THE SMOG CHECK INSPECTION… a play in three acts

I’m just going to assume that some of my audience today might not truly understand the actual smog check procedure, and others, to be sure, don’t care much more than hearing the tech say those magic words, “your vehicle passed”. If this is you, feel free to click to another page now, otherwise, COMMENCE ACT 1.

ACT 1

The first act of the typical smog check involves doing the VISUAL INSPECTION of the emissions control equiptment. The question that the tech is required to answer is simply to confirm the presence and condition of those parts attached to the engine which help to lower emissions. Are these parts properly connected to their control devices as well? These connections are usually provided by means of  various belts, hoses,switches and valves which are checked at this time in the inspection to confirm that they have not been tampered with, or disconnected themselves by accident. If disconnected by accident, it might surprise some techs to know that they are allowed to reattach a hose prior to the official testing procedure without automatically failing the vehicle. It is also permitted to adjust the engines’ idle speed to the manufacturers’ specification prior to conducting the ignition timing inspection. Some techs just fail the vehicle rather than adjust the engine speed. Frankly, it never ceases to amaze me, and I can not understand the economic reasoning, that a smog technician would fail a vehicle for timing, simply due to the idle speed being out of spec, when the adjustment might take 1 minute to accomplish, but the time to retest the vehicle might well be 30 minutes or more, and especially if the vehicle has passed the rest of the inspection perfectly. This is especially true in the case of a “Test Only” smog station. O.K., we know that the “Test/Repair” station might want to get paid for that adjustment and so therefore could have incentive to fail the vehicle, but for a “Test Only” which must not charge for this adjustment, this appears to be a losing proposition in terms of  wasted time. I have inquired of many techs who have this practice but have yet to get an understandable answer.   ON TO ACT 2…