Living in the People's Republic of California has its ups and downs.
Yesterday was a down, for a while.

The Governor needs to make a yacht payment, so he sent me a vehicle
registration renewal notice that demands me to make a trip to the local Smog
Station and support the yachting tastes of those guys. Anyway, they attached
a host of sensors and probes to my car while making it run a mile or so on a
treadmill.

The treadmill part of the test seems to have been my undoing. They
administer this test at two speeds, slow - 15mph - and fast - 25mph. My car
tripped the Gross Polluter flags and sirens during the low speed run on the
treadmill, but seemed to make the computers happy - or at least satisfied -
on the high speed run. The machine spit out a report that detailed the crap
being spewed from the tail pipe.

The guy administering the test allowed me to take my car out to the freeway
and get off at the next exit and come back in, where he immediately
administered the exact same test again, and within minutes of pulling back
into the repair bay. On the second test, the car passed with flying colors.
The report that the machine spits out lists the max reading that is allowed,
and the actual reading that was measured.

Two tests, the first a dismal failure and the second a shining example of
automotive technology working to keep our skies clean and blue. The ONLY
difference being a trip around the block, well down the freeway and back to
the shop. As a Gross Polluter, the NO at low speed tipped the counters at
1996, whatever that means. The allowable limit is 695 for this category, so
my car measured roughly 3 times the allowable limit. After the run around
the block, this number came in at 130. The high speed test allowed 717, and
I got 587 as a GP, and 140 on the 2nd test. Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbons
are also tested and reported, as a Gross Polluter, these numbers exceeded
the max allowable by factors of about 3, and when the car passed the numbers
tiny fractions of the same numbers when the Polluter flag was tripped.

If the car can fail in the low speed test, and pass the high speed test,
then drive around the block and pass both tests, why don't they do the high
speed test first so the low speed test has a better chance of passing?

What I learned is that when you take an older car to the Smog ***** for
yacht payment collections, mine is a '94 with nearly 200,000 miles, maybe
you should leave it idling in the parking lot before the test is
administered. I had come in from a 40+ mile commute, but they let the car
sit for an hour before they got to it, so it cooled off so much that the
smog stuff was not up to speed during the test.

 

What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead of
grousing about it.

At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you drive it
too much.

 

What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead of
grousing about it.

At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you drive it
too much.

 

What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead of
grousing about it.

At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you drive it
too much.

 

What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead of
grousing about it.

At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you drive it
too much.

 

So how do you feel about me pulling my cat and smog crap off my Jeep?
Probably not real happy, huh?


"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JoCdnbnF1Npdh4DcRVn-oQ@speakeasy.net...
> What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead
of
> grousing about it.
>
> At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you
drive it
> too much.
>

 

So how do you feel about me pulling my cat and smog crap off my Jeep?
Probably not real happy, huh?


"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JoCdnbnF1Npdh4DcRVn-oQ@speakeasy.net...
> What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead
of
> grousing about it.
>
> At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you
drive it
> too much.
>

 

So how do you feel about me pulling my cat and smog crap off my Jeep?
Probably not real happy, huh?


"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JoCdnbnF1Npdh4DcRVn-oQ@speakeasy.net...
> What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead
of
> grousing about it.
>
> At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you
drive it
> too much.
>

 

So how do you feel about me pulling my cat and smog crap off my Jeep?
Probably not real happy, huh?


"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JoCdnbnF1Npdh4DcRVn-oQ@speakeasy.net...
> What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead
of
> grousing about it.
>
> At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you
drive it
> too much.
>

 

Actually, the point of the story is all it needs is a new CAT.




"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JoCdnbnF1Npdh4DcRVn-oQ@speakeasy.net...
> What you should have learned is to get your polluting wreck fixed instead
of
> grousing about it.
>
> At ten years old and that many miles it's clear it needs fixing AND you
drive it
> too much.
>