The state I live in (Illinois), has decided that it should do
emissions testing on all passenger vehicles (never mind the
amount of pollutants that trucks, trains, etc. put into the air).
I own a Volkswagen that is old, but new enough to be tested via
the on-board diagnostics. The problem is that earlier in the year
the secondary air injection pump went bad (a $1000 fix for a part
that basically makes the catalytic converter more efficient for
the first 90 seconds after a cold start, so let that be a warning
to other VW owners, it's pretty common for this thing to fail).
So, I had it replaced, as I definitely couldn't pass the
emissions tests without it.
The big issue now is that before the emissions test can pass, the
engine computer needs to report that it's tested all of the
components of the emissions system. Some of these tests take many
miles of driving, or certain environmental conditions (i.e. warm
enough to create excess …
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