Smog Test Results.....Surprising!

[tom slick]

I took my 2004 F-150 (82k miles) in to have it smog'd yesterday with surprising (to me) results:

Idle: %CO2 15.1, %O2 0.0, HC (MAX 100) MEAS 0, CO% (MAX 1.0) MEAS 0.01.
2500 RPM: %CO2 15.1, %O2 0.0, HC (MAX 180) MEAS 1, CO% (MAX 1.1) MEAS 0.00.

To sum it up, CO2 is pretty much the only thing coming out of the tail pipe. It surprises me because I've never had a vehicle that is that clean, in fact most of my previous vehicles barely pass.

 

[sunfire]

Did you use any cleaners like Redline before? Do you use MMO or any UCLs?

 

[brentalan]

Today's cars are very clean. Somewhere I heard that many of the new cars you can run in a closed garage and not get CO poisoning. I'm not gonna test the theory but it is impressive if true.

 

[tom slick]

I used FP+ for a little while but stopped about 2 years ago, otherwise no MMO or UCL or other additives. The plugs have 50k on them and the air filter is an Amsoil that's been in for about 25k.

 

[John K]

Any volunteers??

 

[pompadour]

no thanks.

 

[mechtech2]

Clean running car, or bad testing or equipment.
And don't think the testing machinery is flawless!
This can go either way, and it has!
Operator error? Ha! These guys are approximately the same caliber as parts people to me -maybe lower.

 

[tom slick]

I've used this guy several times. He's a full service shop that does smog and he's ASE certified Master.

 

[oldmaninsc]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Clean running car, or bad testing or equipment.
And don't think the testing machinery is flawless!
This can go either way, and it has!
Operator error? Ha! These guys are approximately the same caliber as parts people to me -maybe lower.


I had almost identical results on my Grand Marquis with the 4.6 engine last fall. At around 65K miles and original plugs (as far as I know - I bought the car with about 30K miles on it). I didn't add anything to the gas or change anything. I simply started the vehicle and drove the 4 or 5 miles to the shop and said "I need a smog check". I do use top tier gasoline in this vehicle about 98 percent of the time!

Maybe the testing equipment at my normal smog place is bad also. The "operator" has been doing it for about 20 years - I've been going there for about 16 years. It's not exactly rocket science - sticking a probe into an exhaust pipe and typing a few things into a keyboard!

 

[OVERKILL]

Expedition and Explorer both blow pretty much zeroes too.

 

[Ben99GT]

I believe the 2004 F150s were ULEV.

 

[mechtech2]

Private guys are not what I was talking about.

EPA stations are the receptacle of mind boggling error prone help.

 

[brianl703]

All of the test stations in VA are private.

 

[tom slick]

AFAIK Calif only has private test stations.

 

[ediamiam]

the numbers on my 2000 frontier were also suprising low..hc was 78 2 years ago, lt 20 a few months ago. only thing different was mmo over the winter in the fuel, and a dose of throttle body cleaner sometime prior to the smog check.

 

[01rangerxl]

We don't get actual results here. You get a printout that says what tests the vehicle passed, but not any measure to go by. I have no idea what's coming out of my truck's exhaust, but it has passed every emissions test no problem. It threw a CEL for an O2 sensor just before it's last test, I cleared the code (didn't touch the sensor), and it passed with no problem.