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I've been having trouble getting my Cat to "ready" for a CA smog. All of the other monitors are ready, it's just the Cat that I'm having trouble with. I've done several drive cycles and still no success. The smog shop even tried to run the GT3 on their dyno and still no luck.
I've read some people taking it to the dealership to have it "forced ready." Anyone have experience with that or know a shop near Burbank might be able to help?
I still have until November before the registration is due but just frustrating trying to figure this out!
Stuttgart1, I did the exact same drive cycle you listed a couple times and tried another drive cycle that the smog shop printed out specifically for Porsche.
Verbatim drive cycle from the shop:
Porsche Catalyst Monitor Drive Trace
Pre-Conditioning Requirements
MIL must be off
Outside temperature must be above 14F
Engine speed must be between 1100 and 2600 rpm
Engine load must be between 1.0 & 2.8 ms
Driving Procedure
1) Drive for about 10 minutes without stopping at highway speed (speed may vary).
2) Drive at four (4) separate steady speeds between 30 & 70, 300 seconds each time without moving the accelerator pedal.
As you can see both are different methods and both didn't work (for me). I believe the one you listed is for BMW's but some Porsche owners have had some success. The only potential problem I can see with my drive cycles is that there's no way to seamlessly conduct the drive 'as written' since the freeway just isn't close enough and have to stop for lights but I heard it shouldn't matter (so they say).
The shop owner said he has come across a few Porsche's lately with the same problem and was able to ready one of them by driving around some more and the other he got to 'ready' on the dyno within 5 minutes.
My 6-3 is completely stock with 3800 miles so I can't believe the cats or sensors are bad.
Jon,
I drove the car tonight for a good 1hr at steady speed, under 3k rpm and 50-60mph, I still not able to get the cat to ready. I use my generic OBD scanner and it was able to tell me what's ready and what's incomplete, it comes in handy so you don't have to take the car in everytime to scan the ECU. I will drive the car some more in next few days and see I can get my catalytic to ready. I'll let you know my findings. If you find out on the 'force ready' method please let me know. Thanks!
The problem with the driving procedures is you need to do this in the early morning in a semi-remote area so other drivers do not interfere.
I tried the one below with no luck. The SMOG shop where I brought my car said he is seeing more of this, not just on Porsches. His remedy was drive it 500 miles more and see him again. Thank you Governor "Moon Beam"☭
I just went through this in Colorado. There isn't a "force ready" per se, but mechanics with the Porsche computer (PIWIS?) have the ability to trigger a "Short Test" that will result in the monitors showing up as ready if the cats are performing near enough to factory spec.
In my case, my new Fabspeed cats weren't working well enough. So although I wasn't getting a CEL, the monitors refused to show ready. I had to install O2 extenders and then run the short test. That did the trick and I was able to pass inspection.
Anybody running into this problem with swapping the stock exhaust on and trying to get the readiness check to pass for the cats? I run a Speedtech 3" XCellerator Catless, last year I swapped stock exhaust on and it passed smog, just wondering if this method would still apply.
Anybody running into this problem with swapping the stock exhaust on and trying to get the readiness check to pass for the cats? I run a Speedtech 3" XCellerator Catless, last year I swapped stock exhaust on and it passed smog, just wondering if this method would still apply.
That's what I did. Put full stock exhaust back on the did the "special" drive cycle until shop read that everything was clear. Slowly drove to nearest smog check place for them to run the test and get the paper work. Drive back over to shop and put the full trick exhaust back on.
Wanted to post an update to this thread for future reference.
I ran a few more drive cycles with zero success. I did have a brief moment when the scan tool showed up 'All Ready' but disappeared after I hit scan again.
I gave up and tried to make an appointment at Werks II and Rusnak Porsche, but both were too busy to call me back so I ended up scheduling an appointment with Scientific Auto in Pasadena for a diagnostic this morning.
Jack (the owner) spent a couple hours working on it. He used the Porsche PWIS and had to clear out all of the existing fault codes, (because of a dead battery a couple years ago, he says, like the instrument cluster, radio, etc.), then he was able to reset all of the emissions monitors and do a drive cycle. His first drive cycle (about 45 min) still didn't get the catalyst to 'ready' and he was about to give up and hinting at my O2 sensors being bad, but he tried one last time. He reset all the monitors again and went for a rather short drive (less than five minutes) and got every monitor to ready! He pulled into the smog station next door right away, but probably didn't matter. When I got home, I scanned again and monitor was still ready even after a nice spirited drive.
He did say it was challenging because he needed to rely on the exact sequence from the PWIS before moving onto the next monitor. Needless to say it was a $300 well spent. I could have spent that on fuel, and the cat monitors still might not have been ready!
...so a happy 'smog' ending for owner and 6-GT3. Thanks Jack and Scientific Auto!
Hope the rest of you have better luck on your drive cycles!
Thanks for the update Jon.
I took my car to my mechanic today (RMG Enterprise), the short test method will work as long as the mechanic know what he is doing using the PWIS. RMG did a short test on my car which took less than 30min and no drive cycle require. Got all 8 monitors to ready once able to run the cat short test. Got smog done afterwards and I am good to go
10-08-2015, 07:56 PM
CA Smog - Cat Not Ready
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