Bates

Congrats on the new car! Glad you could move the 928. I had vacuum leak which set off the CEL on my way to the E-check! Hope you get this cleared up sooner than later.

Th Dude

Thanks for the advice and the positive comments.

I plan to follow the drive cycle procedure outlined in the link that neanicu kindly located. I'll post the results soon.

Macster

I believe someone has touched upon this but what happened is when you cleared the misfire error code this reset all readiness monitors to incomplete.

It takes a 'drive cycle' to set these to complete.

Some MYs and some models are more difficult to get this done as the drive cycle is weird.

My info is one can have only 2 readiness monitors set to incomplete and none of the critical ones.

Guess which ones are critical?

Catalyst
Evaporative system
Oxygen sensor

Your car had 2 of the above set to incomplete.

Even though the car is clean because of the above incomplete monitors the tech can't give your car a stamp of approval.

You'll have to drive the car some.

This can be tricky though. The tendency is to get in the car and drive it like is playing fast and furious in real life.

This may (probably) won't work.

The drive cycle is a rather sedate drive.

For my 03 Turbo and my 02 Boxster what I have found works for me is to start the engine cold. Let it idle until the secondary air injection pump shuts off and the idle speed smooths and drops to near normal.

Then I drive the car around on surface streets trying to reach and maintain a steady speed of say between 30 and 45mph for some distance. How much distance? Well blocks at least.

Then once the car is warmed up I get on the freeway and drive at a constant or near constant speed of however fast the traffic allows.

I avoid hard acceleration and such but I do run the rpms up to 3K and nearer 4K in some cases. I just avoid full throttle hard acceleration runs that's all.

Then after 25 or so miles I drop off the freeway and drive on surface roads to my office.

The above just so happens to be my work commute.

Now there may be a shorter drive cycle -- in fact I know there is for some models because a tech told me for the GT3 it's drive cycle can require just 15 minutes of driving but this is with a computer signaling the tech/driver what to do, when to turn on the lights, A/C, turn them off, etc -- but I do not know it for the Turbo. BTW, the techs tell me in the case of the 996 Turbo the readiness monitors are tested twice if the drive cycle is long enough.

Before I take my Boxster or Turbo in for a smog check I drive the car like I described above and even then afterwards I use an OBD2 code reader/data viewer tool to read the readiness monitor statuses to ensure they are all set to complete.

Do not clear any codes, even if the CEL is off, for this resets the readiness monitors back to incomplete again. If the CEL is on your car/engine has a problem that must be fixed before it can pass smog.

Also, I try to avoid shutting off the engine, letting the engine idle while I arrange to have the car smogged.

So, naturally I pick a time when the smog check station is not busy at all so I can just pull in park the car right at the door run in the office and get the ball rolling.

Be sure you fill up the tank with a top tier gas and that it is not stale. I like Shell but Chevron or another top tier gas is ok.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Th Dude

Thanks for the detailed reply, Mac.

I went through this procedure....

and it worked like a charm on the first try.

This Porsche document came from the same thread....

Th Dude

Also....car passed smog with flying colors and the misfire code has yet to reappear.
Thanks again for the helpful replies.

32krazy!

for anyone interested in tn you get 2 trys to pass for the same fee of 10$. after the first try i did a drive cycle then went to advance auto and asked them to scan my car to see if the parameters had reset. they will check the car for free and once they confirm it was ready away to emissions i went!!

Hurdigurdiman

I changed coils and plugs and got po306 and P1318 which both pointed to a misfire on cylinder 6.... The CEL flashed first then settled steady. I found it straight away. The plug was not pushed down fully on the #6 coil. Check your plug to #3 cylinder. Right now I am trying to get all monitors ready. Will try it now as the roads are very quiet at 1-30am lol.

"02996ttx50

what a timely thread resurrection as its 2 am and I'm about to attempt ( again ) to obtain the last and recalcitrant "cat ready" code needed so i can satisfy the demands of our perfectly reasonable smog test requirements.

what ever happened to thdude anyway?

RngTrtl

get yourself a bluetooth odb-II adapter and then download the torque app. It has a screen showing readiness of all parameters. the adapters are like 20 bux on ebay.

"02996ttx50

thx, no i have a reader? thats not the issue(?).

its simply that that particular ( and the final one needed! ) isn't reading "ready". thx for the tip though. unless i am missing something, its not that i dont know their condition of "ready/not ready" ..

its simply i cant seem to get the last ( and most difficult one ) to "set"!

this is a ******* nightmare.

add:

BTW for anyone living this nightmare now or future:

this BS isn't new.

this from a very old R-List poster: it's 100% on point.

"Sorry in advance as this is a long reply ! I just completed the smog test on my '96 TT yesterday and I thought that some ideas and a summary might help you. Here is what I went through and was told throughout my "ordeal".

1.) The state (DMV, Air Resource Board, etc.) wants to collect a statistic on how many vehicles fail when just driven in for a smog test. No pretest, no adjustment, just drive in and test. This is why we have the "test only" requirement and specific "test only" stations many of us are facing and having to deal with. The problem here is that the ODB2 can fail you on an obscure technicality and no one seems to know what to do but go to the referee. The specific per vehicle are too varied to be generalized into the cottage smog testing industry. The early ODB2 cars were not intended to be tested this way!

2.) Unfortunately, when this idea was put into practice, some of the codes that are read as part of the OBD2 portion of the test would fail vehicles due to just "minor" code technicalilty such as having disconnecting a battery sometime since last cleared. The "readiness" codes on the MY96/97 Porsches are a good example of these technicalities caised from a battery disconnect. No "check engine light" as you drive in, yet you fail. With my car, the battery had been disconnected as one of the Litronics ignitors needed replacement. The "books" calls for the battery to be disconnected. Oops, readiness codes cleared !Simply having disconnected a battery recently will cause these codes to be flagged as "not passed" by the CA smog program. The thought here is that your vehicle fails for suposedly being not "ready" for a smog test because someone might have recently worked on / tampered with the car...UGH ! Basically, when the theory was taken into the real world, many of us got caught in this crazy dilemma of citizens beign used to collect sample data for the air resource board's agenda...or so I think! Remember, the idea is to see how many cars fail without a mechanic pre-testing and making adjustments before the "real" reported smog test.

3.) If someone knows the readiness code setting proceedure, it can be done in about 2 hours. YOu need methods of knowing the ODB2 load values and the correct timing sequence for setting the codes.

4.) All of this becomes more of a value of your time vs. money. Paying a good engine management tech to set the codes, or taking your time going to the referee. Either will work, boils down to your preference.

Basically. I tried to set these flags on my own having someone tell me a sure fire "method". No luck. Next I went to a dealer who had my car for two days. In the end they wnated to sell me a new ECU. Finally, I got hooked up with a tech who knew the proceedure and did the work properly. With that work complete, I passed at the amazement of the "test only" station tech. He already had the numbers of the referee station and the computer churned dialing into the state system.

If I had to do it again, I might just go the referee route. However, I now feel that I know the ODB2 ECU issues more than I likely wanted to !"

"02996ttx50

SUCCESS!

627 miles all under 3k rpm and never over 60 mph. try that some time for sh*t's and giggles.

i seriously considered getting rid of the car. ( for a millisecond ).

z06801

It sucked just doing it for 15minutes on my drive cycle, (for the 3rd time) driving in the right lane moms in mini vans looking at you like your crazy for going 57 average speed here is about 75 I bet

"02996ttx50

no kidding people are plain nuts. had a woman cursing me out while i was going barely the speed limit.

im in LA. waddya a gonna do ha. 627 miles though argh... was hellish!

cwilt

Although I feel your pain... It's a bit fun watching people flying by you willing to accept the ticket that lies ahead. I Had plenty of those people today.

California emissions sounds horrible and I feel for you guys out there, however I thank you for the input on this matter. Very informative.

Under 3K rpm's and under 60? My hat is off to you! Well done Sir and thanks for sharing.

"02996ttx50

thank you. it wasn't easy, and to reward myself i have been re-discovering the benefits of the upper rev limit.

the suffering i endured has wholly subsided.