I tried to get my car inspected the other day and received a fail due to 3 incomplete diagnostic tests. The week before I pulled the negative cable for about 8 hours to clear any lingering codes (I threw one a few months back after I killed the battery, assumed the car was angry because the charging system was being overworked or some such). In any event, I seem to remember reading that there was a way to determine that all the tests had been completed by the behavior of the CEL when the car is started or when the key is in the "on" position but the car is off, but in all my searching I cannot find that info again! I'd like to avoid going back to the inspection station and waiting just to fail again, how can I determine my computer is ready without a scanner?

Thanks in advance-

K

 

many generic scanners now have the MIL status which when it says it is ok means that the system is ready for inspection. most inspection stations now run the MIL test to see if someone had cleared the codes prior to arriving at the station so that they can pass inspection. you should be able to go to autozone or any of the parts stores and ask the guy to run the MIL status test. It normally takes a bit of driving before the system is fully ready.

 

Thanks for the advice. I thought I would drive it and keep checking it like once per week. If I can't get it to reset I'll swap out the O2 sensors (as I think they're original and there's 130k on the clock now). Maybe sluggish sensors are causing the tests to take a long time to reset.