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Comment by CodeWriter23 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how California detected this. The one time I had to take my 2010 Jetta turbo diesel for a smog check, the inspection was ENTIRELY visual. The inspector did not insert a probe into the tailpipe. He did plug the test rig into the OBD-II port under the steering column and turn the key to the accessory position (presumably to electronically capture the VIN), but that's it. I even asked him at the end if it was an entirely visual inspection and he said, puzzled, yes but that's what the computer told him to do.

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California didn't originally detect this. According to the letter from the EPA [1], it was a team at West Virginia University doing a study that discovered that TDI's in normal usage were found to have significantly higher emissions. California's CARB then dug into it to confirm their results and work with the EPA to figure out what was happening.

[1] http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15....

California has a new emissions check system for vehicles 2000 and newer. No tail pipe probe or dyno regardless of the vehicle. Just visual inspection and plug in the OBDII reader. The OBDII reader checks the sensors for proper functioning and checks the ECU to make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Smog tech only really has to do the visual chek. Diesel trucks also get a snap test (step on the accelerator quickly and diesel smoke must dissipate within several seconds).

Vehicles 1999 and older still get the tail pipe probe and dyno portion as well as the OBDII (if they have OBDII).

[0] http://www.bar.ca.gov/Consumer/New_Smog_Check_Test.html

[1] http://www.smogtips.com/new-smog-law-ab-2289.cfm

Yea, they do get the tailpipe emmissions test. Most shops use just one reference book for the visual inspections.

The shop owner usually, almost always, buys the $100.00 Motor Emissions manual.

The cheap shop owner should buy OnDemand5(Mitchell Manual Smog Emission) subscription/publication. They don't because they are cheap, and CARB only requires one reference manual for customers, and technicians.

The problem is Motor Publications is filled with errors that send thousands of customers home with failed Smog Checks.

I have found so many errors in Motor publications, it's comical. I have numerous emails, where I am literally arguing with, I believe, a secretary, over errors in their manuals. I have one email when the person I'm communicating with doesn't know the difference between Naturally Aspirated(Carburated) v.s. Fuel Injection. It's beyond frustrating, and I hope they get sued!

If you live in California, and your car doesn't pass the visual smog check, it's probally not you--it's errors in Motor Publications?

I have found errors on older Toyotas, and Volvos. Just the two autos I happen to own? What are the odds of that? They failed my vechicles, until I went to a shop that had Mitchell manuals, and I presented the Techs with a Printout of the Correct Emmission information.

(Motor Emission manuals--If you are listening; please clean up your books? It's beyond frustrating to fail a smog test because of your sloppy research! I will show the world my frustrating emails--if necessary?)

(CARB--if you are listening, require every shop to have access to two (2) separate Emmission manuals from different entities?)

And no--1988 Toyota trucks, 2wd, naturally aspirated(Carburator) do Not require a MIL light.

I literally tore apart the dash looking for the missing light. There was no light. There was no plug for a light. I literally thought I was going crazy. I was so frustrated, I forget to set the emergency brake and the truck rolled out of the garage. I'm lucky I wasen't on a hill and no one got hurt. I did need to buy a $200 bumper though. I'm still thinking about taking the shop to small claims court, but don't think it's worth the effort?

So, if you live in California, and fail Smog--ask questions. Don't just bring it to another Smog testing station praying it will magically Pass.

Naturally aspirated means the engine breathes air at regular atmospheric pressure - ie is not turbo or supercharged.

The type of fuel delivery has nothing to do with whether it is naturally aspirated or not. A NA engine can have fuel injection and a supercharged engine can have a carburettor.

California's CARB is the gestapo of car emissions. If anyone has the motivation, expertise, and evil disposition to detect this, it's the state of California. I've never lived in a state like this. Bi-yearly tailpipe sniffs and visual inspections. Even if your car's emissions are cleaner than their ridiculous requirements, they'll still fail your car if it has parts on it that are not stock. I ended up having to sell my car to someone out of state because I'm not going to swap in and out my carefully customized (and clean) intake and exhaust system every two years just so they can shine a flashlight in and see stock parts.

I'm not shocked that California is a part of this.

More interestingly: Did the German TÜV not detect this? They have even stricter rules.

And completely different emission and OBD requirements. I don't know how much hardware they share, but they definitely use different software.

Yes, but the TÜV should have noticed such faking, too.

Europe doesn't have stupid emissions rules biased against diesels.

On the contrary, California emission standards held diesel passenger vehicles to the same standards as gasoline/petrol passenger vehicles. Whereas in Europe, diesel emission standards were much more lax compared to their petrol counterparts.

I suppose one could say that being more concerned with the more directly harmful and smog forming emissions(NOx and PM) over CO2 would constitute 'bias' against diesels. But, conversely, there's a rather compelling argument that the more lax European diesel regulations spurred diesel adoption and protect their domestic manufacturers.

https://www3.nd.edu/~jthurk/Papers/MMT.pdf

A lot of jurisdictions in Europe are rethinking their diesel prioritisation a precisely because of particulate and Nox emissions.

In the case of Volkswagen, the TSi engines are a much better buy than the TDi engines. Better power delivery, clean running and nearly as good fuel economy.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/diesel-dominance-... http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/14/nine-out-... http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34257424 http://www.hybridcars.com/will-america-avoid-europes-clean-d...

The reason California is so strict is because LA used to be synonymous with lethal levels of smog.

Used to be.

I find it difficult to understand how failing a car with clean emissions levels, thereby forcing it out of the state, contributes to cleaning up smog.

The point is that California had an exceptionally bad problem, which is why the response was so stringent.

If it's forced out of the state the smog isn't California's problem. California's emission regulations aren't meant to clean up other states.

In this case they do end up helping the other states...

You are willfully ignoring the vastly more significant average/mode case to focus on the effect of edge cases.

Very happy to hear CARB is working!

ryandrake's point was probably that his car is cleaner than necessary, but failing because of stupid, arbitrary rules imposed by CARB for no reason other than bureaucratic intransigence.

It's similar to the feeling I got when I waited in line for an hour to have my Miata smog-checked at a busy urban test station, and then choked on diesel exhaust from a dump truck when I made the mistake of driving away with the top down. CARB is the poster child for "Doing something just to say we're doing something."

Should we fault CARB though? They require more stringent emissions regulations due to California's geography, and both the federal government and automakers are rarely amiable to their needs.

With cars going electric, its a bit of a moot point, except for the part where pressure needs to be applied on heavy trucks now (hopefully pushing them to natural gas from diesel until energy storage catches up).

I'm all for keeping the air clean, but that's obviously not the motivation behind CARB's policy of failing cars with clean-blowing after-market parts.

I'm still not being clear, I'm afraid. It's not a question of how stringent the emissions specifications are. The problem is CARB's reliance on equipment checks rather than tailpipe emissions checks. ryandrake's car might well be cleaner than a perfectly-stock vehicle, but if each and every component doesn't have a CARB certification number stamped on it, it's illegal.

You could argue that equipment checks are in place to prevent the very situation described in this article, where people might install shady aftermarket hardware to game emissions tests, but as we've seen, the aftermarket is not where the problem actually lies.

Bureaucratic intransigence is a really upbeat way of putting it. How about corruption through regulatory capture? Big auto needs to sell their over-priced parts. Why let people buy a $150 after-market part, when you can just call up CARB and have them make people buy equivalent $1,100 factory or OEM parts?

Wow, judging by the down-votes, people don't seem to realize how expensive CARB deliberately makes it to own an older car, regardless of how clean its emissions are.

EDIT: To further demonstrate that it's all about money and not about smog, you can get a "Repair Cost Waiver"[1] if you've spent at least $650 (on CA-approved parts, of course), and they'll approve your polluting car, no problem. All they really want is that $650 in the pockets of their car industry buddies and $XYZ worth of repeated tests in the pockets of the test stations.

1: http://www.bar.ca.gov/Consumer/Referee/Referee_Centers.html

> Wow, judging by the down-votes, people don't seem to realize how expensive CARB deliberately makes it to own an older car, regardless of how clean its emissions are.

I upvoted you even though I disagree with you for what its worth.

You're an edge case. Most people with older cars no longer maintain their emissions controls. The older the car, the more likely it is that its polluting. Is it fair? Not at all. You're just swept up in the process.

Cars built since MY 1996 are self-diagnosing for most emissions problems. Mandating factory-original parts simply means the auto manufacturers won a major political battle, not that anything effective is being done.

Many of those self-diagnosing features can be defeated by trivial circuits. A 555 timer for a downstream O2 sensor, a 4N4001 diode and a couple resistors for an EGR vacuum sensor hack, and several others.

I have had cars in the past that OBD2 reported as operating correctly, that easily passed smog/inspections, that probably weren't operating as the EPA intended.

But how many people with older cars have the initiative and the the capability to do that. It's a small fraction of a small fraction of a small fraction of vehicle owners.

Chasing a problem like that around is a waste of everyon'e time and money. Environmental regulatory agencies really need to do a better job considering the 90/10 or 80/20 rule (the last 20% of whatever you're optimizing will consume 80% of the resource).

They should still allow people to request testing of actual emissions, upon request.

At what expense/frequency, though? If it's just to cover the ocassional (unmodified) car that can't be made to report as "Ready and OK" per OBD2, it's just easier to use the existing repair exemptions process. (Spend a certain amount on repairs and get another cycle of inspection passage.)

If it's to cover modified cars, those are a trickier situation. It's easy for some to game the system so that it "passes" on the magic day and then fails the other 364 or 729 days in the cycle when it's actually being driven.

In either case, it seems like the expense of operating and staffing gas sensing stations, rolling road dynos, etc. Probably better to just turn a blind eye to that case as well.

You're not wrong, but tailpipe tests were quite common in many states. In CA, like other states, they're being phased out.

Nevermind the fact that California has no safety inspection, unlike many Eastern states in particular. It's fairly silly to call CA the "gestapo" although they are more aggressive about emissions than anyone else, as you mentioned.

I am a driving and motorcyclist enthusiast, and have modified cars and regularly participate in track days. Somehow I've never had a problem with CA emissions, nor have most of my like-minded friends. It's just not that bad, and it does a lot of good.

As I understand it you don't get the full tailpipe test unless your vehicle is too old to support the ODBII parameters they look for.

Colorado does drive-by testing, on freeway on ramps, and other locations with high traffic. If your car fails, or hasn't been monitored by that system recently, you get a notice for the more complete inspection.

The drive-by inspection doesn't require the co-operation of the driver or car, so is harder to game by detecting you are being tested.

As a TDI owner and Colorado resident, I can tell you that the drive-by testing does not apply to diesel vehicles, nor do you take diesels to the emissions testing centers. You have to take your diesel to a state-licensed diesel mechanic for testing.

I'm not sure about CA specifically, but some states only do full inspections on newer vehicles every other year. e.g. In a particular year the odd year models get the full inspection and the even year models just get a quick inspection and then vice versa in the next year.

ca doesn't even do smog checks on newer vehicles (i believe 5 years, not sure though).

i haven't done one in over a decade because i lease my cars as a business expense.

also, ca has 'test-only' smog centers which do not perform repairs - if you fail there, you have to get your car tested and repaired somewhere else.

needless to say ca highly incentivizes you to buy new clean cars. it quickly becomes very expensive to fix an old, polluting car under this regime. imagine how fast the bills can pile up if the first or second fix doesn't work. with new econo class cars available for ~$100/month on finance or lease, it doesn't really make sense to keep an old clunker around unless it's a collectible.

incentivizes you to buy and old clunker ( pre emissions ) and keep it running forever... or a truck...

Interesting to note is that 1997-older diesel trucks/cars did not and still do not require any smog testing at all.

"Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles 1997 year model and older or with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVWR) of more than 14,000 lbs, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, motorcycles, trailers, or gasoline powered vehicles 1975 and older."[0]

[0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/smogfaq

The 6-year exemption for new vehicles does not apply to diesels. Diesel cars are required to get smogged every two years.

Georgia doesn't even test diesel cars, others only if over three or four years old.

And only in the metro ATL area. The rest of the state doesn't do emissions testing.

Wisconsin doesn't test any cars older than 1996, because they would need dynos for it. Much cheaper for them to just only test ODBII cars.

Here in Oregon my '03 TDI gets a quick ODB-II and a visual inspection (i.e. is the Check Engine light off, is the exhaust not full of smoke, etc.). Of course, I'd expect CA to be the most stringent state.

OBD-II tracks emissions data as well. http://ctemissions.com/test-procedures/what-is-obd

i had to do a smog test for my 1 year anniversary of owning a new car. it is a 2015 model from a different manufacturer, acura, in my case, and it was visual inspection only. i asked the guy, because i'm used to having actual measurements performed each time. if a car is new enough then they only do a visual inspection. i don't know the details of how "new enough" is determined, though.

i've seen this also when having fire extinguishers inspected; ones that are only a year or so old are also only visually inspected only.

In NY the first year is safety only; but year 2 and on are emissions + safety (depending on the county you register your car in, some never need emissions). The safety inspection only costs $10; IIRC the emissions + safety is $37.

Newer cars tend to have more relaxed testing requirements... in many places cars don't even require smog checks for the first five years.

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