Getting Legal

My then 18-year-old Miata in 2012 above Fontana Lake, NC

Changing my papers to reflect residence in New Jersey wasn't difficult. I spent a couple of hours at the DOT office in Oakland and left with a new license and tags for my car and two motorcycles. The difficulty came later, when I took my 1996 Miata for inspection.

I took my car to the private inspection station at the LukOil station in Wanaque-- or was it Haskell? I'm never sure where one town starts and other ends. To my surprise the car failed.

The reason wasn't out of bounds emissions but rather lack of communication with my car's computer. The man in charge told me the car had been disconnected from the battery.

The car had not in fact been disconnected from the battery, but my battery was five years old and due for replacement, so I ordered a replacement and installed it-- and new plugs and plug wires, since it had been a couple of years since I changed them. I drove the car around as the garage had suggested and took it back for reinspection-- same problem.

I drove to another private inspection station and got the same result. They suggested I have the computer rebooted by the dealer, so I did something I have never ever done in my life-- I took my car to a dealership. I told the service manager at Ramsey Mazda I wanted the computer rebooted and a explanation why oxygen, catalytic converter, and exhaust gas recirculation vale sensors were showing as offline.

The dealer kept my car over the long Memorial Day weekend and called me on Tuesday to tell me it was ready to be picked up. I had my sweetie drop me off on Wednesday morning. The clerk at the service desk told me the Miata needed oxygen sensors and a catalytic converter, to the tune of $1300.

Yeah, right. I paid only $2300 for the car.

I wasn't about to pay until someone explained what was going on with the computer, but the service manager was off and the person in charge was reluctant to let me speak with the mechanic. Initially I decided to sit in the waiting room until Heather got off work but I soon said the hell with that and kept pestering people until I got the name of the owner of the dealership. I called and left a message on his machine, and wouldn't you know it, within 15 minutes I was chatting with the mechanic while a nervous assistant service manager fidgeted and sweated.

I left satisfied with the mechanic's explanation-- the car needed at least one of the oxygen sensors replaced and the O2 sensor wouldn't report until it did-- and until the O2 sensors were functioning the sensors down the line (oxygen sensor heater, catalytic converter, EGR) would also show as incomplete.

In other words, the service manager had lied to me. It was entirely possible my car needed a new catalytic converter, but that couldn't be determined until the oxygen sensors were replaced.

I paid and left. When I got home I went online and ordered two Bosch oxygen sensors. The forward sensor was less than $35. I could have gotten a generic rear sensor for the same price, but opted to pay a little over $100 for a sensor that wouldn't require splicing wires.

Two days later the sensors arrived at the house. I called Community Auto Repair in Wanaque and scheduled repair for the next morning. They installed the new sensors while I waited.

Surprisingly, the car ran better with the new sensors. Definitely, one of them had been bad.

I put the car through a drive cycle. If you don't know what a drive cycle is, it's a series of maneuvers that will force the computer to do all its checks and turn the sensors on. It consists of things like revving the engine to 2300-2700 rpm for 20 seconds and 4300-4700 rpm for twenty seconds, driving for three minutes at 50-55 mph,  driving 13 minutes at speeds between 15 and 35 mph, and driving at exactly 25 mph for three minutes. That's not exactly easy on high speed roads, so I took the car down Long Meadow Road and annoyed a lot of van drivers bringing volunteer workers to the Jehovah's Witnesses world headquarters complex being built just a mile or so from Sterling Mine Road.

After the drive cycle the O2 sensors reported ready. How did I know that? I had ordered a code reader from Amazon. It was easy to plug it in and check the status of my car's computer. The O2 warmers and catalytic converter sensors also read ready, but unfortunately the EGR was still offline.

I had no idea what an EGR was, so I read up on it when I got home. The valve could be cleaned, but since my car has 135k miles I thought it might be a good idea to order a new one at a price just above $100. Then I said the hell with it and ordered a new catalytic converter, which also cost just a little more than $100.

When the parts arrived I had Community Auto Repair install them and put the car through a drive cycle. When the sensors all showed ready status I took the car back to the LukOil, turned it off, and read the codes so I would be positive the car was ready for testing.

To my surprise, the car again failed, and for the same reason-- plugging the official code reader in had cleared the computer.

That meant another couple of damn drive cycles to get the computer to update-- and it meant going back to the drawing board.

I called the DOT and was told to take my car to a licensed emission repair facility. If the computer was unreadable there they could do some paperwork and I could apply for an exemption. I figured that meant my car would get a tailpipe probe, but that didn't worry me. The check engine light was off and the car had no codes and the sensors were all online. And so I took my car to the Sunoco station on Franklin Avenue in Mahwah and told them my woes. The very nice man who worked on my car did a capture of the computer readings to verify everything was as it should be, then said "Hold your breath" and did the official inspection. To my surprise, and his, the computer retained its settings and my Miata passed inspection. I now have a huge ugly New Jersey inspection sticker on the inside of the lower driver's side windshield of my car.

I gave the inspection guy two cinnamon sugar cake donuts from Antie El's Market in Sloatsburg.