Simply stated, I just do not have the money. It is not as if I don’t want to fix the thing, and not that I don’t value the concept of cleaner air and the like. I just don’t have the money to drop.
More to the point, I seem to be the kind of person that this waiver should be helping and yet they are dicking me around. Truth be told, there may be another rant in the near future about what condescending dicks the people that I talked to at Ecology have been.
I totally understand…I don’t have any extra money to throw around either. It is very frustrating when laws have unintended consequences like yours…most Ecology employees are not interested in forcing people to stop driving, just trying to get the heaviest polluting vehicles off the road (and why that should be your rig instead of some crappy logging truck spewing diesel fumes is definitely debatable) or repaired.
Are the Ecology AQ folks really treating you poorly? I don’t like to hear that because it makes my job harder. People don’t tend to remember the difference between the AQ person who wouldn’t help them and the next Ecology employee they talk to. If they continue to be condescending dicks, and you want to know who to complain to, shoot me an email and I’ll get you some information. Unfortunately, I work in central Washington and don’t personnally know any of the northwest region’s AQ folks, but I do know their program manager and she is very big on providing excellent customer service (she used to be my program manager and she rocks!). She would be most unhappy to discover that her staff was treating people in a less-than-professional manner. Believe it or not, most Ecology employees pride themselves on working with the public–it’s our new motto “working with you for a better environment” (the italics are included by the agency, even on our business cards :rolleyes: ).
The basic sequence was that I called and calmly and politely explained my situation and was met with rudeness. I think that the case probably is that they must deal with irrational rude people all day or something and so are stuck in this defensive nasty default setting. I had comments like “it’s not my problem that you are in this situation” or “isn’t your car worth fixing?” and so forth. I was accused of being reluctant to answer his questions (not sure where that came from, guy asked me my income and I told him. Guess that I was supposed to launch in to the sob story at that point or something). I was absolutely not treated with respect and the guys phone etiquette was terrible (long silences, slangy language, rude tone you name it).
The main thing seems to be that they need for me to spend $150 with all of their being. I finally spoke to some other guy down there and was told that what I need to do is to go to a different emissions specialist, tell him that I don’t believe the first guy and then have the problem diagnosed again so that I hit the $150 mark.
I just know that there is a good joke here about taking it in the tailpipe.
[QUOTE=ntucker]
For what it’s worth, I recently took my truck in to the shop for an intermittent “check engine” light, only to have the mechanic tell me not to worry about it. A few weeks later, it resurfaced at the inspection station up on Aurora at 120th, where I was introduced to the wonderful “check engine equals automatic failure” policy. So I got to make a second trip to the mechanic and a second trip to the inspection place, spending a few hundred bucks and getting two parking tickets in the meantime for not having my registration up-to-date.
My daughter’s been told several times, by mechanics, that her “check engine” light is on because her gas-tank cap is the wrong one, or missing, or some such thing. I can’t help wonder if the fact that she’s blonde has anything to do with her being told that!
That’s the same station that I went to! I wonder if I have secretly seen you in passing and didn’t know it. Back on topic; just out of curiosity, how much did those tickets cost?
If you’re gonna have trouble with two of the three exhaust ports you own, I think you lucked out as to which two are afflicted.
I can’t sympathise with your car trouble because I’ve never failed my emissions test.
But, I can certainly sympathise with your condo problems.
When we bought our condo 3 years ago, the fees were $115 per month. We figured they’d go up and go up they did. At the end of our first year, our fees were $140. Then, at the end of our second year, they became $155. That’s not the best part though. The best part is that the condo association is a bunch of mindless idiots who have no idea how to manage money. Because of this, they created a mandatory, year long special assessment. What this means is that our condo fees were $300 a month last year.
So, between our mortgage and our condo fees, we were paying $950 a month for 675 square feet of poorly built former military housing. We don’t even have a fireplace.
Our regular condo fees are supposed to go for landscaping and stuff like that. My lawn got mowed 3 times between spring and fall last year. 3 whole times!
The special assessment was supposed to pay for the continued lead paint siding and asbestos roof tile removal. We don’t have lead paint or asbestos tiles. Only the townhouses do. Ours were replaced 10 years ago. When I complained, they told me that my windows would be recapped because the window sills had lead paint. They replaced the sills in October - 1 month after we paid $3,000 to have the windows (sills and all) replaced. They never touched our house.
I would have really put up a stink about it but they fired the property manager in November and that was justification enough for me. They also go a new landscaping company. My lawn has been mowed 5 times already this spring!
Nope. Loose or otherwise un-sealed gas caps will frequently annoy the car and cause the CEL (check engine light) to come on.
Spending the ten bucks or so at Kragen / Pep Boys / etc for a new cap should solve the problem.
Could be worse - Some VWs will show an “emissions workshop” message, leaving you to figure out if it’s just an uprising among the Teutonic elves making car parts or something worse.
As he said, they don’t actually check the TAILPIPE, they check the emissions by computer.
I recently lived in Anchorage, where they have really strict IM (don’t know why it’s I m, when they’re checking emissions, but that’s what everyone calls them).
The stupid thing is, that cars that are blowing black smoke all over tarnation can pass, and your car can have perfectly clean exhaust and you’ll fail. In good ole anchortown, you have to pass more than just emissions, they check out your engine, if anything is “iffy” they’ll fail you. I had a air filter pan that had a little bitty crack that had been repaired, and they made me buy a new one.
Don’t know what the laws are in Seattle, but there IS thankfully, a cap on how much they can make you spend on fixing the car, unfortunately, it’s about 700 or 800 bucks, and you have to jump through hoops to get a waiver.
Good luck binery.
I’m very sorry that an Ecology employee was rude to you. Did you get his name? I strongly recommend that you write a letter of complaint and, if you got his name, make sure you include it. Ecology does not deal with irrational or even upset people all day and even if we did there would be no excuse for having a default nasty mode.
Lest you think I’m kidding about the letter, I am a Washington state employee (please don’t hate me)–I know that government employees are frequently assumed not to work, considered to have cush jobs, and believed to be uncaring about the citizenry. I think some government employees fit that description quite well. And I think they should be called on it. I have written letters of complaint about specific employees or policies to several agencies (as a private citizen), including my own (both as a private citizen and an employee). I expect government employees to do their jobs and do them well–it’s a service that we, as citizens, have paid for in advance. If someone doesn’t do their job, they should absolutely be called to account for it.
If you write this letter, you may get a response that seems more interested in placating you than in actively changing the agency’s behavior. That will be extremely frustrating. However, as the receipent of several blanket reminders to behave ourselves with the public, I know these letters get read and employees get to hear about it. If you include the guy’s name, a copy of the letter will be included in his personnel file. In this specific case I know from past experience that the program manager is very concerned with customer service, so the individual will also be spoken with directly regarding his behavior. If no one has ever complained about him before, his excuses will probably be accepted at face value and unless future complaints are made that will probably be the end of it. If there have been past complaints, some action will be taken. Maybe not action that you would like/approve of but some action.
I do not suggest a call or email to the supervisor. I have found that snail mail is the only way to go for these kinds of complaints (to our state agencies anyway). Something about real paper gets us going it seems.
Again, I offer my email if you need names of who to contact. Or you can look them up on Ecology’s website–all of our names, positions, email addresses, and phone numbers are available to the public.
And now I’ll get off my soapbox. Hope you have luck in solving your vehicle problem.
On a serious note, getting back to the Opening Post… allow me please to explain the role that an Oxygen sensor plays in your fuel injection system, and how easy it would be to purchase a new replacement and fit the thing.
The O2 sensor measures how much “oxygen” is in your exhaust. In theory, if your engine is totally warmed up and running at the optimal 14.7 : 1 stoimetric air to fuel ratio, then you should have very, very little oxygen left in your exhaust - and what happens is that your engine’s computer management system measures the Oxygen sensor for it’s levels and tries to make the fuel mixture as lean as is safely possible without coming close to causing problems for your engine’s internals.
Traditionally, the Oxygen sensor on most fuel injected cars made in the last 15 years is fitted at the point where all the exhaust extractors come together - usually about 3 to 6 inches after that particular collection point. Obviously, it differs from car to car, but the basic mechanics are very common throughout the car industry. Your goal would be to find out specifically what O2 sensor is in your car. You could do this by getting back to us here on the SDMB or logging onto a messageboard which deals specifically with your car.
You could then purchase a replacement sensor from Bosch, or from ebay, or from the squillion car parts places around the USA. After you have the replacement part, in theory, if you had access to a hoist, or even an old fashioned drive through pit, you could get your spanner set out and remove the original sensor and fit the new one.
And why would you do this? Almost certainly, your engine is currently running in a mode known as permanent “closed loop” fuel mapping - that is - in the abscence of a properly functioning Oxygen sensor, your engine’s computer system is almost certainly running your engine in a deliberately rich fuel air mixture so as to safeguard your engine. It’s an expensive way to drive around. Your fuel consumption is much higher than it should be, and also it’s a more polluting way to drive around due to higher levels of unburnt fuel during various throttle settings and rev ranges.
Like all things in life, knowledge is power. Almost certainly, without a doubt there would be a messageboard somewhere which deals specifically with your car and engine. You could join that messageboard and politely ask questions about what’s involved in doing an O2 Sensor swap. And doubtless, they’d have some other useful hints for you to follow too regarding resetting your engine’s diagnostic codes etc. And THAT is where you’d save your money. It’s simply a matter of time and research. There’s always a way… just do the research.
So the gas cap thing is true? I thought they were saying that because I was blonde.
Seriously, a new gas cap is on my list of things to do in short order.
If I recall correctly, they’re $35, and then when you forget to pay them before they’re due, they go up to $60ish.