My son's car went in for inspection today. I called at 11 to see if it would be ready by 1 because I am working B-shift. The guy said no because of a stored fault in the computer that wold require time he didn't have. I said I'd be right down. The codes were not from any Check Engine light that ever came on when he owned the car. He knew that and cleared them. Unfortunately, when you clear the codes, the computer has to be reinitialized to accept data again and he didn't have the time to do it. He gave me a sheet of instructions on how the car had to be driven to get things going again. All in all, I had to drive it about 15 miles per the instructions. It didn't work. I tried it once again: You idle in Drive for 2 1/2 minutes with the rear defroster on and air conditioning running. Next you accelerate to 55 at 1/2 throttle and maintain 55 for 3 minutes. Then, you slow to 20, without braking and accelerate again to 55 at 3/4 throttle and stay there for 5 minutes. Again you slow without braking to Zero. I did this twice on the last try and it set everything up. Then, he added this little ditty:

When he inspects a car for codes, he has to plug into the New York State DMV computer to register whether there are codes in memory or not. The third time he did this, at the begijning of the year, out of the clear blue two State Police cars pulled in and wanted to know where the owner of the car being inspected was!!!!!!! He was wanted for child support and they promptly arrested him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He also added that at no time is he instructed to stick a probe up the tailpipe and do an actual emissions test. I guess the State only wants to know who you are and whether you're wanted for something - all for the increased $21 inspection fee. Eventually, maybe they'll start inspecting for emissions as they said they were going to.

 

"You idle in Drive for 2 1/2 minutes with the rear defroster on and air conditioning running. Next you accelerate to 55 at 1/2 throttle and maintain 55 for 3 minutes. Then, you slow to 20, without braking and accelerate again to 55 at 3/4 throttle and stay there for 5 minutes. Again you slow without braking to Zero."

Sounds like time for the:

 

Oh My God. That's just wrong.

 

:redXdance

 

I'm happy to be living in a state with NO state inspection!!

CBL

 

Sounds fishy to me... however, in Oregon we have inspections as well. If your car is three years old or newer, all they have to do is plug it in. The cars computer "talks" to the emmissions computer and presto! Pass or fail. All that other stuff about codes... gobbleygook if you ask me. A tech weilding a computer of some sort would reset any codes as neccassary. I wonder if the car had OnStar. Now, there have been cases where cops have used the GPS enabled OnStar to follow, and catch criminals... like I said, sounds fishy.

 

NY has plenty of dead beat dad's. I never understand when I did HR why these guys put themselves in this position. If you had a kid, take care of it one way or another.

 

as i've said before,the pcm in your cars are storing more info than you think!

 

As an engine controlls engineer at GM Powertrain, I have to laugh when I see threads like this.

You guys need a life...

PS: Oops, you forgot to add that it also needs to be snowing on a July day while driving 55.

 

The codes in teh computer were erased, but then it has to be re-initialized to pick up new codes again.
If they scan a VIN, the computer will kick out anything about the car or owner that's not up to snuff.