The Irish Mitsubishi FTO Owners Club

by **Wagalini** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 2:45 pm

She finally passed on Friday!

It's been an on running saga at this stage. I've done the test 4 times before this one and each time she failed on the emissions and some other smaller issues. I think she would have passed the 2nd test if I'd known how to give her a proper warm up run. I got a new cat from camskill last November (emissions fine afterwards) but she still failed that test on emissions. Paul Nolan sourced an oxygen sensor for me when it went in January. So there weren't any emissions going into my last test in January. I booked the closest day I could find around Dublin once I got her back from Paul which was in Northpoint. I gave her a good run up the M50 before it and I left her idle outside (big mistake). She went in and came out basically failing on everything.

I had had enough of the nct at this stage so I put it out of my mind until May. This time I booked her into the Deansgrange centre as I'd heard good things about it and it's the closest one to me. Deansgrange didn't have a free slot for 2 months but I didn't mind. I got her into Paul Nolan at the start of August and he went over what she failed on in January. I got him to put new brake pads on the front as they were screeching when I braked (they were fine apart from this and passed the previous test) and I got him to tighten the handbrake a bit. I also got him to put some new braided brake lines on the the front. Paul said the old lines were fine and that the little plastic connector was a little cracked on the side she failed on but it wasn't bad enough to fail. The emissions were still fine and the rest of the stuff she failed on was all fine too. I guess the tester was having a bad day and decided to take it out on my car!

So everything was as good as it was going to get but I still wasn't hopeful. I had booked for 9pm but I got a call that day to ask if I'd move my appointment earlier due to overbooking the 9pm slot. I picked 3pm so I wouldn't be stuck in much traffic and the cat wouldn't get cooled down too much. I was wondering if the universe was trying to tell me something here.

I took her out an hour before the test and spent 30 minutes on the M50 tearing the ar$e out of her. I did 5 laps from Carrickmines to the North Bray exit. I Tried to keep her in Mivec all the time so I was in 2nd, 3rd and for a bit 4th gears. I didn't like doing it but if this didn't work then there wasn't any hope of her ever passing. Then I went to the Deansgrange center and tried to keep the revs high on the way. I arrived at 3:05 and there was a bit of a queue. The guy told me to park her in the queue and go in to register and that I'd be moved up through the queue when I got out. I registered and then had to wait 10 minutes before I got moved up the queue. Once I got moved up outside the door I had to wait for another 10 minutes before a tester arrived. When the tester came out I also didn't rev her up for a while to try and warm the cat again.

From reading other threads on here and talking to Paul Nolan I didn't have her idling while I was waiting (great tip!). However I thought it was far too long to wait and that the cat would have cooled down too much by that stage. So I had resigned myself to failing once again. As it was one of the few beautiful days we've seen this summer I waited outside.

She wasn't in as long as other times so I didn't know what to make of that. When she came out the tester got collared to do an inspection on a car that had come back with fixes. The suspense was starting to get to me now

. After 5 minutes he went inside and called me.

Then he produced the cert. I haven't been so happy in a while

.

I went through the nct sheet and she passed everything with flying colours. The Emissions were non existent! I hadn't done anything to most of the stuff she failed on in January and she passed with flying colours. Just goes to show what changing test centres does!

Here's what I did to get her to pass the emissions test:
1) I took her out for ~30 minutes on a good run in Mivec. She can then be left turned off for ~20 minutes and the cat won't get cold.
2) I didn't let her idle at the Nct centre.
3) I didn't start then rev her up before handing her over the the tester.

Test centre's to got to:
Deansgrange!

Plague ridden test centre's:
Green Hills,
Fonthill,
Northpoint.

Thanks to Paul Nolan. He's a legend!

by **goz_83** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 4:01 pm

I wouldn't have thought it necessary to rip the hole out of her like that, but a good run is recommended I know. The 3rd test I did in my manual mivec...i didn't do any spirited driving, i just took it easy. My emissions were a very low fail the first two times and i didn't even have a cat on. I put a 2nd hand cat on her and she absolutely flew through. The tester had very good things to say, particularly how smooth the engine was running...it gave them trouble finding the idle speed.

congrats on the pass. when is your next nct? :lol:

by **Wagalini** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:41 am

Thanks goz!

I didn't like ripping the hole out of her but I had given her good runs before the previous test(s) and she still failed on emissions. Although I did leave her idle which I found out afterwards only cools the cat down. So this time I went for overkill and make sure I did everything possible to keep the cat warm.

Don't talk to me about my next test

. It's up in February. I'll go into Paul Nolan to check the emissions before it and this time I'll only do a spirited run before hand but I won't rip the hole again! And I won't leave her idle outside the centre either.