How to pass the exhaust inspection

With limited budget, I bought a 96 Pontiac Firebird from craigslist. Unfortunately, it failed the emission inspection. :banghead: Is there a good way to help pass the test? I know it is cheating and not good for the enviroment, but I am a student living on a limited budget. I want to drive it at least for this summer so I can get some money to fix it. Thanks fellas

First you have to find the cause of the problem.

We need the specs of the car. Engine? carb or injection? cat or pre-cat? etc..

Could be a lambda sensor, cat converter etc.. we need details.

We would have to know how it failed, and then we could only take a stab at what it would take to fix it. What failed about it; NO, CO, HC? Any check engine light?

There is no magic bullet that can sneak it by. On your 96 (which is OBD2) you could hack the computer and try to tweak it to cover whatever is failing, but until you pay someone to tweak it you could have repaired the problem three times over.

You test emissions via the OBD?

We use an emissions machine with a probe that goes in the exahust tailpipe to take readings.

Being a '96 and presumably in the US, the Firebird will be OBD-II compliant and therefore has some pretty good emissions diagnostics. All the questions above are good ones, and having a printout of the I/M Readiness and component parameters from the OBD-II system (available via a good scan tool) would be a good start.

-Rod

in short, there is no cheating.

Well, if you slip the inspector a $100 bill, that might work

in short, there is no cheating.

Well, if you slip the inspector a $100 bill, that might work

That's what i do. For $200 i can get an inspection without even taking the car with me. :smooch:

That's what i do. For $200 i can get an inspection without even taking the car with me. :smooch:


Which could be handy at the moment, saves on trow truck bills.

I had never seen an OBD emissions inspection until recently, simply if your computer has no codes stored, it passes. The car isn't even running. The car computer talks to the test computer, in some cases (like in NY) that computer talks to the one at the main inspection center.

Most emissions problems on newer cars are easy to fix and are often something like an EGR valve, oxygen sensor, etc. A good independent shop with knowledgeable technicians should be able to diagnose it quickly.

You will have a better running car that uses less gas!

Bob