Opinion: The Mockery That is Smog Certification...

As I understand it, Smog certification seeks to reduce pollution resulting from motor vehicles by enforcing the following:
1) Catch the worst offenders and force vehicle modification to maintain minimal acceptable emissions standards.
2) To enact manufacturing requirements to meet increasingly tight emissions standards.

What has happened instead is an all-out war against consumers by every level of commercialization and government. Frequently, the worst offenders have an exemption status either because of the vehicle type or the vehicle's age. Moreover, manufactures absolve themselves of responsibility for higher mileage cars and capitalize off of the unecessary repair or replacement of expensive emmissions parts that are in otherwise acceptable working order but cause the test to fail as a result of visual inspection of the engine service light. Cities profit off of the rash of fixit tickets doled out to consumers unable to register their vehicle until unecessary expensive repairs are put in to place, and an entire industry has emerged helping offenders "beat the system". All of this has made a mockery of the Smog certification process itself.

Consider my most recent entry in to this foray. My California registration of my high mileage Infiniti QX4 is late now because dealer diagnostics had determined that my check engine light being illuminated was the result of either a bad sensor or a charcoal canister that needed to be replaced. To insure that the problem is alleviated, all of the sensors and the canister are replaced simultaneously to the tune of $1200.00 including labor. This value alone represents 1/6th the Kelly Blue Book value of the vehicle itself. With the end of the year nearing and the risk of an expired registration ticket looming, I had the work completed.

I then made an appointment at a AAA Car Care Plus Center since I would be able to take care of the registration immediately after. Much to my surprise, the smog check failed. All of the emissions were flawless and well with in the maximum allowable values for CO2, O2, HC, and CO. However, the Ignition timing was off and the engine check light had illuminated in the middle of the test. So, back to the dealer again to have the ignition timing adjusted and root cause analysis for the CEL. It turns out that a chunk of charcoal was stuck in the line, and resulted in an error. Why this only happened during the test and not under the days of normal driving condition prior could not be explained.

Between the time that I had the additional work done and was able to schedule a free retest with AAA, I got a citation from an unmarked police officer. I would now no longer be able to register my car at AAA, and would have to fo to the DMV instead. Not being a moving violation fortunately, the ticket carries no points penalties, but does cost a $10 processing fee and sign-off by either an officer, or a DMV representative.

When I returned to AAA, again having to take time off of work, I was even more surprised when the test failed a second time--this time with the NO2 emissions output under load at 15MPH. Knowing full well that all of the emissions had passed during the initial test, I returned to the dealer to have a look at the original test results. To my amazement, they were two entirely different tests! The first test was an Idle Emission Test, and the second was an ASM Emission test. AAA was unable to explain the discrepancy. Here are the two test results:

Idle Emission Test Results

		%CO2	%O2	HC (PPM)			CO%
Test	RPM	MEAS	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	Results
Idle	775	14.70	0.4	100	17	10	1.00	0.00	0.00	PASS
2500 RPM	2387	14.70	0.2	170	13	11	1.00	0.10	0.07	PASS

ASM Emission Test Results

		%CO2	%O2	HC (PPM)			CO%			NO (PPM)
Test	RPM	MEAS	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	Results
15 MPH	1837	14.90	0.05	47	8	12	0.60	0.02	0.07	494	88	0635	FAIL
25 MPH	1900	14.90	0.04	31	6	12	0.73	0.02	0.08	747	82	0580	PASS

I came to find out later that the first test, which does not include NO emissions results, was actually only supposed to be used for cars initially registered in rural areas or for all-wheel drive vehicles that cannot disengage the awd to run on the dyno machine. Not a single person at AAA was able to tell me why the first test would have been run for my 4x4. But, I was now faced with the fact that my car still did not pass the smog test. I was offered up three reasons for this failure. The first was that the catalytic converter was bad, Second that the catalytic converter was not hot enough, and third that the O2 sensor was misbehaving.

So, I asked around about what could possibly be done to rectify the situation. My service advisor whispered that I should dump techron in to the trank and drive it "like hell", then take it in for testing while hot. The AAA office seemed to think that a new catalytic converter was in order. A third helpful person indicated there were "places to go" to get the car to pass smog, but that they were "expensive". I found it hard to believe that a 1997 high end luxury car should require any of these temporary work arounds, or that the certification process was really a dependable means of enforcement. I have heard of plenty of drivers removing the catalytic converter entirely, replacing it with a test pipe, and still somehow passing emissions. Yet, here I was with a completely street legal car, with $1200 in a new emissions part, and I still couldn't get a definite answer why the car failed or how to fix it.

So, I went the techron route, and drove it like hell, hoping that I was not actually doing permanent damage to the engine. Since my reg was expired, I had no time to waste. The techron canister indicated that it should be used on an empty tank, and then filled full and run through a complete tank of gas. I decided instead to use the bottle on half a tank of gas, and smog test the car near my office after driving the freeway with the overdrive turned off. At each stop, I would shift in to neutral and redline the car during the entire duration of the light. Once at the test station, I turned the overdrive off and left the car in autmatic awd in hopes that the NO test would be overlooked alltogether again by avoiding the dyno. With the car still hot, here are how the test results turned out 1 day, 1 bottle of techron, and 30 miles later (with the awd correctly disengaged):

ASM Emission Test Results (part duex)

		%CO2	%O2	HC (PPM)			CO%			NO (PPM)
Test	RPM	MEAS	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	MAX	AVE	MEAS	Results
15 MPH	2432	14.7	0.00	47	8	18	0.60	0.02	0.15	494	88	317	PASS
25 MPH	2335	14.7	0.0	31	6	11	0.73	0.02	0.11	747	82	401	PASS

The significance of this change simply cannot be ignored. When confronted with the vast difference in values, AAA deferred to an O2 sensor that was about to go bad and had not yet thrown an engine code. I'm not so convinced. Techron cleans the injectors and the compustion chamber and NO is directly related to the temperature of compustion. Either way, the entire process is unecessarily complex, unreliable, burdonsome, easy to bypass or abuse, and negatively affects that time and pocketbooks of each and every driver. I believe that more pressure needs to be put on manufactures to stand by their emissions parts for the life of the vehicle, and that tighter restrictions need to made on those vehicles that pollute the most. Smogging in theory is good for the environment, but embarassing in execution, and severely lacking in affectiveness. Ongoing certification has had a questionable affect on overall pollutants, and has fostered an industry that takes advantage of consumers by forcing them to buy expensive, unecessary parts, or to help cheat the system entirely.