FYI, in CA the seller is responsible for the smog when the vehicle is sold. If you sell a vehicle that can't pass smog the buy can legally hold you responsible for the repairs. You don't want that.

Still, let's make good and sure of what is wrong with the engine. If all it needs is a valve job you might not need an entire new engine. Or, maybe you feel the engine is old enough to warrant replacing.

Frank

 

i agree with someone on here... MOVE OUT OF CALIFORNIA. lol.

 

I think if a dealership wants to sell you a car they will give you a good deal on your 4Runner. I would shop around and see what some of the dealers will offer you for trade in.

 

come out here to vegas... theres a dealership out here that will give you at least 5 grand or more on your trade in or will make your first 4 payments. and theres a chevy dealer out here that if they cant qualify you, they will give you a free corvette. no idea how that works, but theyre ideas

 

People, step back for a minute, we have a truck that needs to be fixed. Stop trying to beat the system that is trying to keep air clean for our kids and grandkids. That very selfish and short sighted. Besides, CA is just that good that putting up with these types of things is insignificant.

Again, we don't know for sure what is wrong with this truck. You are all going on what a test only station says. BTW, be glad you went to that and not a smog/repair shop. Test only stations are there to prevent those of us with older vehicles from being ripped off. Imagine you go to a smog/repair and get the line, "you need a complete rebuild or you can't pass and register your car/truck....". Imagine how many people would be taken advantage of.

edit: I thought you went to test only but re-reading now I'm not sure? Anyway, doesn't matter.

Frank

 

great point. ok, get a second opinion on the truck, a lot of mechanics try to get more money out of you than is necessery. or drop a new cat on it and see what happens.

 

Definitely post up your smog numbers though, that is helpful in diagnosing these problems.

Just an FYI, but often if you have lots of unburned fuel passing into the exhaust which can be the case with poor combustion, that causes the cat to overheat and melt its innards. You might need a new one either way. However, I would first make sure of what is wrong with the engine and fix it. You can then retest and most places will give you a free retest if you fail. If your NOX is too high, you can be quite sure the cat is bad. If it passes, well you saved the money on a new cat.

Frank

 

Check you AS valve is working correctly, It lets in O2 which helps the CAT do its thing.
A new CAT all together can make a big difference, Just a suggestion.

Crazy Idea,,,,, Pull the injector plug off that injector of the bad cylinder, You wont get any CEL but it will lope some and lose a bit of power, It will pass smog though. ( Yes the ECU will add more fuel to the other cylinders for the extra air passing the bad cylinder but it pushing up to Stoich insted of pulling down to stoich from unburnt fuel).

CA only cares that all things are viusually hooked up and that the readings are right, They will pass an engine that is missing on 2 cylinders and get good readings out the pipe.

 

It's not going to pass smog with an injector disconnected

 

If it will not smog, somthing is wrong and it needs to be fixed. If something else on it is jerry-rigged to get it pass, the vehicle is still haywire. The problem needs to be fixed, whether one believes that pollution is a problem or not.

 

Not everyone can afford a total rebuild of an engine that still runs fine, but just doesn't pass rediculous CA emissions standards. Bottom line, as a lifetime Californian, I would not lose any sleep at night knowing that my vehicle might run a little dirtier than others. My advice to you is to get a new catalytic converter. In my 4Runner with 180,000 miles, I didn't pass smog the 1st time, in fact, it was WAY off...but I bought a new high flow cat, and I passed with only .10 CO2 emissions, and no detectable amounts of anything else. The new cat was only like $100, so it'd be worth your time to try that.

 

In my old Chevy day's, mine wouldn't pass smog here in Wa. either. Too many goodies, pistons, cam, headers, carb, etc.

I'd run the fuel tank down to around 5 gallons of gas, add a gallon of Isopropyl
Alcohol. The drive back to the test station would mix it up, and the truck would pass with ease.

Get the paperwork and haul down to the local gas station and fill it with gas.

 

For what its worth:

My 98 3.4L failed smog in CA due to very high NOx. I was surprised since two years prior it had been very clean, and I had just replaced the plugs. I would have better understood what to do with high HC,CO readings, but NOx indicates burning too hot. There were many opinions on what caused this and what to do including a bad CAT, bad front OX sensor, bad ECU, with any or all of these leading to a lean(hot) condition. Then someone mentioned carbon buildup. I only had 120k so I thought no way do I have carbon. On the other had I do tend to drive like grandma...

I still had a couple months to do my free retest, so I decided to do everything I could think of to fix a lean/hot condition without spending big bucks:

I put the old plugs back in thinking that the new plugs might be the wrong heat range (mis-marked).
I replaced the front OX sensor. I have a scope, so I could compare the operating signal against the old one. They looked darn near the same.
I replaced the air filter and cleaned the Air mass sensor 'wire'.
I ran a couple of tanks of injector cleaner additive.
On a whim I got some 'seafoam' carbon remover. I was hesitant because one guy claimed it could actually ruin a CAT. Believe me, you have never seen an engine belch so much dark grey smoke - I though the fire dept was going to show up. After a few minutes of this it burned clean again. I put part of the can in the tank as recommended. A repeat of this a week later produced almost no smoke, so it wasn't the additive making all that mess.

I spent no more than $100 total. When retested, my readings were as clean as they had ever been. You decide which of the fiddling did the trick, but I know I will be using the carbon cleaner before every smog test.

 

If you have too many miles, if could work against you, though. It might knock loose some of those deposits that keep your air/fuel combusting completely, and make you burn dirty once again. You have good mileage to work with for the seafoam, though. I wouldn't do it with much more than 160,000 miles on the engine.....

 

That is a new one on me. I have never heard anyone say that carbon build up could be a good thing. As far as burnt valves and worn rings, I don't think carbon could make any difference either way. I can believe that the use of this product might temporarily gum up a CAT, as one person warned me. I believe this would raise the HC or CO levels, but I'd think that once you got that CAT good and hot, everything would burn off and it would do its job again.

Maybe someone who does smog all day and also does the repairs could pipe in. The guy I went to just ran the machine and didn't seem to have much confidence behind his statements. For all I know he didn't want to risk having me back a 3rd time and went easy on the test. I kinda doubt it though - I was watching him the whole time.

I have also been present when a BAR rep pops in for a surprise visit. He walked thru the entire smog test - a tense moment for both me and the mechanic since I had just rebuilt the engine on the VW being tested, and I had replaced an old mechanical hot air valve with newer vacuum one. The rep noted it was not original, but passed it because it did work.

 

Yeah, most of the time they aren't real anal about stuff like that, just as long as it works. As for the Seafoam cleaning the carbon deposits, I agree that carbon doesn't help an engine, but when it's been in there for a while, sometimes it fills in the imperfections inside the combustion chamber, and seals some of them so the engine won't leak, or lose compression as bad. If you seafoam one of those, there is a chance that you can knock some of that buildup out of there, and expose the imperfections, and possibly result in a leak. I hope that makes at least some sense.