Blown Nogaro

I received a vehicle emission inspection notice two weeks ago but I have been
wondering whether they can actually inspect my car 'cause my car is quattro,
so I went to one of vehicle emission inspection stations in my state(MD) this
morning. According to the notice paper, all the full time all-wheel drive cars
must be on the lane 3, so I was on the third lane but it was closed. Of course,
the guy over there guided me into one of the open lanes, which was the lane 2.
The second lane had only one pair of rollers, so I asked him.."Don't I need to
be on the third lane? My car is all-wheel drive." and he said.."Don't worry, it
won't work anyway."...Hmm...and I was going to get off my car but he asked
me to stay in my car and move forward a little bit. It turned out they can't
inspect my car because they don't have any proper equipment to inspect
quattro cars, so he just ran the fan in front of my car and computer and
gave me a pass notice. What? I paid $14 to keep our air clean and you did nothing and I past the inspection(LOL)??? Anyways, I don't know there's
any place that can do emission inspection on full time all-wheel drive
cars but it looks like emission inspection stations in MD don't have
proper equiments and I think it's really hard to change the current inspection
system for full time all-wheel drive cars because you have to have two pairs
of rollers and one of them should be movable because of car sizes.

ex-quattro PETE

Interesting. Never thought of that!

D.Ross

yup... in NY awd cars are exempt from emissions testing.

Arch57

I had mine done last year in CT and they have the dual-roller setup. (There are a lot of Audi's and Subaru's here in CT). It was kind-of scary watching some young kid try and keep my Quattro at 35 MPH on the rollers. The car looked like it wanted to jump off at any chance it could get.

Arch57
99.5 2.8QMS

RKA

Long lines, and overbudget programs are just the beginning of their worries. The have decided that they don't have the money to buy 4 wheel drive dynos, so those vehicles get an idle sniffer test, and that's it. You gotta watch those guys though...most of them don't know any better, and they will *try* to dyno your car on a two wheel dyno! They tried with mine...and they also tried to dyno a FWD car with it's rear wheels, until the owner screamed at them! Scary!

Anyway, I don't think it will be that easy for folks in california to get out of the emissions tests. I have a sneaky suspicion that CA has already made arrangements to test AWD vehicles. Anybody know what the scoop is there?

Treads

I didn't know that. Do you need an exemption sticker or something? Where do you get it?

2001.5 1.8T QM Sport

Skene @ PES Tuning

can't go on the 2wd dyno that the state issues to inspection places. The dyno catches exhaust emissions at different RPMs.

Mark P

yep - 25, I believe

WClark

But the new system "sold" to the state a few years ago costs so much to operate, the inspection stations charge almost $30.

Hokie_Audi

It's another tax on vehicles, pure and simple. Testing new cars and fleecing owners for a few bucks a year does nothing to clean up the air. What's the point of testing ULEV Honda Accords when the effort spent on testing new cars could be better spent in getting ancient beaters off the road? Modern vehicles, even gas swilling SUVs, produce annual hydrocarbon emissions equivalent to spilling a few ounces of gasoline at a fillup station.