emissions test / wife's car

We used to have emission testing.
There were 2 things to do. A large automotive seller sold a bottle of Emission test passer.
The other trick was to run your gas tank almost empty and fill with the highest octane gas and run through that. Then refill the tank with highest octane gas again and then just before the test run the car on the highway so it’s good and hot.

The garage lied to you, that IS the case in PA as well.

This past December I was in the hospital for a week. During that time my Jeep, parked in the emergency room lot, had the battery die because my dashcam was left on. I jumped it with a starter box I carry and went home.

A few days later I took it in for inspection and the emissions failed. Two tests failed, because the dead battery reset my driving history. The quickest and easiest way was to drive at highway speed for a half hour, which I did over the weekend and then passed the emission test on Monday. (I hadn't done any driving other than taking my dogs to the park 5 minutes away when I got out of the hospital)

I passed with one test still not available.

They were nice about it, didn't fail me or anything, just said to come back when it was ready. Consequently, our sticker changed from 9 to 10, so I said that's one benefit.

PA stickers are so hokey. For example, 2 of our cars expire in October. So a legit October 2022 set of stickers can say, 10 22, or 22 10. Two possible color combinations. WTH is wrong with PA? They invented computers in the 1800's, and most DMVs computerized stickers in the 1980s. The garage actually has a set of decals where they put the month onto a sticker.

This reminds me of Sesame Place. You want a worker to remember which color cup means lifetime free refills, and which means 2017, 2018, 2019, kinda dumb. They'll refill any cup for free including expired ones, just like LEO is not gonna always remember 4 different colors that are valid for one year.

Anyhow, seems like everything is a wive's tale. In my post I said 3/4 to 1/4 tank gas, +45F. Now that I look it up, not true.

To see how complicated the GM EVAP drive cycle is, here it is. And as mentioned, my German car has never been reset, so don't know how long it would take to be ready. My two Japanese cars they're ready in < 100 miles.

And the GM, took over 1,300 this last time.

Again, here are all the conditions that must be met for the EVAP to get into a ready state:

Conditions for Meeting a Cold Start
• The ignition voltage between 11-18 volts.
• The barometric pressure (BARO) is more than 75 kPa.
• The start-up engine coolant temperature (ECT) is between 4-30°C (39-86°F).
• The start-up intake air temperature (IAT) is between 4-30°C (39-86°F).
• The difference between the IAT and the ECT is less than or equal to 6°C (10.8°F)
• The ambient air temperature is between 4-30°C (39-86°F).
• Fuel level is between 15-85 percent
• Without RPO LMG--The fuel alcohol content is less than 15 percent.
• With RPO LMG--The fuel alcohol content is less than 87 percent.
1. Ensure that the vehicle meets the conditions for a cold start listed above.
⇒ If the evaporative emission (EVAP) I/M System Status indicator displays NO, perform the EVAP Service bay test if available.
⇒ If the EVAP Service bay test is NOT available, it may take up to 6 drive cycles, with up to 17 hours between drive cycles, for the EVAP I/M System Status indicator to transition to YES.
⇒ If the O2S Heater System Status indicator displays NO, ensure that the ignition has been turned OFF for at least 10 hours.
2. Set the vehicle parking brake and ensure the vehicle is in park for automatic transmission or neutral for manual transmission.
3. Turn OFF all accessories; HVAC system, other electrical loads, including aftermarket/add-on equipment, etc.
4. Start and idle the engine for at least 2 minutes and until 65°C (149°F) is achieved.
5. Run the engine for 6.5 minutes within the following conditions:
• MAF parameter between 4-30 g/s
• Engine speed steady between 1000-3000 RPM
6. Return the engine to idle for 1 minute.
7. Apply and hold brake pedal, and shift to Drive for automatic, or apply clutch pedal for manual and operate the vehicle within the following conditions for 2 minutes:
• Depress the accelerator pedal until TP Sensor angle is more than 2 percent.
• MAF signal between 15-30 g/s
• RPM steady between 1200-2000 RPM

Important: Do NOT touch the accelerator pedal during the idle period. A change in TP Sensor angle or an increase in engine speed may invalidate this portion of the test.

8. Release the accelerator pedal and shift the vehicle to Park for automatic, or Neutral and release clutch pedal for manual, and allow the engine to idle for 2 minutes.
9. Quickly depress the accelerator pedal until TP Sensor Angle is more than 8 percent and return to idle, repeat 3 times.
10. Allow engine to idle for at least 2 minutes.
11. Release the parking brake and drive vehicle at 24 km/h (15 mph) or slower for 2 minutes.
12. Continue to drive the vehicle for at least 5.5 miles between 45-112 km/h (28-70 mph) with the vehicle reaching at least 80 km/h (50 mph).
13. Release the accelerator pedal for at least 2 seconds. This will allow the vehicle to enter decel fuel cut-off.
14. Depress the accelerator pedal until the TP Sensor angle is increased 3-20 percent and maintain a safe speed for 1 minute.
15. Safely stop the vehicle, with the engine in drive for automatic or in neutral with the clutch pedal depressed and parking brake applied for manual, idle for 2 minutes.
16. Shift to Park for automatic and apply the parking brake, or neutral and release clutch pedal for manual.

Important: Do NOT disturb the vehicle or turn ON the ignition until told to do so. Disturbing the vehicle may invalidate this portion of the test.

17. Turn OFF the ignition and exit the vehicle. Do NOT disturb the vehicle for 45 minutes.
18. Observe the Inspection/Maintenance (I/M) System Status with a scan tool. All of the I/M System Status indicators should display YES.
⇒ If the EVAP I/M System Status indicator displays NO turn OFF the ignition for 17 hours, ensure that the vehicle meets the conditions for a cold start, and repeat steps 12-18 six more times, or until the EVAP I/M System Status indicator transitions to YES.

Again, googling this issue, it's all over the internet with GM vehicles. GA appears to be yet another state that is ok with the EVAP not ready. I don't want to go through it (rather just have I/M = yes and everything in a ready state), but I guess I'll have to insist one category no codes is passable in PA.

Also, another comment by a tech online says since this is so common, their Snap On diagnostic tool can run the EVAP test specifically and the car passes. I don't know if that means the computer goes into a I/M = yes, or that they visually verify no leaks.

Moral of the story is avoid GM lol I mean all that and the < 2014 DRLs burning out since the mid 90s, just too much!

Although the source is Ohio (https://www.ohioecheck.info/media/documents/OBDReadinessDriv...) on page 4 of the document is the GM specific OBD II driving cycle. The text is essentially below:

GM (Chevy, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Pontiac, Oldsmobile): Drive Cycles are not included in the manufacturer’s public web site or owner’s manual. The following drive cycle is from http://www.obdii.com/drivecycle.html:

To perform an OBDII Driving cycle, do the following:

1. Cold Start. In order to be classified as a cold start the engine coolant temperature must be below 122°F and within 11°F of the ambient air temperature at startup. Do not leave the key on prior to the cold start or the heated oxygen sensor diagnostic may not run.

2. Idle. The engine must be run for two and a half minutes with the air conditioner on and rear defroster on. The more electrical load you can apply the better. This will test the O2 heater, passive air, purge "no flow", misfire and if closed loop is achieved, fuel trim.

3. Accelerate. Turn off the air conditioner and all the other loads and apply half throttle until 55mph is reached. During this time the misfire, fuel trim, and purge flow diagnostics will be performed.

4. Hold Steady Speed. Hold a steady speed of 55mph for 3 minutes. During this time the O2 response, air Intrusive, EGR, purge, misfire, and fuel trim diagnostics will be performed.

5. Decelerate. Let off the accelerator pedal. Do not shift, touch the brake or clutch. It is important to let the vehicle coast along gradually slowing down to 20 mph. During this time the EGR, purge and fuel trim diagnostics will be performed.

6. Accelerate. Accelerate at 3/4 throttle until 55-60mph. This will perform the same diagnostics as in step 3.

7. Hold Steady Speed. Hold a steady speed of 55mph for five minutes. During this time, in addition to the diagnostics performed in step 4, the catalyst monitor diagnostics will be performed. If the catalyst is marginal or the battery has been disconnected, it may take 5 complete driving cycles to determine the state of the catalyst.

8. Decelerate. This will perform the same diagnostics as in step 5. Again, don't press the clutch or brakes or shift gears.

Gimmicks like stuff to pour into the gas tank or using gasoline that burns slower ( higher octane rating) are not going to help OP. The issue is the vehicle reporting testing ready through OBD2 to the emissions test computer.
Still, 1000 miles is excessive. Check the model’s factory service manual and service bulletins for the real requirements. Typical ready drive cycles are ~50 miles and maybe 10 starts.

are slim that we'll need a battery replacement before the next inspection, but if that were to happen, I plan to hook up my power supply, loosen the terminals, and somehow insulate the (+), then lift them off. If the (+) were to hit the chassis it wouldn't be good. This would keep the computer powered so it won't reset. Because 2X it took 800+ miles, and this time 1300+, it's reality. And again, it's all over the internet so it isn't just us....

Then again, I've never checked emissions when this happened--a clue that we need a new battery is all the mpg computer settings are gone and reset, but car starts fine. Probably when that happens, the car's computer reset anyway. Planning to go to an inspection in August, as that's the soonest they can put an October sticker on....

by the way, I've been referring specifically to the EVAP category not being ready. All else is in fact ready in a relatively short time. Again, EVAP. So if a shop will allow one category to be not ready, as the law states, then should also be fine.

With Covid, most of my cars are under 5000 miles and havene’t needed the emissions test.

The wording in the PA emissions manual states that a mileage exemption is available for, " Vehicles driven less than 5,000 miles in the previous twelve months, which have been owned by the same person for at least one year."

The BMW I'm able to do the exemption. I should not even be sharing this, but I went < 200 miles in 2021. Remember the expression, morons on the team? That's me insuring and registering a car that only did those miles. I blame work.

BMW charges $38 out the door, which is less than a private garage. For 16 straight years, that included a loaner car. Obviously not profitable for the dealer nor the tech. This past year, no loaner car available (probably sold for profit), and even in the showroom was almost nothing. But they did have a 1988 M5 on display which was cool to look at.

The private garage has a $29.95 coupon, but it's $42 out the door!! And they told me it would cost more for them to exempt the car as the coupon does not apply (exempt is not look the other way, it's still uploaded to DMV and it still requires yet another sticker to be made lol).

What I do like about German car dealers.

You drive in with a 15 year old car, you leave with absolutely nothing recommended as needed nor recommended service.

You do that with a Japanese car, and dealer recommends $6,700 worth of unneeded services where they didn't even look. The German car dealer texts a video walking around and under the vehicle.

I don't know how I'd "make ready" my new Tesla Y, but I doubt most of the material in this thread would apply. (that was supposed to be a joke)

Funny old story. When our 2006 Prius was new, we actually got a document from the county saying it would never, ever need an emissions test. But about a decade later they changed their minds, and I've been paying $25 for someone to plug a cable into the car and give me a certificate once every two years since. No squawks yet. I still have the document--but I guess it is null and void.

The reason for that is easy to understand (for me) but hard to explain.

There are two basic colors for each year, one for emissions sticker, one for the safety sticker that most people will have. The confusion begins with inspections that occur near the end of the year.

The inspection station buys a book of stickers, it's why they add a sticker charge onto your bill. The BASE of the sticker is good for two years, say 21-22, 22-23, 23-24, etc. they put the month number over (on top of) one of those years on the sticker so the valid year and month shows.

Say 2021 (21-22) inspection stickers are green and 2023 (23-24) stickers are blue. PA allows you three months prior to expiration to get your car inspected. A car with an expiration of 1-22 can get a 1-23 sticker as soon as November of 2021. The station is near the end of 2021, but still has a bunch of stickers they bought from Penndot so they want to use them up before opening the new batch, my understanding is they are not refunded for unused stickers. So, the 1-22 car will get a 23-1 sticker, that is blue even though it's still 2022 and green stickers are the norm.

Same can happen for cars at the beginning of a year with the way they print base stickers. Same can happen for whatever colors they have for emissions as well.

Again, not sure I was able to explain why it happens clearly here, But I do understand it in my mind.

Here's a couple examples of a BASE sticker: (this pair is fake but represents what a real stickers looks like)

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1...

https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/wBYAAOSwAVxhgolR/s-l22...

And here are a couple examples of what you wrote about but with the same colors:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSOZOap...

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ5CBqp...

Mine was/is bad but given the car was 18 years old at last inspection I wanted to try a cheaper solution first given the car ran fine with the code. I'm wary of snake oil but used Cataclean and followed directions. It worked and after about 2 days of driving. The trouble light and the code went away. I went that day to get the emissions test and passed. In Washington they phased them out so no longer have to deal with it. The cost to try it was worth it given the then and present cost replace it.

Thanks for providing pics

an excellent point about inspections that expire Jan or Feb--the motorist can get inspected November 2022 for a January 2023 expiration, which upon inspection, expires January 2024. So it would be convenient that when this happens, the shop can use a 23 24 sticker in November, although I suspect they already have 24 25 because usually our cars are such in October. But it's happened before where 2 cars inspected same month have different color stickers, when compared to each other. I still think this makes it unrealistic for a LEO to notice if they're not specifically looking for expired inspections. I ran into a cop last July 4th who said in his township they have a guy who specifically looks for expired inspections.

Personally I think the inspections are way overpriced and are a cash cow for shops. But when cars pass, they're a waste of time. What car under 5 or 6 will fail a safety or emissions inspection, short of tampering? If tampering, what % of cars on the road have that happen?

Anyway according to the internet, my wife and I are in good company of people whose GM cars will not go into a ready state for EVAP easily, so don't reset codes if not needed is the prudent thing to do I guess.

And I was dead serious about a TSB in existence where DRLs burned out from the mid 90s all the way up to 2014, and GM did nothing about it. If you got $10 for every GM car that only had one DRL lit, I think you could quit your day job tomorrow! lol (After replacing bulbs and realizing sockets were also melted [replaced a bulb and later that day not working again, a forum said not bulb check socket likely brown from heat and burned], I went to LEDs @ $20 for 10, cheaper than 3157 incandescents. Also, LEDs draw 3.7 watts instead of 27, cooler and brighter. Main thing is they don't burn the sockets. The hard thing with LEDs is lack of uniform quality so they don't last as long as promised either, but at least it's really the bulb).

only issue is that some emissions problems are real problems (which can harm the vehicle), and others not.

EGR can totally be ignored but it does trigger the check engine light. In the old days where it went by the actual emissions values, check engine light on due to EGR, passed.

for example I always heard CAT (expensive) and 02 sensor are not to be ignored. But I do also wonder about light being triggered, code being cleared, and never comes back. Why did the sampling decide to trigger the light? This also made me question the validity of covid testing and all those kits the govt sent. My sneaking suspicion is that many of us would have tested positive, and not ever had any symptoms at all. Then again, it's hard for any one of us to know what algorithms are being utilized by the car's computer--look at the EVAP drive cycle, it's ridiculous.

I really think at the end of the day, we just want to drive our cars and keep expenses down, and not have to throw the baby out with the bathwater because of an inspection. I basically did that with my 1998 car, not willing to sink another $1500 into it....in FLA it'd still be daily driven.

Yes, we would. But that does not, in the great majority of cases, mean we did not have it, but rather that a considerable fraction of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic. Sadly, many of those asymptomatic cases put people in a state where they generate transmission to the next person, no few of whom die.

The false positive rate from the tests has been carefully checked, and while non-zero, is quite low compared to the asymptomatic case rate.

I'm lucky enough to live in one of the few rural counties in PA that has no emissions testing yet.

I's just a matter of time though.

A bad O2 sensor can cause problems (I've had this problem) and cause the car/vehicle to run rough/misfire but in my case a poor performing CAT does not effect the smooth running at all. It is just a warning/code that the CAT is not removing enough of the pollutants based on what is measured before the CAT and after the CAT. In my case the Cataclean worked well enough to temporarily mask the issue enough for the code to go away and pass emissions. It doesn't fix the issue and it did come back a few days later and is on to this day.

Interesting article on warranty work denied due to lack of maintenance records for a used car purchase.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-man-has-warranty-denied-f...

One key thing about the situation is that the person bought the used vehicle and at the time of purchase it had 48000 km, roughly 30000 miles, and it was for this initial mileage that no records could be produced. IMO, the more important thing was on the shoulders of the buyer who should have discussed any future (if any) warranty at time of purchase.

^^Completely agree. How many buyers think about such thing at the time of purchase. Doing more reading on the topic, it's been mentioned that something should have been included in the sales agreement. Specifically, dealer would pay for repairs denied due to lack of maintenance proof.

I haven't bought a used car in decades so situation never crossed my mind. For folks buying used, especially in today's market it should be something to be aware of.

It's my understanding (and correct me if im wrong), but such proof is not required for vehicles purchased as certified preowned?

Living in flyover country has it's advantages. Most of CO has no emissions tests. (Actually I wish they did to catch the "coal rollers" and other miscellaneous polluters. We have “our share” of pollution.) The six counties that comprise the Denver metro area use drive-by testing. I've only ever seen the measurement trucks on the sides of interstate entrance ramps and I think they were always downhill ramps. I never thought to ask anyone how they like the system.

Know any parts of PA did not have emissions testing.

When I moved here in 1999, even Allentown did not.

Wonder what criteria the Commonwealth uses to say emissions testing is needed?

The thing is, if you buy a new car in PA, it will have Calif. emissions (maybe all cars do today). So whether your vehicle is tested, or it isn't, short of tampering, it would pass anyway. Which is why the testing doesn't make any sense at all.

On my car, a 97 Audi, the readiness codes can be "reset" using an Audi/VW onboard tool such as VAG-COM. You initiate various tests (that would be done automatically over a period time by the car) and the process takes about 20 min, faster if the O2 sensors are already hot.

I am surprised that NA vehicles cannot do this.

One reason for a double post is you hit the “Post comment” button ad then encounter a bit of a delay so you hit it again. A double post is the result.

Unfortunately there isn’t a way to delete a post, something I’ve seen suggested before. The logical place would be to hit “Edit” then present an option for “Delete”.

believe that's what one tech stated from his garage, his Snap On analyzer can specifically do the EVAP test. So probably the PA state inspection is a con job where you come in with a coupon I'm not getting into all of that for $40 is my guess. Not sure what a dealer would do, they have all the diagnostic gear.

Maybe my BMW software does that, but the BMW is the only car which never threw such a code (it's thrown many others--like when I took out the ABS pump and turned on the ignition--the wipers went on full blast and SRS codes piled up). It probably does but it's not user friendly so I don't really investigate much about it. I needed it to perform the ABL bleed on the ABS pump.

In NY State cars manufactured before 2001 are allowed 2 emission sensors to be not ready. 2001 and later are only allowed to have one sensor not ready.
I used to have an old Ford SUV with a parasitic drain. It would completely drain a new battery in two weeks if the car was not driven. Every year I had to drive the car for hundreds of miles for several days before the codes would become ready for inspection.
The computerized cars only make people drive hundreds of extra miles each year, to get codes ready for inspection. How does this protect the environment?

If the problem is a parasitic drain then why don't you chose to solve the problem? Don't you need to solve it even if there was no emission test? Alternately, assuming you just absolutely do not want to solve it, how about just charging it? I know that charging can be difficult in a city and living on the 172nd floor.