Failed emissions inspection, unable to connect.

[sbi]

SC does not have any inspection, period.
Now, as much as like the freedom I would appreciate some kind of a system to make sure unsafe vehicles are taken off the road. Of course emission has nothing to do with safety.

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[amschind]

It's okay, you can call them douchebag tunes. When you're blowing unburnt fuel out of the exhaust pipe, your tuner has no clue what they're doing. Reputable shops don't need to dump fuel out of the exhaust to make power (see Banks)

I typed out a long response, but I'm not sure this is the place. However, I think your post raised some interesting questions about performance, efficiency, emissions and personal vs societal goals for each. I'll lookout it to a story.

Growing up, my neighbor owned a diesel rebuilders parts company, and would sometimes turn us loose on a Cummins or Detroit core armed with air tools and the crane. Half of them were there with damage to the pistons, which in a diesel usually means injector failure that was ignored and allowed to squirt a jet of fuel onto one spot on the piston face or skirt. Say what you will about a Cummins reliability....they won't tolerate Holy Pistons. The telltale sign of such injector failure is black smoke, since the fuel jet isn't atomized and thus incompletely combusts. Thus whenever I see a diesel blowing black smoke, my first thought is "lazy/stupid maintenance or straight up insurance fraud via deliberate neglect and a subsequent 'random fire'".

 

[eharri3]

Is it a super low mileage vehicle that sits a lot? I don't know if this is your problem but:

My wife's 2015 Acura Sedan will
Not communicate with the machine if it doesn't get driven enough in the proper conditions before inspection. She works 10 minutes from home and it sits when she's off as we mostly use my truck. The computer doesn't get to regularly run diagnostics under a variety of conditions and check all the boxes so it can tell the mechanic's machine everything looks good when it's hooked up. Twice they've failed it and I've had to drive it for a couple hours in different conditions and then bring it back, at which point it passed.

It hasn't happened since her pattern changed and she started putting more miles on it.

My Challenger RT accumulated miles very, very slowly but never had the issue so some Cars seem more sensitive to it than others.

I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one other poster on here mention this issue.

 

[Jdsnowman]

Has anyone had their local independent garage not be able to perform a New York State emissions inspection because they could not connect to it? They suggested that I go to the Ford dealer. One dealer mentioned that they have seen this before and I may need a software update. Curious if others have experienced anything similar.

So, I took it to the local Ford dealer and they DID NOT do the update as shown in SSM 50602, but did manage to get the truck to pass the inspection by doing the "workaround" shown in SSM 51411 (I assume). I guess we'll have to wait a year to see I have the same struggles or if Ford puts out an OTA update to fix it.

 

[Eskram]

I'm glad Florida got rid of the emissions testing many years back. It was a joke when it did exist - it was a county by county regulation and a complete money grab for the State and garages.

My old WRX sure as hell wouldn't have passed...

 

[Grafx36510]

In NYS where OP is located, there are no emissions checks the first two years on a new vehicle purchase, only safety ($10), after 2 years emissions is required in addition to safety ($21) so the MY21 owners are the first to experience this issue here in NY. I’m sure it’s frustrating to encounter this especially if you get inspected at an independent shop. Glad OP was able to get it taken care of.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Has anyone had their local independent garage not be able to perform a New York State emissions inspection because they could not connect to it? They suggested that I go to the Ford dealer. One dealer mentioned that they have seen this before and I may need a software update. Curious if others have experienced anything similar.

I know this is an old thread but just had this happen on my 22 PB. Apparently the dealer installed an aftermarket tracking device on the OBD harness and it jacks with the state inspection system connection. Had to find where the OE OBD harness plugs into the tracker and unplug it so the state emissions computer could properly connect to the truck.

I've also had the dealer unplug the tracker so they could perform FDRS updates and not reconnect it so the ODB plug port is non-functional until I reconnect the OE plug.

 

[v8440]

I'd be pretty concerned WTF the dealer was installing tracking devices...

 

[Porpoise Hork]

I'd be pretty concerned WTF the dealer was installing tracking devices...

It's pretty common with many third-party aftermarket warranty packages. I ended up not plugging it back in after the last trip to the dealer. Can still see where it is in the Ford Pass app when I want so...

 

[Jdsnowman]

So, I took it to the local Ford dealer and they DID NOT do the update as shown in SSM 50602, but did manage to get the truck to pass the inspection by doing the "workaround" shown in SSM 51411 (I assume). I guess we'll have to wait a year to see I have the same struggles or if Ford puts out an OTA update to fix it.

Since this thread is active again, I figured I'd provide an update. For 2024, I just went to the dealer and they did the inspection. I just had my 2025 inspection performed at my local shop again and they were able to complete without a problem. It must be the OTA updates took care of the issue.

 

[dochawk]

several years ago, a smog place was unable to connect to mine to do the test.

they gave me a result sheet with that, which was a referral to the DMV's own smog unit, which passed me with flying colors.

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