Sabertec Blade - any good on a Prius?

I had a family matter pop up over the last few days. I am waiting for my adapter to show up currently.

 

Sorry new poster, but the blade thing pisses me off, i'll tell you why.

Certified EPA testing facilities as well as certified tests are fine an dandy but it technically does not mean that the EPA backs your product, same with CARB, just because the facility is qualified to test for CARB standards does not mean CARB approves of it.

From the latest press release they claim hundreds of other products have failed and that they are the first. However the EPA link they give
epa.gov/otaq/consumer/reports.htm
does not have the product on it, and the one product I found that passed with significant results is not the blade and passed in 99 and only reduced emissions without effecting mpg...

I smell a lot of BS with this product, If you google it yourself you can find that their online team has been blog commenting and "claiming" to be customers all over the web. Just shady stuff.

I say FAIL, if anything maybe it cleans up particulate

 

The EPA does not back products. The EPA does testing to determine if a product meets certain criteria. CARB testing is done to see if you need a certification to sell your product. If you fail the CARB test, then you need a certificate with certification to sell your product.

If you product passes the CARB test, you do not need any form of certification to sell your product in the states where CARB is used. Therefore, you cannot have CARB back your product.

The best you can do is say "carb approved" which many products do.

On another note, I do not see their product listed anywhere on the EPA website you listed which does seem kind of shady being they "were the first ever" and what not. I will do some digging and see if I can come up with anything.

Ill keep updating.

 

We are anxiously awaiting an update.

 

Yawn...

 

indeed. Another one bites the dust apparently.

 

I came back to check up on the thread but now I'm a lil sad.

Anyways on a diff note I am currently testing those water to hydrogen injection kits (u know the ones that claim ur car can get a million miles per gallon of gas with an electrolysis system) Once that is done I will try and test out the Blade (even though I don't want to spend money on it). I will be using the same tests that Blade said they did as well as a few others and will keep ya posted... ohh if you didn't figure it out by my earlier comment I'm in the emissions business :-P

Hopefully I'll have an update in a month.

 

Did you see the Mythbusters where they tried the hydrogen thing?

 

To be fair, Mythbusters only tried running the car exclusively on the hydrogen generator. They didn't try adding it to the car while running gasoline.

They successfully got it to start using bottled H2, though the car backfired.

 

Monkeyman, you da man.
Keep us posted please.

 

Ya that show is awesome. Apparently the explanation (or excuse) as to why it didn't work is that they didn't add any baking soda to the water (electrolytes) to help produce the hydrogen. I'm not saying that the car wont run with these systems just that the drain on the alternator will probably cancel out the increase in fuel burning efficiency.
A lot of the time you also get these companies messing with the engine in ways that should not be messed with to give the illusion of increased mileage. Something labeled as a regulator could just be a hidden override to make the car run leaner which you could do without the hydrogen. Or a "Black Box" situation where if you think the device is working you can convince yourself it is, you can even subconsciously drive differently to make it work. Like a placebo in drug trials. Either way i should have the answers in a couple of weeks then I'll try to get the blade in here.

Oh just to specify, i'm not talking about hydrogen cars, just the kits you add to your gas running vehicle.

have a happy new years guys!

 

Agreed. I was amazed that it even started. Love that show!:rockon:

 

Hi all,
So I'm new to the forum and I don't technically own a hybrid, or any car for that matter, but I stumbled across the site because I believe the Sabertec Blade is a complete and total scam. I first started researching it after I saw it listed in a non advertising section of the December issue of Lucky Magazine. Lucky Magazine is a Women's fashion magazine, and while I know fashion magazines shill a lot of crap, their endorsement of the Sabertec Blade really bothered me, because I know that 1. it's garbage, 2. that it's expensive garbage with celebrity endorsements, and 3. the average Lucky Magazine reader is not going to know better. I wrote a letter to the editor urging them to please retract their endorsement of a product that has not been EPA tested, and got a response from one of their interns assuring me they would "look into it". A simple "use at your own risk, this product's claims have not be evaluated by the EPA" would have been sufficient, but the new issue came and there was no mention whatsoever of the Sabertec Blade. I'm peeved, but I am at least glad to see this thread come up fairly prominently in a quick Google search. Hopefully if prospective buyers do their research they'll find this thread before they go to Sabertec's lame@ss website.
Incidentally I started a Sabertec Blade thread on the Mythbuster's forum when I was trying to research the product. There's a very thoughtful and scientific analysis of why this product cannot possibly live up to its claims. Just go to the forum and do a quick search for Sabertec Blade.
Finally, if you're as peeved as I am that a fairly legit women's fashion magazine would run with a worthless automotive product and you want to write to the editor, you can contact them through their website. Maybe if they hear it from enough people, they'll do the right thing.

 

Get a potato and jam in in the exhaust pipe ... zero emissions! ... until the potato starts to rot.

 

Hello and sorry for the absence. Holidays are holidays.

To answer some of the questions that have come up since I have been gone. Here it how it works. If you want your product to be tested by the EPA itself, you must have it tested at an independent laboratory first (from what i understand). Once you have done this, you can chose to have it tested by the EPA as well.

The blade was tested by an EPA certified laboratory, but it seems the makers did not have it tested by the EPA itself. What does this mean? I am not sure. Both the EPA and the EPA independent laboratory use the exact same testing methods.

As far as I can tell, it just comes down to a money thing. If you want to pay to have your product tested again using the same procedures vs having it tested only once by a certified laboratory.

On another note. Installing the blade on my car ended up being more hassle then its worth. I returned the product along with the adapter back to the people at sabertec.

Snorkweezl, I would love to see the thread you are talking about which that shows why the product cannot possible work on the mythbuster forums. This would be insightful information.

edit* Having found the thread and read through it, I am not convinced in any way that the person who gave the response has a real understanding of what happens when the blade works. To rebuttal his final conclusions, i will write in the same format his questions.

1. Absolute fact. No arguing this point. All you have to do is install a blade for a short period of time to figure out there is particulate matter coming out of the exhaust stream.

2. It decreases heat up time because it traps heat in the exhaust system. Heat is not the same as back pressure. You can trap heat without creating back pressure in an exhaust system. As particulate matters come out of the exhaust stream (which it does more so during the engine start up),it carries with it heat. Since you trap the particulate, you are also trapping the heat in the exhaust stream. More heat in the exhaust stream equals faster catalytic converter heat up. I asked the guys this same question when I watched the video for the first time. They said they may add that information in future videos.

3. The same concept behind a performance exhaust stays true with a economy tuned exhaust. Are you trying to say that people who have 3.5" exhaust systems could go down to 1" after that cat since it is all at atmospheric pressure? Of course not. Some cars require the larger exhaust system before and AFTER the cat to remove the exhaust gases without creating back pressure. The same effect also occurs when you cut your exhaust pipe off after the mufflers. Guess what happens? You lose back pressure and your exhaust profile changes. Sometimes, having that extra back pressure on the back end helps since the exhaust system works in pulses. To prove this point, you only have to look at test data for any number of extremely small engines that have had their exhaust systems expanded (upgraded). Check out any current japanese tuner magazine and you will find that in some installs of exhaust systems, they have lost horsepower. These exhaust systems were "Cat back" designs which means the catalytic converter was not removed. According to the gentleman's response, this is not possible. Of course its possible. All parts of the exhaust system have an effect on the volumetric efficiency of the engine. If you can install larger pipe BEHIND the cat and lose/gain HP, you are tuning the exhaust profile AFTER the cat.

Knowing that the latter half of the exhaust system has an effect on volumetric efficiency also proves that something you stick on the end of the tailpipe could also effect volumetric efficiency. If you cut the exhaust pipe off after your muffler, you have changed the exhaust profile and changed the volumetric efficiency of the engine. You can prove this in any number of ways. Measure CO2 output before and after. Put a flow tester on the end of the pipe before and after. My point is that changing something on the backside of your exhaust system DOES have an effect on the volumetric efficiency of the engine. I dare anyone to try to prove otherwise.

You see how his response is not based on any science at all, but only on speculation? The scientific tests have been done. They are certified tests and prove the claims that are being made by sabertec. I just wish I had a vehicle to test it on now.

Here is a link to the discussion. http://community.discovery.com/eve/...01967776&m=8691980599&r=8881944999#8881944999

P.S. I apologize for the redundancy in my response. It just pisses me off that one person who has a basic understand of exhaust flows posts something and then suddenly everyone is like "ZOMG HES RIGHT". Whereas, someone with more of a scientific understanding of what is occurring gets blown off because it "Seems chessy". I can't take back 20+ years of BS stuff coming on the market. But, to be completely bull headed and assume an ignorant stand point based off of previous beliefs is just upseting to me.

Believe whatever you want about the blade and what it does. All I am defending is the science that makes it works. Prove me wrong via scientific explanation and I will back off. The best attempt thus far has fallen on its face because the poster has only a basic understanding of exhaust flow or is choosing to only notice the parts of the argument that makes his points valid.

 

Innocent until proven guilty is a very good starting point for trials of people.

"Snake Oil" until proven "Valid" is a very good starting point for devices of any sort of significant mpg jump....especially those that seem to only inhabit the back pages of magazines.

Unfortunately, what looked like to be a honest effort to get one data point has passed by, leaving the situation as it was to start with.

 

Fail!!!

 

Yeah, I can't disagree with you there. I mean, all my inhibitions told me at the start that this was another snake oil. The only reason I believe at all without my own personal testing is based of the EPA certified testing and my understanding of exhaust streams and how they function.

Trust me, I was more skeptical then ANY of you guys. Once I figured out that I need to be unbiased in my analysis, I couldn't find anything wrong with the "THEORY" behind the product. Nothing at all. It all makes perfect sense according to both logic and scientific standards. Maybe we will all get lucky and mythbusters will have a go at it.

Then, I saw the EPA certified testing of multiple cars and the passing of the carb emissions test as damn good evidence. That's when I was able to procure my blade at a reasonable show price.

But, from what I have seen in this thread, no one seems to believe the EPA certified testing at an EPA certified laboratory as evidence or in any way valid (blows my mind).

It ended up not fitting my car due to my enlarged exhaust system so they sent me an adapter. I was then told I would need another blade installed on the same vehicle. I found this out when I got the adapter. Once this information passed my way, I realized that there was no way I could even fit 2 blades with my fitted bumper (slot in bumper of tailpipe).

So, I had given up just before the holidays and was afk until tonight. I hope someone is able to do some real testing at some point. I still believe 100% in the science and theory behind the product and I will be happy to discuss any part of the details.

Other then that, there is not much else I can do. I could probably get one of my friends to buy it, but then it would only be their word as I don't believe they would garner any emprical evidence during their trials of the product.

On another note. To respond to your comment about occupying the back pages of magazines (ie "tornado"). It has a very distinct purpose that can be looked at from many different angles. I could bet you I know what angle the sabertec people are going for.

If celebrities are using the product and they advertise in womens magazines, they will have more success then advertising in car and driver. Why? Its a simple explanation. People like you and me have our brains tuned to look for these types of products when we are reading a car magazine and point it out as BS, crap, utter horse shit, etc. Whereas, if you advertise in a non traditional magazine to a non traditional audience, you should have a greater impact.

Women are likely to be more environmental conscious and less skeptical about a product that attests to helping the environment. Also, if you were pulling a scam, they would also be the easiest audience to target as the car buff crowd would run circles around it. Notice I posted both view points here.

If I was sabertec and I was creating a scam, I would post it in the back of womens magazines.
If I was sabertec and I was trying to promote a revolutionary product, I would post it in the back of womens magazines.

There is a saying in many industries that goes "Don't worry about the low hanging fruit" In other words, don't spend your time trying to convert the die hard fanantics. Why not go after the audience who has no predispositions about your product. If your product will help that person just the same as the fanatic, why not? The marketing dollars are better spent and you will most likely get a better infiltration of the market.

I hope you can see what I am getting at here. Sit in sabertec's shoes knowing that everyone who is a car fanatic is going to call BS on you whether your product works or not. I am sure they get massive amounts of emails/calls/letters all claiming they are full of shit. Their ONLY way to go to market is with the audience who doesn't already hate them because they are a similar product to other products which have been proven to be scams. And since a unknowing woman's dollar is worth just as much as the all knowing car fanatic, guess which one sabertec will pick in either circumstance (scam or real). If they have even the slightest bit of common sense, it is a no brainer.

Convincing the car fanatics = losing game. Low profits. Not all that many of them.
Convincing the unknowing environemntal friendly person = much easier. higher profits. Lots of them.

p.s. I am not targetting women here as unknowning or as not being car fanatics or in any way being less intelligent then men. I am merely using a stereotype which real marketing firms base strategies off of. In the real world, these marketing strategies exist so I am using them here.

 

There are points (some previously mentioned) that a worth reviewing:
1) A lab is payed to perform a test and report results. This is quite different than proving that a product works as claimed. "Gaming" of labs is actually rather common. Assume for this case, a car that is specifically tuned to run better with the device attached is supplied to the lab along with the device. This is what the lab is then paid to test. The lab then runs the EPA testing to the letter and reports the results. The independent testing shows what happened with the Sabertec Vehicle, not what happens on our vehicles. How do I know this did not happen in this case? How do you know it did not happen? I'm not claiming that this occured, but it is why "guilty" until proven "innocent" is the right approach.
2) If the device works as advertized, then it means every car manufacturer is losing mpg by not taking advantage of the same physics. Why would they ignore this? There are two basic answers -They are dumb or They are smart.
3) The proof of the physics does not require a car and a EPA lab. It just requires a controlled static instrumented engine setup. This missing "proof of concept" is just one of many things missing from a real advance.

 

1. I agree. I really can't rebuttal here. The only thing I see is the labs response in writing about the product. I highly doubt they would write that kind of letter unless they truly believed the product worked.

2. I already explained the car manufacturer dilemma. Production cycles. Between testing, insurance and claims, you are looking at 3 years until it could come off the product line.

The second thing is probably the more important of the two. The blade is a liability because of the filter element. There is no saying when the filter will get clogged up on any specific car. This is because of the drving conditions that exist. The blade DOES create back pressure with a clogged up filter. That is bad for the operation of a vehicle and I am pretty sure the manufacturers don't want another liability sitting on their shoulders. Especially for 6% gains (average) in fuel mileage.

The final note with manufacturers would be the cost. They spend so much time trying to cut costs out of the vehicle that adding another 100 dollars is a TON of money in manufacturing terms. Also, the cost behind testing the technology could cost them millions of dollars. Again, all for relatively low average returns on fuel economy.

3. I am not sure where you are coming from with number three. If you could reiterate the question for me, I will try to form a response.