Brucechas

Greetings Fellow Brethren,

I own a 75 911 with a 930 engine that's in terrific condition and Thankfully exempt from smog testing here in California. I'm thinking of trading up to a 993 and am wondering if there are smog issues in these models. I got spoiled not having to deal with the smog inspections with my present 911.

Thanking you in advance,

Bruce

Rick Lee

If you get a check engine light, you will fail smog just about anywhere in the US now. And CEL's are not uncommon in 96-98 993's. I have one now too and although I'm sure my car would pass any sniff test, the lit CEL in my dash will fail me.

kjr914

Do a search on some of these keywords:

"smog" and variants "smog check" "smog inspection", etc
"CEL" = Check Engine Light, which can cause you to fail a smog test
"SAI" = Secondary Air Injection (?), which is the issue the CEL light points to and this CAN lead to an engine top-end rebuild or some other miracle fixes to rid yourself of the dreaded CEL...
"OBDII" or "OBD II" "OBD 2" = On Board Diagnostics, which are the codes tell you what is wrong with the car
'smog referee station" (or something like that) = seems there might be a way around the CEL light IF you go to the right smog station....

Cheers,
Keith

Mark in Baltimore

At least in Maryland, if your car is low enough, you'll get a waiver and not be forced to have the car checked. Your state may vary.

Porscheologist

I own a 95 and I just passed smog here in San Diego CA with flying colors. No issues at all. In fact the tech said he was amazed at how low the emmisions were for a 12 year old car

william_b_noble

I've had two issues affect passing smog - the standard SAI problem, and an inability to set all the cycle monitors (and without them, the OBDII doesn't report "ready") - the first time I paid a dealer to drive the car around to set the monitors, the second time I got the OBD manual and an AutoXray EZscan 6000 sensor and was able to get the monitors to set.

For the SAI, I've changed the check valve and cleaned the ports, aprox 10,000 miles later the check engine light is back with an SAI indication (P0410 code), so tomorrow is time for some diagnostics.

Expect this kind of issue - but in comparison to my 356A, I'd say reliability is better - I had weird problems on the 356, like metal fatigue causing carb float to sink, and of course the car has no AC or usable heater, or much of any other creature comfort..... so 40 years of progress is worth something