200 Galant - Failed Emissions Test VA

[klnaco]

Hello everybody. I just purchased a 2000 Galant for my son in college from a shop out of state. The car seems clean and appears to drive well (so far). and I also got an extended warrenty after my fiasco with a failed Dodge Intrepid (another story, another time).

Anyway my son brought the car in to be inspected and have emissions testing done in Virginia. The car passed inspection but failed emissions, for "ODB Malfunction (indicator lamp)". All the local shops want to charge $100+ to hook it up and run the code to see what is wrong. The shop I bought it from said they have seen this a number of times before and it's usually a bad bulb in the instrument panel in the dash. They also say it's a relatively easy/quick job the repair.

Q1) does this sound reasonable what the shop is saying?

Q2) is there any after market computer programs/connectors which would allow me to hook up a laptop to the ECM to see the diagnosis myself?

Q3) is removing the instument panel and bulb a easy job?

Thanks for all your help in advance.

Ken

[J.Cain]

that's kind of a douche move by the guy who sold it to you! especially if you bought an extended warranty with it! he should be the one to take care of the problem, if you got it to him in a certain amount of time!

[imc188222]

You can buy OBD2 scan tools relatively cheap. Some of them are just code readers however and they will not give you access to the data stream. You can buy obd2 scanners that use your laptop and scanners that plug into a pda. Google OBD2 scan tools or something along that line. OBDII is the name for the current computer system that is being used in cars. It standardized connectors, and a few other things. Basically it made it so that one scan tool and one cable could get information out of any car. However, the information that you are going to get out of the car is not going to tell you what is wrong with the car. It is going to be in the form of a trouble code which basically just tells you what diagnostic procedure to use and you have to have access to that information to use it obviously. From the information that you gave about the car failing the emissions test it sounds like the check engine light is on. If the light is not on when the car is running then it means that someone tampered with it, the bulb is burnt out (unlikely) or there is a problem with that circuit. Either way, this is a problem that should have been fixed before the car was sold. If anyone had plugged a scan tool into the car they would have known about this.