cars to the same standards for every market. As an example, the Korean market Spark is not likely to score as high in NHTSA testing as the US market Spark. And sometimes, high mileage variants from outside the US will fail US Emissions... Specifically NOx, which VAG products using direct injection and stratified lean burn fall afoul of, in the US.

While the car should be able to pass US tests, given the regular Lupo does... It's up to you to convince the government it can... usually by providing them several cars for destructive testing.

NachtRitter · 08-28-2012, 01:23 PM

rmay -

The reports you point to are only being hosted on the NHTSA site... if you open the reports, you will see right away that they are not actually reports of NHTSA crash testing the Lupo... instead, they are CMVSS (Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) test results which would not be valid within the US... So no luck there either.

Now why the CMVSS results are on the NHTSA site is a bit of a mystery... unless they are just there for reference?