QuestionEmissions test done for the first time. (car 3 years old) Required for inspection. Car failed due to computer saying not ready. Battery has never been disconnected from the car. Hyundai put it through four drive cycles. Still does not pass. They said they just have to keep doing drive cycles until car passes. Meanwhile they already have the car one week How may times does it take?
AnswerNot ready indicates that all of the fuel management system's self-diagnostic tests have not yet completed. If the vehicle has been through four complete drive cycles, then all tests should have run. I suspect that the car hasn't actually been through four drive cycles. More likely, someone has driven the vehicle four times. A drive cycle, by definition, is the driving necessary for all diagnostic self-tests to run. Unfortunately, very few single trips constitute a whole drive cycle.
Each test needs certain conditions to be able to run. Depending on the test, the necessary conditions vary. The hardest test to complete on your vehicle is the catalyst test. Typically, completing the catalyst test requires the oxygen sensor tests to complete and pass, and then the vehicle be driven when at operating temperature on the highway at steady speed for the sensors to monitor your catalyst efficiency. Another test that, depending on the type of driving, frequently doesn't run is the evaporative emissions self-test. Completing this test, however, doesn't even require the vehicle to be driven. The dealer can complete it using the Hyundai scan tool.
If the dealer has just been test driving the car a little each day, you could perhaps suggest to them that they could have a technician (or advisor) drive it overnight for a couple days in an attempt to get the tests to run.
Also, if you can identify for me which tests have not yet run, I may be able to assist in telling you what is necessary for that test to run. This information may or may not be on your emissions report.
