Motorists paying for unneeded repairs because of glitch state knew about before emissions program began Margaret Allen Staff Writer

NORTH DALLAS — A stubborn refusal by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission to fix a long-known glitch in the state's new vehicle inspection program means not all newer model cars are being tested equally, critics say.

The state decided early last month to shut off a portion of the test on some newer cars to enable them to pass, car dealers and state officials say.

TNRCC made the move just two months into the $6.8 million program because a small percentage of newer model luxury cars and some economy cars were falsely failing the stricter test while they actually should have passed.

The problems occur with the test for 1996 and newer cars. The On Board Diagnostics-Second Generation computerized test, or OBDII, tests vehicles by plugging electronic analyzer equipment into onboard computers in those cars. Another test for older vehicles uses so-called ASM2 equipment, which measures emissions straight from the tail pipe.

Critics, who stress their overall support for the program to reduce air pollution, say they warned the state about the presence of the glitch in OBDII as long as three years ago.

The state could have addressed the problem before launching the new inspection program May 1, they say.

Instead, motorists have spent money needlessly to repair cars that weren't broken, confirmed Maj. Robert Burroughs, inspection program coordinator for the state's Department of Public Safety.

"I'd love to tell you that's not happening, but you and I both know that it is," Burroughs said. "We don't need the public fixing a vehicle that's not broke."

The state's solution is to allow the small number of newer cars that appear to fail because of the glitch to test instead on the ASM2 equipment, according to Pat Stout, inspection coordinator for Lone Star Lubrication Inc. The privately held company owns and operates some 52 Jiffy Lube stations in Dallas doing state inspections.

"The TNRCC came out and claimed this OBDII was a silver bullet and the savior of us all and so much better than the tailpipe test," said Stout. "And yet we're having these problems, and we're always going to have these problems.

"But is it fair to let one group of cars off, while the rest have to go through the whole test?" Stout said. "Turning a portion of it off for the sake of simplicity — because they don't know what to do — is not the answer."

Gist of the glitch Vehicles undergoing the modified test as of July 3 are: 1996-1998 Volvos; 1996-1997 Mitsubishis; 1996 Mercedes; 1996 Hyundais and 1996 Subarus, according to Hazel Barber, mobile source programs manager for the TNRCC in Austin.

The state made the change after seeing high failure rates among those cars, according to Edgar Gilmore, an Austin-based program specialist in the vehicle inspection and maintenance program with TNRCC.

More cars may be added to the list as problems become known, Gilmore said.

"It's a program in flux because we never know which make or model will have problems," he said.

Prior to July 3, cars with the "false failure" were sent back for repairs; ultimately their owners then had to seek one-year waivers issued by the state's "challenge station" in Irving.

Insiders say the station has been overwhelmed with angry motorists frustrated by the fact their cars wouldn't pass, even after repairs.

"We made them jump through so many hoops," said one source, who asked not to be identified. "I wish somebody would do something, because this is just not working out and nobody is listening.

"This is ridiculous, it's so screwed up. It's time somebody admits it."

Despite the fact TNRCC knew beforehand about the glitch, Barber said the state isn't responsible for vehicle owners who purchased hundreds of dollars in repairs to fix their cars in an effort to pass the inspection.

"That's between them and their (auto) dealer," Barber said. "We have no appropriation to reimburse money. We did what the EPA thought was the best way to put the program together. So it really is between them and the dealer."

The state has rejected the notion of letting vehicles with "false failures" on the $50,000 OBDII equipment — which is widely considered by experts to be an excellent diagnostic tool — switch instead to the $8,000 ASM2 analyzer equipment.

That decision was made "so we wouldn't force inspection stations to buy the analyzer also," Barber said.

Needed for compliance OBDII and its counterpart for testing older vehicles, ASM2, were put in place by TNRCC as part of a larger program to help North Texas attain mandated EPA clean air standards.

Critically important to the overall effort, vehicle inspection accounts for 25% of North Texas' strategy to reduce ozone and smog. In May 2003, the program expands to five additional area counties.

At jeopardy if D-FW doesn't comply is $400 million a year in federal highway funding.

While Texas is one of 37 states with some form of clean air vehicle testing, inspection experts say the new, vastly complex program is unique to Texas.

No other state in the nation has implemented such a complicated, far-reaching testing program with the flip of a switch as was done May 1, Stout said.

"We've gone from a simple, two-cycle tailpipe test to the most complicated test that any state has ever used," he said. "It's complicated, but it's a do-able deal. But we should have taken the lead from other states and done OBD as an advisory test for the first year. We should have learned from these other states, the way they are now learning from us."

Stout's boss Ed Martin, an adviser for the Texas state inspection program as well as for the manufacturers of the testing equipment, the EPA and other states, agrees.

"California did the ASM little by little, then went to the OBD to gather data. They only went pass-fail last May," Martin said. "Texas went Bang! at 8 a.m. May 1. We survived it. But I think they gambled more than they needed to."

Overall, however, Stout and Martin praised the Texas program.

Anatomy of a bug In D-FW, about three million cars will be tested by the inspection program annually. About 47% will test on OBDII.

In D-FW in July, after the test modification, 5.6% of 6,688 cars failed OBDII, according to the state Department of Public Safety. In May, before the test was modified, 7,058 vehicles 1996 and newer failed the test, or 9.15% of the 77,176 cars that were tested, according to the state.

State officials say 3.5% of the failures were for what it calls "readiness" issues.

The "readiness" issue can refer to the OBDII glitch, which rears its ugly head mainly but not exclusively in 1996, 1997 and 1998 Volvos, Mercedes and BMWs.

Further complicating the issue, there are three different manufacturers of analyzers, and some machines have better success rates than others testing certain vehicles.

Here's how it works: Each of a half-dozen or so emission-related monitors on newer vehicles must light up and show "ready status" to properly test. Not doing so constitutes a failure on the OBDII.

But "ready" status can be lost on some cars simply by turning off the engine; on others, it can be lost when a battery is replaced or when other emissions-related repairs are performed.

While ready status is reset on most cars through normal driving, on others it can only be reset through a more complex "drive cycle." These are developed for each engine by the manufacturer, can vary from car to car and can require as much as 1,000 miles of driving.

"We're trying to find why certain vehicles are displaying a high pattern of not-readiness and high failure. We're talking levels about 20%," said Gilmore. "Oftentimes we're finding a large number of cases where the inspector entered wrong data. That contributes heavily to that rate. But where that's not the case, we can eliminate, or modify, the readiness criteria as a failing criteria."

Martin, who says he testified in hearings before the TNRCC along with members of the Texas State Inspections Association, says the state was warned three years ago about the glitch.

"We tried and tried and tried to tell them this would be a problem. But the TNRCC had a lack of understanding about the research," he said. "We predicted the not-readiness issue. ...

"There are about six parts to the OBD test," Martin said. "Five of the six are working very well to perfectly. But one part on a fair number of 1996, 1997 and 1998 cars is not — and nobody knows exactly why."

The dealers Barber of the TNRCC said the agency is counting heavily on input from dealers to help find cars susceptible to the glitch.

"The dealer is the one we have to rely on, because people bring them there for repair when they fail," she said. "It would be quite helpful if the dealer would put them through the drive cycles and see what's happening with the readiness codes."

Independent Volvo dealer Jon Howes, co-owner of Southwest Auto shop in Dallas, says his dealership is inspecting 30 to 35 vehicles a month. But he washed his hands of performing the "drive cycle" procedure — which involves stopping and starting and driving at various speeds — after he and his wife, Maryjane, made an earnest attempt to re-set the ready status of a Volvo that had failed inspection.

"Essentially it takes two people in the car — one driving and one riding shotgun with a stopwatch," Howes said. "It's a very dangerous thing; it scared me to death. It was only safe on a couple of highways. Over a two-week period we went out on George Bush Turnkpike and we saw others doing this.

"This is massively dangerous," he said. "I just determined that it was far too dangerous for me or anyone working for me to do it."

Now he takes the cars to authorized dealers like Point West Volvo in Irving, where service manager William Martin said it took several weeks of dealing with the state to discover the readiness-issue problem. The shop was backlogged on its inspections, customers were angry and Point West initially was charging $275 to cover labor costs of the "drive cycle" time.

The manufacturer has since decided to pick up the tab.

Howes says one of his customers who drives a 1997 Volvo S90 that failed the test earlier this summer is still driving around without an inspection sticker.

"It was so much hassle," said Howes, "he hasn't bothered to get it inspected at all."

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-- Anonymous, August 13, 2002