On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:58:35 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:



It's still only an emissions inspection - nothing else.

In Cook County, Illinois, where I live, it's just emissions, at state
stations only.
Gone through a number of variation through the years.
Used to be a stick in the exhaust pipe.
I flunked once with pretty new car that ran fine.
Luckily it was under warranty and the dealer replaced 2 injectors
and did a complete tune-up, new plugs, wires and all. Passed then.
(BTW, since I do most of my own work, I had put Bosch plugs
in the car, instead of the OEM AC/Delco. The dealer mech told me
that's a no-no with modern computer-controlled cars. Might have been
just that that caused the flunk, but he said he replaced 2 "marginal"
injectors for good measure.)
For a while they put the cars on a dyno here, but there were accidents
and they screwed up some cars, so they stopped that.
Now they just plug in the ODBII connector and check for codes.
Better not go with a check engine light on or an intermittent code
still stored. That will flunk you.
The goofy thing is that when they started this method a few years ago,
anything without an OBDII connection was excluded.
So that's essentially pre-1996.
IOW, the cars most likely to pollute. But maybe there's not so many of
them. Anyway, it's flaky.

--Vic