In a May consent order, the EPA says Green Diesel Engineering marketed, sold or installed more than 6,450 such software devices for Dodge, Jeep, Mercedes, General Motors, Volkswagen and Audi models under the names “Hot Tune,” “Eco Tune,” “Tune Update,” and “Custom Tune.”
According to the EPA, the company tuned some 2014-2016 Dodge Ram and Jeep Grand Cherokee models that were part of a Fiat Chrysler recall and repair program that installed emissions control software after the automaker was
found in 2019 to have built them with cheat software designed to make them emit less pollutants during testing.
Green Disesel Engineering was previously
fined $50,000 by the state of California in 2018 for selling aftermarket emissions bypass products.
The EPA violations followed a 2019 Green Diesel Engineering inspection and test on a 2014 Black Ram 1500.
The EPA’s crackdown on diesel emissions cheating began with onset of the Volkswagen scandal in 2015. The agency began
focusing more on aftermarket devices in recent years.
Last year, two Oakland County companies, Diesel Ops LLC and Orion Diesel LLC, were
fined $10 million for selling defeat devices.
In April, federal prosecutors announced charges against
11 Michigan men and three companies, including Griffin Transportation of Grand Rapids, whom investigators say were involved in a complex aftermarket scheme to evade emission controls on semitrucks.
