This last weekend we had a nice time at Troy and Lori’s reception, but we also spent most of the weekend working on my car to get it ready for emissions testing. Colorado hasn’t had emissions testing for a few years now, so this is the first year it has returned. We received the car registration cards  in the mail and grimaced. My car runs fine overall, but always has the check engine light on.

That darn check engine light. Britton said that just having that light on is an automatic fail in emissions testing regardless of what’s coming out of the tailpipe. Britton is a man of all trades and is equally good under a car hood as in a sql database, so he set about trying to get that stupid light to turn off. He spent probably about 12-18 frustrating hours this weekend trying to get it to turn off. He put in:

Ignition coils

Coil housing

Ignition module

Spark plugs

Knock sensor

He also looked into the air filter to change it. And this is what he found:

Cat food! ….In my engine!

A mouse must have brought Kitty’s food into my air filter!! That was the weirdest thing!

Cleaning all of that out still didn’t help, but the light would stay off for a short while and then turn back on. We thought if we could get it to the emissions place while it was off, we could pass the test. So we drove around trying to find the emissions places listed on the internet. They do not exist. Do not try to find an emissions place in Greeley based on the internet listings. They are super old and out-dated.

Finally, after getting exasperated. We came back to that light. We tried to change the fuel. Since the tank was full, we couldn’t get a new fill-up so Britton poured a bottle of octane boost into my gas. Apparently my old Oldsmobile needs premium fuel because the light finally shut off. Well, sort of. It still comes on sometimes, but instead of it being on 95% of the time, it has stayed off that much. All this work and frustration because of a test that apparently tests the wrong thing: my fuel type.

Now…this next Saturday will be part 2 of the emissions testing saga where we try and find the emissions testing place in Greeley that is, according to legend ,by the Harley Davidson dealership. Let’s hope it passes after all this.

The car registation cost went up $40 and is now $65 instead of $25. The emissions test will cost probably $20-25 and all these parts to my car cost about $300! And now if I have to buy super premium gas for it when gas prices have already jumped, I am about ready to call off driving.

If the goal is to get people to want to drive less, it’s working! And I will ride my bike as much as possible. Unfortunately I have a new position at work where I have to drive to Timbuktu (AKA Julesburg, Sterling, Briggsdale, etc) and back every week. If we can just get through this stupid emissions test we’ll give them our money and I’ll be back on the road again.