State Goes the Extra Mile, Borrows Cars to Test Smog Devices
Albina Vannucci found this incredible offer in her mail one day last November: $50 cash, a free tank of gas, a wash, free repairs and a loan car. All for giving her 1986 Dodge Colt to a state agency for a few days of smog tests.
A week later, Vannucci’s Colt came home with a brand new exhaust manifold. The California testing program--unique among states nationally--had uncovered cracks in the original, factory-installed equipment.
“I thought it was a good deal,” said Vannucci, of Whittier. “I got to get my car checked over for free.”
At a cost of $1.2 million a year, the state pays two Orange County firms to procure vehicles such as Vannucci’s Colt for testing. They mail thousands of letters each month to owners throughout Southern California, soliciting participation.
Sophisticated Testing
Unlike the familiar annual smog checks performed by gas stations for auto registration renewals, which only catch gross polluters, the testing program is sophisticated enough to determine whether smog control devices are living up to manufacturers’ predictions of reliability and effectiveness. State officials say the Air Resources Board program is well worth the money, especially now that local government agencies are under pressure to step up the war against air pollution. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, for example, recently adopted goals that include massive amounts of car-pooling and cleaner fuels for everything from automobiles to dry-cleaning businesses. The reason is simple: Southern California still does not meet federal clean air standards.
Similar tests are conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, primarily on vehicles from the Washington area. State officials share information with the EPA, resulting in some recalls of vehicles nationwide instead of merely those registered in California.
“California has a very good program,” said Richard D. Wilson, director of the EPA’s Office of Mobil Sources. “It’s been very helpful to have California do their own program. They give us leads, and sometimes they get leads from us. They do a very good job.”
Once volunteered by their owners, the cars and trucks in the California testing programs are sent to either to the California Air Resources Board’s Haagen-Smit Laboratory in El Monte, for engine research, or to labs owned by Automated Custom Systems Inc. of Orange and Automotive Testing Development Inc. of Huntington Beach. The two firms, under contract with the state, test vehicles to determine their level of compliance with state rules on emissions. The amounts allowed vary according to engine type and size, and the limits are more strict than those of the EPA.
Since 1983, when the little-known testing programs began, about 1,000 Southern California residents have loaned their cars and trucks, resulting in some costly recalls for auto makers--300,000 vehicles in 1988 alone.
Overall, 16 engine types or 50% of the 32 tested in 1988 for “in-use compliance” with state regulations failed, either because they were spewing out too much pollution or because their emission control systems were breaking down and did not meet California’s durability standards. From 1986 to 1988, the tests triggered 12 recalls.
Last year, partly as a result of earlier testing, 13 engine types involving thousands of cars were scheduled for parts replacements, through recalls, including five for faulty catalytic converters, two for faulty fuel injectors, four for manifolds and two for computer chips.
That may seem like a lot of failures. But state officials caution that the test sample is biased--the program targets mostly vehicles that are already suspect.
But in the battle for cleaner skies, not everyone buys the state’s offer of money and a free loan car.
“We’ve had a few people who thought they would never see their car again, that we would take it and sell it in Mexico or something,” says K.D. Drachand, chief of the Air Resources Board’s Mobil Sources Division.
Despite the incentives, including a promise that vehicle owners will not be cited for any violations of state law on emission controls, it takes about 2,500 letters to find a few dozen owners willing to part with vehicles powered by a targeted engine model, and only 14 eventually survive pre-test screening.
A Cadillac owner once refused to accept the Chrysler LeBaron loan car he was offered, forcing a search for another Cadillac as a replacement. A Jaguar owner had to be given $150 before he would participate.
Why do people loan their cars? “It seems like the money gets people’s attention, but also they are extremely concerned about getting clean air in Southern California,” said Robert A. Cassidy, Automated Custom Systems’ director of vehicle compliance.
Vehicles selected for testing are listed on a what Air Resources Board officials jokingly call the “war board” in an office next to their state-run smog lab in in El Monte. Nearby, a dart board displays auto makers’ names or emblems cut out of magazine ads.
During a recent visit most of the darts were clustered around “Hyundai,” whose cars did not fare well in recent tests.
Generally, Ford and Mitsubishi products fail the smog tests more often than others, partly because they have been selected for the tests more often, say Air Resources Board officials. When one type of vehicle equipped with a particular engine fails the state tests, such as a Dodge Colt, other cars with the same or similar equipment, such as the Mitsubishi Mirage, are tested too. And subsequent model years will be checked unless the manufacturer corrects the defect or discontinues an engine type.
Mazdas have always passed, officials said. Corvettes do well too, destroying a popular myth that high-performance cars are “dirty.”
Only cars that have accumulated less than 50,000 miles of use are selected due to legal limits on manufacturers’ liability for faulty emission control systems. Motorists must answer a long questionnaire about the care and use of their vehicles. They must document regular maintenance, and officials check repair shop records and receipts.
Manufacturers send their own technicians to monitor the tests, which usually involve 10 to 14 cars or trucks equipped with the same engine. The engines are examined for unusual wear, such as scarring on cylinder walls caused by insufficient oil levels, to ensure that test results won’t be influenced by factors beyond the manufacturer’s control or responsibility.
In Automated Custom Systems’ Orange laboratory, a room within a warehouse is filled with a bank of computers and test gear on one wall, like the control center for a nuclear reactor.
Cars and trucks were sprinkled at various work stations. Technicians screened one car for abnormalities before testing. Another was on a dynamometer with a driver following a prescribed acceleration-deceleration pattern designed to approximate an average trip on the streets and freeways of Los Angeles.
Another car was “soaking” in a shed, or being tested for emissions that occur when vehicles are parked with their motors turned off.
Automated Custom Systems tests 25 to 30 cars a week for the state, but also has other clients. Auto makers hire the firm to conduct vehicle tests, and the company has done work for the government of South Korea, the state of Arizona and New York City, among others.
Most auto makers are cooperative when informed that one of their engine groups has failed, according to state officials.
“We have engineers on site when these programs (tests) are run, primarily because we want to make sure that the conclusions reached are correct,” said Doug Berens, Ford Motor Co.’s director of compliance testing. “All in all, they (the Air Resources Board) do a fairly decent job. . . . We have had situations where we’ve had a component failure. The quality of the part just wasn’t there. It was not built to be robust enough. You learn things about your products that you’re not always proud of, and then we fix it as quickly as we can.”
There are disagreements over how much consumers should be blamed. Berens said that pre-test screening sometimes fails to detect owner abuse. In some cases, he said, Ford has successfully negotiated to have the results from a particular car thrown out because they varied so much from the rest of the sample that they could not be trusted.
“We’re not too happy that they’re testing our cars, but we think it works pretty well,” said Frank Slaveter, Nissan’s U.S. technical compliance manager.
The tests forced Nissan to replace exhaust gas sensors on about 3,600 1982 280-ZXs at a cost of about $370,000.
“It’s expensive,” Slaveter said. “But there is only one area where I think things fall short--there is a tremendous burden placed on us in terms of our responsibility, and you don’t find that kind of comprehensive testing on any other pollution source. But the car owner has no (corresponding) legal obligation to respond to a recall to get their cars fixed.”
The Air Resources Board can order a recall. If a manufacturer refuses, the board can seek a court order. So far, however, no manufacturer has refused, according to the board.
“Surprisingly, the manufacturers with the worst record tend to be the most cooperative,” said Michael W. Carter, the board’s compliance testing program manager. “We’re able to negotiate voluntary recalls, where necessary. . . . The program has led, I think, to a major benefit in the quality of Southern California’s air.”
For example, the board is currently negotiating a recall with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. of America involving 1986 Colts and Mirages. Mitsubishi officials did not return phone calls, but John M. Urkov, an air pollution specialist with the Air Resources Board, said the company is scheduled to file a repair-equipment update plan later this month.
Environmentalists approve of the board’s testing programs, according to John White, a Sacramento-based lobbyist for both the Sierra Club and the Air Resources Board. California’s tests are “better than anyone else’s, including the EPA’s,” White said.
But environmentalists are seeking to make the regulations restricting emissions even tougher, as evidence mounts that current automotive technology is up to the task. As a result, said White, the Air Resources Board is likely to toughen vehicle emission standards soon.
In the ongoing war against air pollution, the tour of duty for Albina Vannucci’s 1986 Dodge Colt did not end at the lab in Orange.
Notified of the results, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. of America, which makes Colts and Mirages, pounced.
This was no recall. Mitsubishi’s engineers wanted more information about the car’s emission control system. Through Automated Custom Systems--the same firm that procured the cars for the Air Resources Board--Mitsubishi made the same offer to Vannucci: $50, free gas, a wash and a loan car.
Now Vannucci’s Colt sports a new catalytic converter and carburetor.
“It’s wonderful,” said Vannucci. “I got hundreds of dollars of repairs for nothing, and I didn’t even know anything was wrong.”
Emissions Tests Here are the 1988 results of the California Air Resources Board’s “in-use” compliance tests, which are intended to show whether manufacturers are meeting state standards for emissions and durability (50,000 miles of service). Manufacturer, Engine Family 1985 MODELS Failed: BMW: 1.8L Ford: 1.9L Mitsubishi: 2.0L-T Ford: 3.8L Marginal Fail: Audi: 2.2L General Motors: 2.8L-T Chrysler: 5.2L-T Passed: Nissan: 2.4L-T General Motors: 5.OL Honda: 1.8L Mazda: 1.1L Toyota: 1.6L Volkswagen: 1.8L Nissan: 1.6L 1986 MODELS Failed: Hyundai: 1.5L AMC (Chrysler): 2.8L-T Jaguar: 4.2L Ford: 2.5L Mitsubishi: 1.5L Ford: 5.0L Marginal Fail: Subaru: 1.8L Passed: Suzuki: 1.3L-T Volvo: 2.3L Isuzu: 1.5L Nummi (Toyota-GM): 1.6L Chrysler: 2.5L General Motors: 5.7L General Motors: 2.8L Mazda: 2.0L-T Toyota: 2.4L-T Honda: 2.0L Volkswagen: 1.8L General Motors: 2.0L L-Liter T-Turbo Note: A marginal failure involves test results that are borderline or, for example, when an engine family passes tests for 2 out of 3 pollutants and is only 0.1 of a gram above the limiton the third Source: California Air Resources Board
