For you to get approved to drive your car in Louisiana, you first need to pass an emissions inspection. To many this is not an issue since most new cars are built to pass these with ease. Well, the fact is it is really not such a sure thing.
Here are our top 7 reasons your car won’t pass and what you can do about it.
7 Reasons Your Car Fails Inspection
- You are running on semi-Flat Tires – You would always want your tires full, but this is another issue that’s common and very easy to ignore if it’s not related to an obvious problem at the moment. When you take emissions test, the auto technician may drive your car on a dynamometer. If you have full tires with the right pressure, surely helps your engine maintain a steady and consistent load.
- Engine Lights, Check! – Most of us (car owners) normally ignores our check engine lights. They seem to come on for so many frivolous reasons, it’s just not worth being concerned over. Too bad, that doesn’t mean something isn’t wrong. Either way, this won’t matter because a check engine light is a trigger for automatic failure during emissions test. Driving your car to a certified emissions repair shop would be a good idea. They can use a retrieval tool to find out what’s wrong and get the light off for you.
- Your car is running left, not right – If, for whatever reason, your car is not running right or not functioning like normal, now is not a good time to have an emissions test performed. Take it into a mechanic, get it looked at and have the problem addressed first instead of throwing your money away.
- It’s Clear, the Car Needs an Oil Change – If it’s more than 5,000 miles since your last oil change, now’s that time to do it before heading off to an emissions inspection. Old oil may be highly contaminated making it high with hydrocarbons. Though fresh oil is good as to the efficiency of your car, however these increase in hydrocarbons is a surefire way to fail an emissions inspection.
- You Drove Straight Right There – This may seem counter intuitive, but before submitting your car to the testers, it is important you take it for a quick 20 minute spin first. That way your, oil, coolant and catalytic converter will make and maintain their ideal operating temperature. After that, your car will have a much easier time passing satisfactory emissions.
- You Forgot to Use Additives – The next time you refuel before your inspection, make sure to combine your gas with fuel additives. These additives are made to help clean out carbon deposits in your engine. The result: air and fuel can flow much more freely throughout the engine. This also means lower emissions.
- Gotta Stay Away Em Wet Weathers – If possible, it surely helps if you can deliver your car for the emissions inspection on days when the weather is nice and cool. Wet tires won’t help on the dynamo meter, for one. This will make it harder for the technician to keep a consistent speed. As such, your drive train torque and engine will take on undue stress which could result in higher emissions.
While you can always do the test again and again, there is actually no point and reason to waste your money. It would help a lot if you can ‘Avoid the seven problems above by applying the above 7 solutions and your car should be in a much better shape.
