[ale] Car topic

[David Hillman]

This may be a little bit left field, but it's still a technical problem.  I
spent the better part of the last weekend underneath my car--a 2002
Volkswagen Passat AWD--trying to do a couple of things.  One, I was looking
to add a computer in the dashboard that is to be hooked up to the ODBII port
for diagnostics information.  It'll run Angstrom Linux on a Beagleboard (
http://beagleboard.org/project/angstrom/).  Two, I tried to remove the
secondary air pump and the myriad of vacuum lines that have been giving me
hell over the last year.  The pump is seized up and I have a vacuum leak
somewhere in that rat's nest.  Getting to the pump requires the removal of
the entire front bumper and radiator assembly from the car.  The price of
the pump is $400 - $600.  That is a whole lot of cash for very limited
benefits.

Why is the air pump useless?  Well, it doesn't prove that my car has a real
drivability problem; that's what the O2, mass air flow and other sensors are
for.  My car's engine is in absolutely splendid condition.  I don't mess
around with that.  The only benefit to the air pump system is to get the
catalytic converters get warmed up a little bit earlier in colder climates.

The pump failed because too much moisture got in from the exhaust system and
eventually rusted out the motor.  Connected to the pump are a couple of
valves that open up during warm up to let air into the exhaust system.
 Those valves can sometimes fail, letting moisture-filled exhaust into the
pump motor.  Such a complicated system is mandated by our wonderful
government greenies.  I am all for "green", but this is ridiculous.  All
this has done is add weight (heavy pump) and a whole lot of complexity to my
wagon that I love.  Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to remove the
system without reprogramming the engine management computer.  If I don't do
the reprogramming, the car won't pass the emissions test.  It won't pass the
test with a bad pump anyway.  Spending money that could go into finishing my
project is giving me a headache.  Trying to figure out how to reprogram the
engine computer is giving me a much bigger headache.

Is there to get around the emissions requirements in Georgia?  I called the
tag office, but I got put on hold for an eternity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20110907/89e76c1e/attachment-0001.html