1995 525i failed emissions testing

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Originally Posted By: MarkM66
So they test this with a sensor in the tail pipe?


Yes, pretty much any car from '77 up to the end of OBDI will have to have it's emissions measured at the tailpipe on a rolling dyno, this is a requirement in certain counties of CA.

They used to put OBDII cars on the rollers until recently, now they just plug it into the computer, no emissions sampling on the dyno.

The car has a hydraulic self adjusting valvetrain, and is OBDI. This particular generation of 5 series never came with OBDII.
 
"They used to put OBDII cars on the rollers until recently, now they just plug it into the computer, no emissions sampling on the dyno."


That's only true for cars 2000 and up. I still had to have my 1999 Chevy Malibu put on the rollers and tested at 15mph and 25mph with the same emission samplings just like OBD-I last October.
 
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Take it to a different tester, did my 83 Silverado with the 305 today and it failed the first test, tech said it was a gross polluter, this is after putting in new plugs,cap and rotor, O2 sensor and air filter, as well as new oil and filter, and as was stated earlier a long high speed run down the highway, wasn't happy the way the tech went about testing the truck, ton of questions and accusations, the truck is completely stock except for a Flowmaster muffler, hour later took it to another tester and it passed, this tech had me in and out in ten minutes, no questions asked
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Ok, so I ran out (hard) the 5 or so gallons with 91 octane and G2P that was left in the tank, and refueled with 8 gallons of Chevron 87 octane. I changed the oil and filter with fresh 20W-50 and I added one bottle of ISO HEET & one gallon of E85 to the tank, and drove it real hard on the freeway before pulling into the station, where the tech started the test immediately.

I passed, barely, tech called it a miracle. Now I can move on with the vehicle, thanks to all that helped.

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does this vehicle really run well? is the entire ignition system tuned up? HC really should be lot lower!
 
When do you have to smog again, and what will you do when that time rills around? In a different thread someone said in CA you could not sell a car that would not pass smog, so I am curious.
 
You can transfer a car without smog as long as it's agreed to by the buyer. You can't register it for road use or get the title without one, but there is a procedure for selling cars without a title, using a bill of sale. DMV will give you a temporary operating permit to do what you have to do.

I may just flip the car, I hardly ever keep anything for two years.

Car runs good, pulls hard to redline, doesn't stumble, doesn't smoke, burns little oil, and gets good gas mileage. I wonder why the HCs are high.
 
Improper ignition timing
Defective ignition components
Lean fuel mixture
Defective catalytic converter
Defective air injection components
Low cylinder compression.

Start at top and work down
 
The problem with that flow chart is that he has no 3-gas analyzer at his house to check the HC in the exhaust! Since he claims that the car runs great, how would he know if anything is wrong unless he takes it in for the emission testing? My hunch is that for next two years, he is not going to spend a dime on the car!
 
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