Back from the emissions station (Oy)

Today is one of those rare days that is short on conference calls and meetings so I took the car (996 C4) to get its' emissions test today. All I can say is wow. There was no wait in line for AWD cars (rare in CO) so I'm thinking this was a great idea. Right? Wrong! It took four technicians and literally two hours for them to test the car. First they pull me out of line because they don't want to run it on the dyno (apparently too risky and they've trashed some air cooled cars in the past). I didn't even try to explain it was water cooled. No big deal I'm thinking, they'll hook it up to the ODB-II port and do an idle test. They did do an idle test but did not hook up to the port. Instead they used a tranducer unit to detect the idle rpm. Turns out they couldn't find a spot inside the car where they'd get a consistent reading. When it did get a reading, it didn't like how low the P-cars idle so the tech had to push the accelerator a little. Then they also had problems with the probes that get stuffed into the exhaust picking up too much ambient air in the samples. So they tried sticking extenders onto the exhaust tips. No joy. Meanwhile I'm waiting in this little glassed in cab watching the whole thing. Other people waiting for their cars are watching too; each with a bemused smirk. One lady actually got pissy that my car was getting so much attention from the testing staff. These theatrics went on for well over an hour before they moved it off the line and into an unused bay. At this point an older fella starts over from scratch. He gets it all working but the test times out on the first run. Second try he gets sample dilution problems. Few tweaks to the probes and then Bingo. He gets a read on the third run. Thank goodness he was there or I don't know how long it would have taken. If anyone goes to the S. Lipan Street test station, look for the guy with the while handlebar mustache. He is the one to get. Watching the first tech pop the trunk looking for the engine and then hunting for the ignition switch was just classic.

Mine wasn't that bad...they just ran the scan tool and cleared me for emissions...but then failed me b/c of my tint! I didn't even know 50% tint wasn't allowed being it's so light and I've been pulled over before without comments.

That sounds like they were just looking to be a pain in the A.

I am so glad I live where I do.

I'm glad we don't have emissons testing in MN anymore. Seems they found that so few cars actually failed that it wasn't worth doing anymore. Lots of taxpayers money spent on facilites and equipment to do these test and they only ran them for a few years. Nice.

It wouldn't have been so surprising if the guy didn't spend 20 minutes talking to me about cars...then goes you passed emissions but "slaps on rejected sticker" you have tint...

Wow, I had the same thing happen to me with my C4 only I waited an hour. They tried with the scan tools but could never get a reading. Finally, on the 4th try, they got some sort of a reading then passed me. Thank god here in Fort Collins the testing ends at the end of the year.

Lucky duck! We've got three more years in Denver provided we stay in compliance. That's doubtful since we're 1-3 PPM under the threshold nearly every day. (Egad- How many times do you think I listened to the stupid video in the cab today if I could remember that?)

Emissions tests...what's that? Never heard of 'em.

That's why I have my emissions/inspection done by Porsche dealer (PA) - same price as indie, but they're (obviously) completely familiar with the car. Last inspection took 30 mins!

I my area they just hook up an OBD2 reader, take my $14, and I'm out the door in about 5 minutes or less.

PA is pretty cool in that regard; in CO it is run by the man.

"Emmissions tests....we don't need no freakin' emissions tests mang!" Seriously though, our inspection goes like this: "license, reg, ins...ok... honk the horn, turn on your lights, left blinker, right blinker, brakes....ok thanks...that'll be $15"

Here in St. Louis it's been a fiasco mostly. Purposely employing people with zero automotive experience. Smart. Screwed up plenty of nice vehicles. It's being nuked for the same reasons you point out. Here's my pet peeve about emissions testing... only passenger vehicles are tested (which by and large run well, are newer, etc.). No testing of commercial trucks, etc. You know, the LARGE displacement, ancient, particulate spewing dump/delivery/etc. trucks whose motors are running at least 40 hours/week. How many hours does the average (and probably clean running) personal vehicle run? Six? Eight? I'd sure like to see some number crunching about the mass of emissions from commercial vehicles vs. passenger, because I think the gov. is missing the boat on this one.

if they really aim to protect the env. a high gas tax willdo the trick, like in euro.

TBH996 - the reason for the quick inspection in Louisiana is that ya'll haven't had gasoline powered engines long enough to realize that they produce emissions.

That's part of it, the other reason is that the "hoopties" in the hood would never pass any sort of inspection thus taking most of the currently operating vehicles off of the road!