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PZEV (merged thread)

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33K views 30 replies 22 participants last post by  Pearl2010 
#1 ·
I have a 2017 Forester Premium 2.5I. A badge that says PZEV with a leaf is included on the right side of the tailgate right below the Forester badge. Was looking at some 2018 models the other day and noticed that the PZEV badge is not on the 2018's. I know that PZEV stands for Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle, but I'm wondering, was the badge just marketing, or did it actually mean something has changed for the 2018 models?
 
#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
Some marketing guy
I’ve always thought the notion behind these PZEV badges to be fairly riddiculous/nonsensical. If I had to guess, it was probably fabricated by some marketing person in the first place. I mean .... zero is an absolute; it can’t be partially achieved. Apparently it means the vehicle has no “evaporative” emissions ... but I guess ZEEV doesn’t sound as cool as PZEV??

Never made much sense to me. I wonder if they may have removed it because people just see the term as a form of greenwashing. I’ve always seen it as a silly marketing gimmick, mostly because the concept of “partially-zero” just seems like such a desperate overreach.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for posting the 2018 specs Menel. Looks like PZEV is still the standard for the 2018's. You're probably right: Some marketing guy decided that folks don't care about it. Not sure that's so. Maybe they felt that they had to do something so you could differentiate the 2018 from the 2017 models visually. LOL
 
#8 ·
It's possible that the Forester no longer meets Californni's PZEV standards. Here's California's definition:

"PZEV – Partial Zero Emission Vehicle is a vehicle emissions rating within California’s exhaust emission standards. Cars that are certified as PZEVs meets the Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle exhaust emission stardard, has zero evaporative emissions from its fuel system and includes a 15 year / 150,000 mile warranty on the emissions system. PZEVs run on gasoline, yet offer extrememly clean emissions and an extended warranty and zero evaporative emissions. PZEVs have a Smog Rating of 9."

Here's The Forester's ratings; Smog=7.

https://www.driveclean.ca.gov/searchresults.php?year=2018&make=Subaru&model=Forester+AWD&x=42&y=10

Also, does the Forester have a 15 year/150,000 emissions warranty in California?
 
#10 ·
Tinman, I agree that partial zero is ridiculous. It's either zero or it's not. Maybe it was zero in one part of the testing and not in another, hence partial zero? Rd Clark, thanks for posting the California numbers. If you look at the chart and go back to 2016, then look at 2017, and again at 2018, you'll see a decline in the greenhouse gas rating, and/or the smog rating. Especially for the XT. And the 2.5I, dropped from a 9 to a 7 in 2018. Same drive train. Different test conditions? Different mapping? Maybe the 2018 doesn't meet the California standards and that's why they dropped the badge.
 
#12 ·
My 15 XTP did not come with the badge but the NA Forester did. But a lot of cars do not have the badge. The brochure says 2.5 Level 3/ SULev 30 2.0 Level 2

https://www.subaru.com/guides/forester/my18/Specifications


California adopted their LEV III light-duty vehicle emission standards in 2012. LEV III will further reduce vehicle emission limits to a fleet average level consistent with California’s current LEV II SULEV exhaust emission limit (and EPA’s Tier 2, Bin 2 exhaust emission limit) by 2025. LEV III implementation will begin with the 2015 model year. The LEV III criteria pollutant regulation was rolled out as part of the state’s Advanced Clean Cars Program that also includes greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for the 2017-2025 model years, as well as revised zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) requirements.
U.S. EPA Tier 3 and California LEV III Rulemakings | MECA
 
#15 ·
I just wanted to add that the PZEV badge has been applied selectively mostly for marketing purposes for quite some time now. Some states got the badge (like California for instance), others did not, even though PZEV technology has been applied to all N/A Foresters - even those with federal emissions specs - since at least 2010.
 
#16 ·
Why do some Foresters have Pzev and awd decals and some don't have 'awd'

How come some Foresters come with BOTH the PZEV decal and the 'AWD' under Subaru on the back and others like my 09 I just bought only have PZEV? Not a big deal, but just wondering. It may be silly, but I ordered a new PZEV decal because mine has the chrome all worn off and stuff.

Then today I noticed a similar body style Forester to my 09, but it had black handles. Mine has chrome handles. They make a lot of options I guess!
 
#17 ·
PZEV - Merged threads

Significance of 2018 Subaru's losing PZEV badge

Executive Summary

It isn't just about a marketing badge. Those 4 letters gave Subaru's registered in CA and Section 177 states 15yr/150,000 emissions warranties.

These are the list of CA and Section 177 states
CA, CT, DE, ME, MA, MD, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, and WA.

2017 Model Year Subaru's sold/registered in CA (and Section 177 states)
  • 15yr/150,000 CA PZEV emissions warranty
  • Other states have 8yr/80,000 Federal emissions warranty

2018 Model Year Subaru's sold/registered in CA (and Section 177 states)
  • 7yr/70,000 CA emissions warranty
  • Other states have 8yr/80,000 Federal emissions warranty

In 2017, CA (and section 177 states) had better emissions warranty than Federal. In 2018, CA (and section 177 states) have worse.

---- Previous Post ----

I looked very hard to get some written confirmation that the 2018 Forester is still PZEV certified.

I couldn't find anything.

I looked in the 2018 Forester Brochure here:
https://www.subaru.com/content/dam/...chures/2018/Forester/2018_Subaru_Forester.pdf

Under CA emissions it says for the 2.5i

LEV III/SULEV 30

PZEV vehicles need to meet SULEV standards, plus have zero evaporative emissions, plus have 15-year/150,000 mile warranty on emission control components (ECU, catalytic, etc.)

Reference to 15-year/150,000 mile emissions component warranty:
IMO the engine and design of the Forester is basically the same between 2017 and 2018, so from physical emissions standpoint they are likely the same. However they seem to have dropped PZEV certification, which means from a practical standpoint, folks lose the 15-year/150,000 mile warranty on the emissions systems. It kind of sucks that the loss of a "badge" (the only thing the consumer sees) means the loss of 7-year/70,000 miles on the emissions warranty (falling back to 8-year/80,000 miles).

If you happen to have confirmation that the 2018 Forester is PZEV-certified I would appreciate a pointer.

Update #1:

This database of which standards cars have met is further confirmation that the 2018 Forester (and other 2018 Subaru models) lost their PZEV certification:

For 2017 models, you see PZEV listed. For 2018 models, the emissions standards are mostly the same, just the PZEV certification was dropped. Since for the Forester, this isn't a redesign year, my interpretation is Subaru basically reduced our emission warranty (in CA and some other states) from 15-year/150,000 miles to 8-year/80,000 miles.

The states that adopted CA PZEV (including 15-year/150,000 miles emissions warranty) are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Reference:

2017 - Subaru Emissions Certifications
https://greenercars.org/greenercars...=2454&field_class_tid=All&field_year_tid=4826

2018 - Subaru Emissions Certifications
https://greenercars.org/greenercars...=2454&field_class_tid=All&field_year_tid=4827

Update #2:

This document definitively says that 2018MY Subaru's have lost their 15yr/150,000mi PZEV emissions warranty.
Subaru Vehicle Coverage Quick Reference Card


NOTE: Starting with the 2018MY and forward, Subaru vehicles will no longer have the PZEV 15 years 150,000-mile Performance
Defect Warranty
or the California Emissions Extended Defect Warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles.Coverage is 7 yrs or 70,000 miles whichever occurs first.
Ironically CA PZEV (and the Section 177 states that adopted CA rules instead of Federal rules) used to provide more stringent standards and longer warranties. It seems now there is some transition away from PZEV and 2018 is the year where CA (and the Section 177 states) will get WORSE warranty than Federal. CA/Sect177 will get 7yr/70,000 emissions defect warranty instead of Federal 8yr/80,000 warranty.

This all started as a simple question of whether the Forester was still PZEV, but it led down a rabbit hole of emissions standards before I could figure out what was really going on.

It may not be a huge deal if one doesn't have an emissions issue (these are usually expensive to fix but rare), but I didn't see this warranty change mentioned anywhere in my searches for differences between 2018 and 2017 model years (except for the document referenced above). If would have been nice if someone mentioned the ramifications of losing the PZEV badge. Something along the lines of 2018 is $X more than 2017 and you lose 8yr/80,000mi of emissions warranty, and you get updated XYZ.

Hope this helps somebody else understand the warranty situation.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Actually I believe all FB25B engines are PZEV compliant, but I'm admittedly not certain about this. Some Foresters don't have the PZEV badge, such as my 2018, but I suspect that may be due to cost-cutting or some other unexplained reason, and not a modification to the engine. I did find this info on the Subaru website: "The differences between non-PZEV and PZEV certified Subaru vehicles can be found in two areas: the catalytic converter, (and) the Engine Control Module (ECM) programming".
 
#25 ·
No PZEV badge on my 2018 Forester

On your Forester, on the right side of the rear hatchback door, below the badge "Forester" will most likely be another badge "PZEV".

I have a new 2018 Forester, Touring, with the 2.5 non-turbo engine. I noticed it doesn't have that "PZEV" badge, unlike many of the other Foresters on the road that I have seen.

Curious why it was removed? Just curious. There's no missing marks or anything, so the badge couldn't have fallen off, it simply was never there.

I'm in California, and that badge means the car is low-polluting.

Josh
 
#28 · (Edited)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a22263/what-is-pzev/

Laughing at Oneself and with Others is Good for the Soul [emoji847]



The Green Cars You Never Hear About

What are Partial Zero-Emissions vehicles, anyway?

By*Matthew Jancer


CAR AND DRIVER

You'd hardly know it as little as automakers talk about it, but you don't need to buy a car with an electrical plug or one that runs on home-brewed bio-diesel to drastically cut emissions. You can buy a normal car with a normal internal-combustion engine that still generates less pollution than mowing your lawn.


It's a Partial Zero-Emissions Vehicle (PZEV), and dealerships near you are selling them right now, quietly. The qualifier "partial" means the vehicle meets the emissions limits for a Zero-Emissions Vehicle (ZEV), such as an all-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell car, but it doesn't "force technology" forward by commercializing a more radically different technology like pure electric propulsion.

Walk around certain neighborhoods in America and you'll see lots of Subarus with a PZEV badge on the back. Every 2016 Honda Civic is a PZEV. So is every Mazda6. So what is this classification of cars, and if it's so good, why aren't we talking about it?

How They're Made

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) created the PZEV category in 1998 as part of the state's vehicle emissions laws, which at the time were stricter than the rules at the federal level. In 1998, electric cars and battery tech weren't what they are now. But, a Honda spokesperson tells PM, "we could meet the same emissions with an internal combustion engine as a battery-electric when taking into account the upstream power plant emissions." As Dave Barker, Subaru's energy and environmental activities manager, tells us, "tailpipe emission standards for our PZEV vehicles are approximately 80 percent lower than the standard for our counterpart vehicles."

They're also easier to make. Creating a hybrid or pure EV version of a car requries significant changes to the design, such as carving out room for battery clusters and redoing suspensions to fit wheel-hub electric motors. Creating a non-hybrid PZEV is less disruptive. These cars have the same engines and transmissions and are built on the same platforms.

There are three unique components in the fuel systems, and one in their exhaust, that makes a PZEV:



Anti-Permeation Fuel System Liners.*When fuel system components get saturated with gasoline, they leak gas vapor through the outer surfaces, letting it evaporate into the air. So, engineers building PZEVs line the insides of fuel caps, fuel hoses, seals, gaskets, and plastic fuel tanks with layers of low-permeability polymers such as ethylene vinyl alcohol to keep fuel from soaking through. This stops off-gassing as the vehicle sits unused. "If you'd have walked around a parking lot in California ten years ago you could smell gasoline," Honda says. "Today, not so much."

Carbon Canister Scrubbers.*Temperature swings from day to night can cause gasoline to evaporate past the fuel cap and into the atmosphere. Refueling also forces gasoline vapor out the system and past the gas pump nozzle. To capture gas before it reaches the air, a car fixes a canister of activated carbon (carbon that's processed to be more porous) in the fuel-filling line from cap to gas tank. The canister traps most of these hydrocarbons, which the engine destroys by pulling them into the combustion chamber. Even so, the canisters still leak small amounts of vapor. PZEVs add an auxiliary scrubber canister of honeycomb-shaped carbon that captures 95 percent or more of the vapor leaking out the primary canister.

Carbon Air Intake Trap.*After you shut off an engine, fuel vapor remains in the combustion chamber and intake manifold. That vapor evaporates, and like with the carbon canister, a filter of activated carbon grabs outgoing hydrocarbons before they can make it into the surrounding air. Newer designs are using a metal honeycomb filter spread with zeolite, another porous filter mineral.

Close-Coupled Catalytic Converters.*Catalytic converters are part of any fuel-powered passenger vehicle sold today. Exhaust gases pass from the engine through the converter, which is lined with precious metals such as platinum, palladium, and rhodium. These convert much of the pollution gases into less harmful gases.



PZEVs mount two catalytic converters closer to the engine than a conventional design does. Emissions are dirtier when a car first starts up and the converters are cold; the engine's radiating heat brings close-coupled converters up to operating temperature more quickly. After the converters the two pipes converge into one, and exhaust passes into a third catalytic converter under the passenger cabin. This third converter cleans up nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, two building blocks of smog and acid rain.

Where Are They?

To be clear, PZEVs reduce emissions that lead to problems like smog. You're still burning gasoline that contributes to woes like the greenhouse effect. Honda puts it this way: "PZEVs are valuable for reducing pre-cursors to smog-forming emissions (such as carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide [both NOx], and nonmethane organic gases[NMOG]), which is a local phenomenon … They do not reduce greenhouse gases, which are not local but rather global. … A typical EV generates 258 milligrams of NOx and NMOG per mile on the U.S. electrical grid or 120 milligrams per mile on the California electrical grid, roughly nine times and four times the PZEV level. Of course, as the grid gets cleaner, so too will (EV) emissions."

So why haven't automakers made every fuel-powered car a PZEV? Money, for one thing. "It often requires very expensive hardware," Subaru's Parker says. (Subaru charges customers an extra $300, though the automakers tend to be evasive about exactly how much it adds to the cost of a car.) For a long time PZEVs were sold only in a few California and CARB-compliant states. But since more states have adopted CARB standards (the current count is 17), it's gotten easier to buy PZEVs in non-CARB states too.



In a way, it's going to get even easier. The PZEV classification ends after the 2017 model year when the industry will begin working PZEV technology into all cars sold nationally to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's phase-in of the*Tier 3 Vehicle Emissions and Fuel Standards Program. Already it's becoming typical to make PZEV a car's standard configuration rather than a CARB-specific option.

"Last year more than 70 percent of our sales were PZEV vehicles," says Subaru, which sells them in every state. There are 25 non-hybrid PZEV car models on sale right now and another 14 hybrid PZEVs. Take a look at the EPA's*chart. The category goes away, but by 2025 all cars sold in America will be PZEVs.


*Tier 3 Vehicle Emissions and Fuel Standard Protection

https://www.epa.gov/vehicles-and-engines
 
#30 ·
PZEV = SULEV + zero evaporative emissions from fuel system + 15yr/150k emissions warranty

PZEV expired in 2017

2018 Forester is SULEV 30

It is unclear whether they still have zero evaporative emissions, but the 15yr/150k emissions warranty has been reduced to 7yr/70k for CA and Section 177 states. For other states emissions warranty is 8yr/80k.
 
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