During pandemic, you may not drive your car as frequently as you normally does and you may fail the OBD-II inspection with "Not Ready" status (i.e., your inspection failed).
In this article, we will cover two topics:
- What is OBD-II monitor readiness?
- How to pass the OB-II inspection?
What is OBD-II monitor readiness?
On 1996 and newer model year vehicles, the on board diagnostic system (OBD-II) performs up to eleven diagnostic checks of vehicle emission control systems. These checks are performed in the background during normal driving and are designed not to interfere with vehicle performance or safety.
If a fault is detected, the powertrain control module (PCM – The computer) illuminates the malfunction indicator light (MIL – Check Engine – Service Vehicle Soon).
If the PCM loses power for any reason (Including a disconnected or depleted battery), or if diagnostic trouble codes are cleared using a diagnostic scan tool, readiness monitors will indicate an incomplete, or not ready, status.
If your vehicle recently needed a jumpstart or you replaced the battery, wait at least a week before taking the smog test. Whenever a car's computer loses power, it erases the internal self-test monitors, including the emission monitor that's required to pass a smog check.
How to Pass the OBD-II Inspection?
In most cases, a vehicle with incomplete readiness monitors will not pass the State Vehicle Inspection (See [1]). However, don't panic yet because you can correct the issue with a simple solution:
Driving the vehicle under conditions that meet the monitor enabling criteria should complete most OBD-II monitors. This is usually accomplished after fifty to one-hundred miles of normal driving.
For example, I have sent my car for the State Vehicle Inspection. However, it failed with OBD-II monitor not ready status, which means that my car inspection failed.
The simple reason is that I have driven my car only once in the past week before sending it for the vehicle inspection. To correct the issue, what I need to do is just driving my car for over 50 miles before sending it immediately for the inspection.
