So, as I've mentioned in a previous thread, I bought this truck three months ago. It had been sitting for a number of years. The day I bought it I got it running and drove it straight to the Aircare testing facility. I didn't care whether it passed or not, I just wanted to insure the truck. In BC, if you flunk the test you can insure the vehicle for up to three months. Anyway, it flunked by alot on the Hydrocarbons and barely passed on the NOx.

Anyway, I got my 3 months insurance, went home and did a tune up: cap,rotor, plugs, air filter, pvc, oil change, Seafoam in the intake. Last night, new Ultra catalytic converter ($300), o2 sensor, fresh oil change. Go back to Aircare this morning becasue three months ends tomorrow.

They check the fuel caps for leaks, check to see that I've got all of my emissions equipment on the truck. I drive it up onto the rollers, put it in park, e-brake on, get out of the truck and wait in the glassed-in waiting room beside the truck. Technician gets in, releases the e-brake, puts it in gear and starts to accelerate for the test. Then he stops. Gets out, asks me if there's something wrong with the truck, maybe its in 4wd? The truck feels sluggish. 4WD? This is the middle of the city on a summers day! I don't know, are you sure you released the parking brake? He double checks the brake and then sends me back to the room to watch the test.

Now I'm watching to see is there something wrong with my truck. Test starts. I'm watching the truck and it looks like its shaking a bit. Huh? I look through the window of the room through the window of the truck and see the tach, it running at nearly 4000rpm! What the...? He finishes the test, gets of of the truck and lets me out of the room. I say, " Hey, it looked like the revs were up close to 4000. Thats not right." He says yeah, seemed pretty high about 3700". I said are you sure you had it in drive and not in 2nd? Oh no that couldn't happen he says. Oh by the way you failed. He hands me the results and moves me out of there for the next car.

I drive home and look at the results. HC great, CO great, NOx three times the maximum allowable and three times what it was 3 months ago. WTF? New cat, new o2, doesn't make sense. So I call the Aircare number to talk to the manager at the testing station. Oh, you can't call them directly but you can talk to the complaints manager at head office. Ok. Oh, you'll have to leave a message he's on lunch. Grr...alright.

So, I wait. 1 hour, 2 hours, no call. Screw this. I drive back down to the testing station and talk to the manager. Explain that I think the guy did my test in 2nd gear. She says "thats not possible we're professionals". I said, the arrow on my indicator doesn't point right at the D, it sort of nests in front of the it. Maybe he thought drive was nuetral. "Not possible" she says. I explain all the new parts. I explain how he had complained at the start that it was sluggish. Please lets talk with him. "No thats not allowed" she said. Look, a v8 pickup truck should never reach 4000rpm in 4th gear. I don't even think it possible in my truck. "Sure it is" she said, "my Geo Tracker gets that high when I do the test". No kidding, it's a friggin 4 banger! Look, I just want you to retest the truck so that I know it was done right and don't throw more money at a problem that doesn't exist. "If you want a retest it'll cost another $23". Look, don't do the test, just put the damn truck on the rollers and try to get it to do 4000 rpm in drive. If you can make the truck do that I'll leave, otherwise retest the damn truck!
"How do we know you didn't just go away and do a whole bunch of work to the truck and are now trying to scam a free test where it will pass and you'll claim we made a mistake". I'm about ready to punch this lady when my phone rings. Its the Aircare head office guy. I give her the phone to talk to the guy. He authorizes a retest nocharge and I get back in line.

When its my turn she jumps in the truck. I make sure its in drive before I go into that stupid little room. I watch through the glass as she runs the test. The truck never gets above 2100rpm. Everytime it does, it upshifts. Test ends and it passes. Aced every catagory. She says, this doesn't prove anything but at least you passed. I want to drive over her on the way out.

Moral of the story: watch carefully when they test your truck. If I hadn't noticed him reving the tar out of it, I would have spent a lot of time and money trying to fix a problem that didn't exist.

I'm glad I don't have to do that again for 2 years.

 

Make sure to steer people clear of that shop. Doesn't sound too professional. Good job

 

Way to go on sticking it to them! There are so many dishonest and incompetent smog shops around, and the problem stems from the fact that they aren't actual shops of any kind. They just have the smog machine, a garage door, and in your case a glass box. Doesn't take a mechanic to operate the machine, so they never have one. IMO it's much better to take it to a regular full-service shop that has a mechanic who knows which end of a wrench ratchets. They would never make such a mistake.

 

If I understand correctly-this was an emissions test site and not a repair shop. Here in the Peoples Republic of Denver-it is necessary to have a I/M 240 test done by state contractor. It would be great just if the people running these emission testing sites were "car guys" and had enough common sense to know that you cant get 4k in top gear and still have the vehicle roller speed at the top speed of 60 MPH required by the emissions test.

I had a kid employed by this emissions test center contractor push in the middle of the hood(between the front edge of hood and the windshield) with his hand when the hood didnt latch pass the safety latch and didnt completely close. This caused a dent in the otherwise perfect hood. This was recorded on video tape-but the woman claims adjuster for the emission testing center said that it isnt possible to dent a hood when pressing hard in the middle of the panel with a palm! I offered to demostrate how this could happen on her 30k dollar SUV-she didnt think that would be a good idea!!

 

Before moving to St Louis I was under the delusion that if you worked on cars you had to know how to fix it. Now that I am older and wiser, I know that a good many proclaimed 'mechanics' follow the instructions with very little room for abstract thinking and many shops dont allow for the abstract thought. I miss the old mechanics that knew the symptoms of a bad coil, now they rely on the car's computer to tell them the problem even when it has terrible short term memory.

 

A dip**** is a dip****, and even worse when they're professional dip****s.

Whatever happened to customer care?

It's funny she acuses you of trying to scam a free test when it sounds like they were trying to scam you into buying another.

 

This is exactly right! The computer/ECU can lie and mislead at times. There are a lot of people in occupations that aren't good at what they do. It is getting to the point where a competent worker is unusual and unexpected. One who can diagnose -without removing and replacing-is getting very rate nowadays! I noticed this in the phone business as an telephone repairman years ago.