AZ Emissions in LMTV

[aleigh]

I doubt this is terribly interesting to anyone, but I passed the AZ emissions today. Yay me for actually having current registration though - I am growing as a person, trust me.

They do a snap idle test. The guy was momentarily confused about the lack of VIN but I showed him the paperwork where AZ has my VIN as the serial and showed him where the serial was on the data plate, and he had no problem with that. It was funny when he tried to use his barcode reader to scan the embossed data plate on the cab door sill ??? the one that is painted over and just has a number on it.

My truck is registered as a 96 (mfg 96, delivered 97) and my cat 3116 came out as a 3.5% in the opacity, and passing is 40. Maybe this is interesting if people want to compare the readings they are getting as a proxy for engine tune and health. Everything about my engine is stock.

 

[98G]

I don't know what's worse - that AZ has us test vehicles that have no semblance of emissions equipment, or that our vehicles with no semblance of emissions equipment pass.

My M1009 passed easily.

 

[TNriverjet]

And therein lies the great mystery. Why do we have emissions equipment? So we can pay more... Kind of like the smartphone scam. Update OS 3-4 times, then you need a new piece of hardware to run the silly new OS's

BTW, congrats on passing with flying colors.

 

[wandering neurons]

Many moons ago (around 2003), I owned an M35A2 in Tucson AZ. Emissions testing on a chassis dynomometer at that time. The local testing station couldn't handle that size truck, so they told me to go to the far side of Tucson, where they had a dyno big enough for semi's. That didn't fly when I told them that the vehicle was all wheel drive, showed them the front axle and transfer case. I didn't tell them there was an air-shifter for the t-case, but they didn't bother at that point. Emissions testing waived that year, and same story the next few years.
Now I'm on Southern Maryland. Vehicles get a one-time safety inspection prior to registration, no emissions, nothing reoccurring. It's great. My M1081, the Zombie Truck (1984 Suburban with 6.2 diesel wearing a Jurassic Truck T-Rex kit body), the old BMW, the old Ford, the RV, etc., are done once and gone. Go ahead and hate me. On the flip side, I can't buy something semi-automatic with a large capacity magazine, or get a CCW. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[Jericho]

Does AZ still offer the "Buy a go past the test option", I t used to kill me to find for an extra few dollars I could buy a waiver.

 

[aleigh]

I don't know about directly bypassing it but you can get around it if you have a failing car and you attempt certain basic repairs (that do not work). I may run into that situation with a Jeep actually. To be honest the emissions testing doesn't put me out much. I lived in several states (or times) that didn't have it, and that was nice. I lived through it in WA and now AZ and honestly it's not that big a deal. The worst by far were MA and MO which had relatively anal safety inspections (MA fails cars with cracked windshields). Cracked exhaust header? forget about it. And it's time consuming to get the inspection done. The AZ thing, sure I had to drive out to a test station, but I waited maybe 10 minutes and it was done in another 10.

98G hit the nail on the head - does it actually matter with mechanical rack diesels? But you know how it goes. Some busy body sees some old dump truck rolling a little coal off a stop and gets on the whatever website and discovers the (old) exemptions for heavy trucks, and declares that those are the real polluting monsters and they are getting away with killing dolphins, and the next thing you know. If my cat is passing at 1/11th of the opacity my guess is no commercial operator would let their diesel be that bad for long, certainly no long haul guy - they'd be wasting too much fuel!