Aircare trying to fail a car?
 

I was listening to my friend tell me about taking her truck through aircare last week. It's an early 90's/late 80's diesel, 4cyl, 5 spd toyota 4x4. She is very protective of her car, so she convinced them to let her sit in the passenger seat during the process.
While driving on the rollers, the guy was going a constant 50, in second gear, then brought it up to a steady 75 in 3rd. Why would they drive it like that? Are they trying to fail it? She had to bite her lip because she was getting ready to smack the guy for driving her truck like that.

I don't quite see your point. Are you worried about revving it too high? 75 in 3rd is perfectly reasonable, and the catalytic converter needs to be heated up to work efficiently, so they might be running a large volume of exhaust to heat it up. Crap, I hit 70 in 2nd.

I'm not trying to make a point. I'm simply asking for what reasons they would drive her car in such a way?

they are not trying to fail the vehicle. They are trying to mimic a real load on the vehicle, and by reving the truck a bit higher, forces the catalytic converter to work at the optimal level (hot).

the roller is also not as "free rolling" as you might be thinking. The car needs to overcome the load to drive the rollers.

I think at that rpm level, as well as the engine load being higher, there's probably more (faster) airflow

My test was done yesterday at 40km/hr the whole test. No hill test or load test. Is there different tests for different vehicles?

Berz out.

The aircare computer has a required speed/rpm that the operator has to maintain.

As far as "abuse" is concerned, the speed doesn't matter, what matters is what RPM was the truck revving to?

Not that I have much faith in aircare operators, half of them are incompetant, but I don't think that driving the truck at a higher RPM than what your friend is used to, constitutes abuse, unless he was within 1000rpm of redline.

Furthermore, the driver probably HELPED TO PASS the vehicle, because if your friend didn't rev the shit out of it before going into aircare, the cat would not be hot and it might not even pass.

So, I think maybe your friend might be overprotective/not fully understanding of what is happening.

IN WHAT WAY? You are being very VAGUE in your description of how the truck was driven. You say 50kph in 2nd and 75kph in 3rd, but you completely forget to explain WHY that's a bad thing. RPM's too high? RPM's too low? What?

I have a friend who used to work at Aircare... there are ways to make sure a vehicle fails, but that's not one of them.

On the other hand.. if your car is fooked.. there's no way for them to make it pass.

i just hope the operator knows how to drive stick

^ I think that's the job requirement.

Yeah I am wondering this as well. My old escort was at 40kph constantly. But in my probe she went up to 100kph twice and drove it a lot rougher than when they drove my escort.

Still passed though :D

lot boys at dealerships have driving stick as a job requirement too :p

I thought the tread was a joke. sorry :(

I might be the only one that give props to aircare workers.
They drove my modified Subaru perfectly well on their rollers and the car passed really quickly. I went inside the room for less than a minute and it passed. They did follow the driving curve that was shown on the screen pretty well.....
So, why bitch about aircare workers when they are just doing their job !

They did the same to my 78 Alfa Romeo (as per the OPs description.)

I passed with flying colours so really, a higher or lower RPM load shouldn't make that much of a difference. I'd say your friend needs to figure out what's wrong with her car first. Why don't you post her test results?

What year was your car? They did that to my 91 240sx, I think pre92's they go really easy on the cars. But above 92, like with my MR2 they booted it from 50-90km/h in 4th and I failed... :cry:

1991 and older get 40kph rolling test and idle test.

Thank you to all who gave helpful and insightful answers. To Rich, I was just asking a question as to what I was asked. I don't have 100% info probably, but her main concerns. I can't explain why that's a bad thing Rich, because I don't know if it was good or bad. I was merely asking a question so that I could broaden my knowledge on a subject that I wasn't too familiar with. And as it seems, some other people didn't know as well.

Also, as it's older, it doesn't have a tach. Thanks again.

it isn't just cause its older, a lot of cars don't come with tachs.

but they weren't treating the car irresponsibly unless they were gunning it up to speed, or bouncing off the rev limiter or other such things...

3rd gear at 75kph isn't all that bad unless the truck has really low gearing.. then that would put it at pretty high rpm... but tell your friend not to worry about it...

pre-OBD, OBD I, OBD II, different testing requirements.

I'm a mechanic and do aircare repairs all the time. There are 3 tests for gasoline vehicles

ASM test- 1991 and older get a 40 km/h driving test, and an idle test. results are measured in ppm (parts per million)

IM240 test- 1992 and newer get a simulated driving test, meaning the test is meant to simulate real world driving conditions. results are measured in g/km (grams per kilometre)

OBD test- 1998 and newer just get plugged in to ensure that no obd2 emissions monitors have been met and that the obd2 drive cycle is complete

http://aircare.ca/inspinfo-desc.php

Does that mean if your car is 2000 you would do IM240 + OBD or just OBD?

just OBD. they wouldn't plug in the obdII and drive it.