REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

you! · 09-05-2012, 07:26 PM

so i took my car in for aircare today and 2 different faggot testers tried to fail my car today...

rolled in and passed the initial gas cap test, then the guy uses the mirror to check the cat... usually this takes them about 10 seconds and they put away the mirror after seeing the cat but for some reason the guy took forever and had to move the mirror around in different angles to keep checking if its really there...then the guy actually got down on the ground to look and check again.. like seriously wtf the cat is so fukin obvious??

then afterwards he got me to pop the hood to check the cat

.. so i thought whatever i just wanna get this shit done with and after looking around he closed the hood...

but then right before he asked me to proceed to the rollers he walked up to the guy who does the roller test and they talked for about a min before i was asked to move forward to the rollers..

after getting on the rollers, i walked inside the waiting area and believe it or not the fuking guy who did the roller test did 3 different runs with my car! after the first run, the dyno rollers drop back on the ground and the guy who does the test opened the door to step out... usually at this point the test is over and they print the results for u but no... fuking guy went to the computer and i believe resetted the test, stepped back in the car, and the rollers went up again and my car went through the test again... after the 2nd test was over, the dyno rollers went down again, guy gets out of the car and does the same fuking thing all over again

finally after the 3rd run the results "magically" printed out.. i passed the test with flying colors and drove away... but seriously wtf is up with these fags intentionally trying to fail my car??? they obviously planned this shit, these guys do this for a living and theres no way the first guy didnt know wtf a cat looked like and the 2nd guy who was doing the rolling test was even worse!

i went to the same aircare center 2 yrs ago and never had this problem..just a heads up out there for everyone!

Phil@rise · 09-05-2012, 07:39 PM

If they dont match the speed the computer tells them to drive at then they have to redo it. Its not just a case of them trying to fail your car. Also if the tech (I use the term loosely) didnt see a cat under your car either because there wasnt one or they were idiots then they might try and run it again to see if it can duplicate the passing test results.

inv4zn · 09-05-2012, 07:43 PM

Did you at any point ask them why they ran it 3 times, rather than assuming they were trying to fail your car?

FN-2199 · 09-05-2012, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by inv4zn

Did you at any point ask them why they ran it 3 times, rather than assuming they were trying to fail your car?

This.

You type retardely. Sorry, but I couldn't take your post seriously.
I've had my car be tested more than once in the same visit before. Usually it's what Phil said, or sometimes they have troubles getting readings.

ree666 · 09-05-2012, 07:56 PM

someone's paranoid...

inv4zn · 09-05-2012, 08:08 PM

Also, I think you've misunderstood the meaning of "heads up."

You haven't actually warned anybody of anything lol

jing · 09-05-2012, 08:09 PM

If anything, running it 3 times in a row would have helped lower the readings since everything would have been warmed up real good

mb_ · 09-05-2012, 08:11 PM

Way to jump to conclusions..

you! · 09-05-2012, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil@rise

If they dont match the speed the computer tells them to drive at then they have to redo it.

i know there is a case of this happening although i was watching the whole time when they did the test and the screen that they look at that illustrates the speed they need to run never indicated any errors or anything that says the speed didnt match... i just took my bros car last month for aircare and the screen looked exactly the same when they did his, only difference is they only ran his once like usual..

i know it seems silly and paranoid at the same time but im just sharing my experience... theres also a thread on a different forum that i read about 2-3 yrs ago where an ex aircare employee was saying that some techs do try to fail cars for the hell of it sometimes, like some techs would step on the brake while on the rollers if its fwd and some would pull the ebrake on rwd

GabAlmighty · 09-05-2012, 08:18 PM

Your faggotry is fucking retarded.

you! · 09-05-2012, 08:40 PM

read last post

Vancouver Civics Club Forum

flame away but i may have just gotten paranoid based on what i read in the past and my observations while doing the test today

duy- · 09-05-2012, 10:48 PM

I usually have good experiences with aircare, I really don't see how running the car over and over would cause worst readings. Once I came in without a cat (it's an 86 so it's okay) he had to do the driving test twice. He said most likely it failed the first one or got some wacky readings, not sure if that's true. Either way they don't really gain anything from failing you, unless he just wants to see you again...

Edit: read that vcc post, "they know how to make it fail"? Why do I think that's a load of crap? How can you make my car pollute more without mechanically changing anything? And the braking while driving, well there are fucking windows there for a reason. If I come out and smell my brakes, it's going to be obvious, I don't know how close it is when you aircare, but I'm abou 70% under the max limit, you'd have to try pretty hard to fail it

Soundy · 09-05-2012, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rl89rl89

someone's paranoid...

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you...

Soundy · 09-05-2012, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mb_

Way to jump to conclusions..

Eff-1 · 09-05-2012, 11:05 PM

took my car to aircare last week for the first time. the technician couldn't find the OBD port in my car. first looks under the driver side. then the passenger side. then back to the driver side. etc

so I came out of the booth to try and help. he says go back into the booth. i refuse. they ignore me. the manager even tries to pull back an interior plastic panel to see if it was behind. he says "is this removable??" I was ready to lose it.

eventually they find the port 20 minutes later and plug in. they start the car but now the battery was dead!

so they boost it. the car starts, they do the test and now it gets rejected of course because the readiness monitors are no longer set thanks to the battery failure. they refused to admit this whole thing was their fault.

what bothered me the most was the poor attitude and customer service of the staff. they refuse to accept any help from the driver, act like they know everything, and then cause mistakes and refuse to admit any fault.

I realize they don't have the most pleasant job and many drivers aren't happy to be there in the first place, but that's no excuse for incompetence.

duy- · 09-05-2012, 11:11 PM

Is it normal for batteries to die that quick? I'd be blaming myself for not taking care of my car

Eff-1 · 09-05-2012, 11:17 PM

I admit my battery was getting old and replacement was coming up soon. However if it didn't take them over 20 minutes to locate the OBD port, the car would have started fine and test would have been completed with no problem.

inv4zn · 09-06-2012, 12:09 AM

What was "on" in the car during those 20 minutes?

Their incompetence isn't excuseable, but 20 minutes to drain a battery seems a bit iffy too..lol

hiddenhonger · 09-06-2012, 12:32 AM

What can I say? I guess I should be glad at how many positive responses there are in this thread.

OP: No one is out to get you. Why did they check so long for a cat? Because our jobs depend on it. That is, if we're wrong about not seeing a cat (or when we make the mistake of seeing one -- but none is present) management knows exactly who to fire. Also, Cats come in all shapes and sizes.

Judging by your avatar and your signature, you drove into the inspection with... a Honda? If so, I'm not sure why you were confused when they asked to look under the hood. About half the Honda's I test have one of these under the hood:

Anyway, like one reply said above, those three runs had probably helped your car rather than hurt it (honestly, the test you described was probably hte ASM test? Which the inspector must keep your car around 40KM/H -- hardly breakneck speed

) Think of it as getting three tests for the price of one

But furthermore, as for why the inspector did the test multiple times, several things can happen during the test without the customers noticing:

1. Dyno malfunctions - as you know, our equipment isn't perfect, but they do the job. When things go wrong, management must be notified - computers must be reset and that's probably why you saw your car drop and raise several times.

2. Human errors - Need I explain? We're people too

An inspector can press the wrong button on his/her remote and the test has to be restarted. We try to mend things as fast as possible without you all noticing

, nothing sinister, I promise.

3. Government tests - These are random and take another 240 seconds to complete on top of your test. They don't count towards your results we print out for you, tie you up for just a while longer and provides the government with stats on whether we're still useful or not (we all want this, trust me). This also may have been one of your tests that you've witnessed OP.

Sorry for the long post, but I had to get that out of my chest. I go to work each day expecting people to hate me, so I'm a super nice guy as a result. I'm happy to answer any and all questions regarding the program when people come in (time permitting of course ;-)), but just know that we're not a bunch of push-overs -- we're trained to do a job and like anyone at their place of work, do not like being looked down upon. That's all.

Lomac · 09-06-2012, 12:38 AM

We all hate Aircare (well, those of us who want to do more to our cars than simple bolt on mods, at least lol) but at the end of the day it's the program we dislike, not the people doing their jobs by testing our cars. I've had my share of good and bad Aircare inspectors, but that's just like every other business out there.

And yes, they probably popped your hood to check to see if your pre-cat was still installed.

hiddenhonger · 09-06-2012, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eff-1

took my car to aircare last week for the first time. the technician couldn't find the OBD port in my car. first looks under the driver side. then the passenger side. then back to the driver side. etc

so I came out of the booth to try and help. he says go back into the booth. i refuse. they ignore me. the manager even tries to pull back an interior plastic panel to see if it was behind. he says "is this removable??" I was ready to lose it.

eventually they find the port 20 minutes later and plug in. they start the car but now the battery was dead!

so they boost it. the car starts, they do the test and now it gets rejected of course because the readiness monitors are no longer set thanks to the battery failure. they refused to admit this whole thing was their fault.

what bothered me the most was the poor attitude and customer service of the staff. they refuse to accept any help from the driver, act like they know everything, and then cause mistakes and refuse to admit any fault.

I realize they don't have the most pleasant job and many drivers aren't happy to be there in the first place, but that's no excuse for incompetence.

I understand your frustrations.
Know that the inspector probably just wanted to find the OBD port without disturbing management (probably a busy day there already?) or having the walk of shame into the booth to ask the customer. I know how it feels to test cars with, literally hidden OBD ports.

It's unfortunate that the test took so long, most OBD tests last under a few minutes. But you must also realize that some of us are used to customers not knowing much about their car in general or if they have some sort of full time traction control that would break their car if we test it a certain way (luckily we have safeguards for most common issues like the one just mentioned). When I bring up the location of a car's OBD port to people, they'd usually stare blankly at me wondering what I'm talking about.

Sorry you had a rough time. And remember to google the drive cycle for your car so as to not waste too much time setting those monitors

suboy · 09-06-2012, 07:11 AM

relax, your car passed aircare. now move on with your life

you! · 09-06-2012, 08:56 AM

I know about the cat being under the hood which comes as one piece with the oem manifold on d series hondas although mine has a b motor on itand all of them have the cat underneath.. plus i was running an oem cat which is kinda hard to miss bcause it looks so obvious..

Anyways its not that of a big deal, like i said before in my last post im just sharing my experience and admit that i may have been too paranoid indeed but that also reflects on the stuff i read about in the past... ive been thru aircare many times with different cars and this was the only negative experience ive had so far.

dvst8 · 09-06-2012, 04:37 PM

Wonder how you would react if you really failed. Relax man.

Matlock · 09-06-2012, 05:01 PM

Meh. I figure the people who work there are idiots. With my old car at 28,000 km they typed in 280,000 km. Then the following year I had about 50,000 km and that made all of the info on the page they gave me weird.