Emissions and drive cycle.

Yep. Never knew changing a battery messed up the emissions testing. Seems i have to enter the London to Sydney or Paris-Dakar to reset it or find a Freemason willing to give me details on the ' drive cycle'. Anyone know of a source? I've already called Courtesy Nissan as it's a 96 SE-R. No answer yet. I really don't want to drive any time tomorrow on 95 or 495 so any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I thought it was like a 25 mile drive cycle, though I found out it could be more. Jags, for example, can take up to 100 miles to trip the drive cycle. I know VW/Audi have a "Force Readiness" program thru VAGCOM. Don't know other than start by driving it 25 miles, shut it down and start it back up.

I did drive it 60 highway miles right before entering inspection. Dunno if they shut it down tho'. Thank you tho'.

It is mileage AND what you are doing with the car that matters. A standard rule of thumb is 100 miles total. About 1/3 city 1/3 country roads and 1/3 highway should get it done. You need to cycle through all the parameters of the sensors and the ECU as well as accumulate miles to get all the sensors in a ready state for testing.

It is to prevent people from disconnecting their battery before the inspection / OBD 2 test to reset the computer and cheating the test.

I had a case where I was inspecting a car and the battery was weak. I did the safety test and left the lights on for about 3 min while I walked around the car and looked at things. Went to start the car it would not start and completely killed the battery and triggered a not ready state for several of the sensors. The car failed the OBD2 test. I felt bad for the owner but he did not tell me about the battery. (or it could have been the alternator). Needless to say, the car owner was annoyed.

Thanks for the country roads info. I'm going to have to break out a map.

Fwiw, the actual cycle that is run to complete all of the tests is just over 10 miles.

Some of the ideas are amusing to me, though. 100 miles? Man.

In reply to alfadriver:

Well I've done a bit of city driving and put in over fifty on the beltway with back in the city and it didn't help. Worst case scenario I see what the trade value is for a '16 Versa.

In reply to nutherjrfan:

Look up FTP75. That's the cycle.

Some 50 mph stuff and some 30 mph, too. Also a start from ambient cold and a 10min break.

In reply to alfadriver:

Much thanks. The internets also tells me to do the self-diagnosis on the ECM and then clear to reset. So I may very well do that also. What I hope doesn't anger any of the helpful board members is may I ask what do the below photos mean. Obviously a disconnected hose to where I don't know but from somewhere down by the auto trans. The reason I didn't mention it is I didn't know if it was related.

This is the spot on the driver side of the head behind the distributor of the SR20 engine which looks like maybe something should be there. Haynes and image searches are of no use so far - probably just paranoia. Also just looked at the ECM and the SE-R seems to have different colored bolts to the SE for the plastic cover and one looks to be damaged. So I hope it hasn't been hacked. Oh well fun projects for tonight and tomorrow. Thanks again for the advice. Second pic below.

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I don't know about Nissan, but I had a heck of a time resetting the EVAP parameter on a Mazda. Tried everything I could think of over a few hundred miles. Finally looked up and followed the drive cycle requirement carefully. It turned out that the intake air temp had to be below a certain temp, which meant I needed to go for a 5am drive during the CA summer.

Boost_Crazy wrote: I don't know about Nissan, but I had a heck of a time resetting the EVAP parameter on a Mazda. Tried everything I could think of over a few hundred miles. Finally looked up and followed the drive cycle requirement carefully. It turned out that the intake air temp had to be below a certain temp, which meant I needed to go for a 5am drive during the CA summer.

EVAP also requires the fuel tank be between 1/4 and 3/4 full, IIRC.

Some (most?) OBD2 scanners will also do drive-cycle verification. Years ago, I remember seeing a port plug-in device that would light green when the drive cycle was complete, but I don't see it right now.

My scanner will tell me if it is "ready". It is under the "ready test". . . go figure. LOL. .. . If it is not ready you can go see what sensor or system is not ready.

alfadriver wrote: Fwiw, the actual cycle that is run to complete all of the tests is just over 10 miles. Some of the ideas are amusing to me, though. 100 miles? Man.

I would really like to see where you got that from. The 100 miles is not etched in stone but there is no way in 10 miles a car can go through all the parameters it needs to be ready. Many cars are not completely up to temp in ten miles.

dean1484 wrote:

alfadriver wrote: Fwiw, the actual cycle that is run to complete all of the tests is just over 10 miles. Some of the ideas are amusing to me, though. 100 miles? Man.

I would really like to see where you got that from. The 100 miles is not etched in stone but there is no way in 10 miles a car can go through all the parameters it needs to be ready. Many cars are not completely up to temp in ten miles.

FWIW, my Miata will set all the readiness codes in 12 miles.

Last year I replaced the battery in my Miata in March. In November the car failed emissions testing because it was not ready. Yep, I had driven it maybe 5 miles in all those months. I drove it around town a bit and tried again. Fail. I ended up driving it about 40 miles to the airport, parked it for a week, then 40 miles home then it was ready. I also do not have any disconnected hoses. I should get an OBD2 scanner.

I wonder if one of those "memory retainer" battery things that plug into the cigarette lighter would keep the ECU from losing readiness status during a battery replacement?

dean1484 wrote:

alfadriver wrote: Fwiw, the actual cycle that is run to complete all of the tests is just over 10 miles. Some of the ideas are amusing to me, though. 100 miles? Man.

I would really like to see where you got that from. The 100 miles is not etched in stone but there is no way in 10 miles a car can go through all the parameters it needs to be ready. Many cars are not completely up to temp in ten miles.

It's the law. It's how the rules work. (bear in mind, I run these tests all the time...)

BTW, from a 70F ambient start, using the cycle method- the cars are up to temp by the end of bag 2, which is 7.4 miles (3.6 bag 1, 3.8 bag 2, 3.6 bag 3). The system is required to test all systems within that one cycle. And I think it has 2 cycles to detect a problem.

(an interesting side note, if the cycle was run as originally intended, the bag 4 numbers, being a repeat of bag 2 cycle, is always better, since the car reaches full temp about half way though bag2, and is fully hot, hot, hot for bag 3)

I'm sure there are a lot of cars that are very sensitive to that environment for the test, but they should be robust as long as you drive close to that.

(side note two- most of you worry about coolant temps above 200F, but most cars, when running the cycle, get up to 220F, and stay between that and 210- it's an odd quirk of the rules and how it works- but that's another story, and is changing)

We have a road test loop that is about 5 miles long and we can usually get all but evap to run in that period of time. Fords have a nice feature where if you clear the check engine light and do the drive on the same key cycle, it forces the monitors to run. Saves us lots of time. Wish everyone did this. (My Volvo has kind of the exact opposite - it won't run any monitor tests if there is anything plugged into the DLC!)

Ohio allows up to two monitors to be incomplete if the car isn't being retested, because six months out of the year, some tests may never run. Evap monitors here may not meet conditions to complete until March, and in the summer it may be too hot. If you fail and are in for a retest, all monitors have to have run. So, er, check your local standards.

Went ahead and wrassled the ecm out of its spot and did the self diagnostic. Knock sensor and a too lean or too rich fuel injection system malfunction codes. Reset the ecm to clear the codes and just gonna put miles on it until the inspection center reopens Tuesday morning. We'll see.

My mother's Daewoo was the worst. I took it for inspection and the O2 sensor went bad on the way there. It took about three hours of driving to get it ready and when she took it the gas cap went bad. Then it took over a week to get ready. When it was ready again it developed a misfire. It was over a month before it would pass.

This is the drive cycle I've tried my best to emulate. Finding a stretch of road that will do everything....sheesh. Maybe I can get the BLM folk to shut 495 tonight. http://www.justanswer.com/nissan/17adl-96-nissan-200sx-se-r-cannot.html

After 200+ miles after changing a failed battery and a few other small items that poped up after my cobalt sat for 4 years I still had one monitor that would not give a "ready" on my code reader. I took it to my friend and said I know it has one not ready it's okay to put a "R" sticker on it so I don't get a $100 fine for un-inspected. He was able to force it to read that monitor with the inspection machine and it passed.

Well it passed. Failed the normal test of course. Then passed the idle test at the tailpipe. Apparently 200sx models are on a binder full of E36 M3 list cars that are impossible to reset the monitors on so they sorta reluctantly offer the idle test. Like I'm gonna turn it down. Wouldn't have even known from the regular test guys. Had to ask a supervisor inside in desperation to find out. I think I'm a member of the illuminati now. Oh well now do I source a 5spd to liven the little booger up?

Most of the early "OBD2" cars are on that list. They were more like "OBD1.2"

alfadriver, Thanks for all your help. I Passed the L1 the first time with your help.

I can reset most 20 min of driving. Its all in how you drive.