Good for another year!

[CitroJim]

Excellent stuff Mike I had the same result with my Activa yesterday bar any advisories...

I'd not worry about oil leak advisories too much. Most get them and often it's just a bit of spotted dampness here and there.

Emission figures are absolutely fine

[bxzx16v]

Good result .

Mark

[Mandrake]

Not wanting to be the only nay-saying nelly in the group but those emissions are quite high Mike, and indicate something is not right.

Obviously it's a pass, but not by much, on another day it could have been a fail - the figures look very similar to what my old V6 got when it had an ignition misfire... at the time I thought the cat might be toast but it turned out not to be the case as the emissions test Will got when he took it for the following MOT was excellent. So something I fixed in the intervening year solved the emissions but I'm not 100% sure what...

Here are some comparative results from two different cars:

Old V6 on its 2nd MOT when it wasn't running properly: (intermittent misfire and lack of power)

FAST IDLE
CO 0.27% (max 0.3%)
HC 40 ppm

IDLE
CO 0.49% (max 0.5%)

Old V6 third MOT done by Will:

FAST IDLE
CO 0.027% (max 0.2%)
HC 3 ppm (max 200 ppm)
Lambda 1.019

IDLE
CO 0.004% (max 0.3%)

New V6 at its first MOT:

FAST IDLE
0.00% (max 0.2%)
HC 4 ppm (max 200 ppm)
Lambda 1.01

IDLE
CO 0.00%

(Both CO figures here are below 0.01% which must be the lowest that particular analyser can measure...)

It's probably nothing serious, chances are it just needs spark plugs and maybe spark plug leads if you've never done them as they get pretty grotty by that age if they're the originals...

[CitroJim]

Simon, not necessarily so..

I've had many cars barely scrape and emissions pass one year and the next year all emissions are lower than a snake's belly...

And that's without doing anything significant to the car in the meantime in order to improve matters...

[Mandrake]

Fair point Jim about the variability of readings, except I wasn't just going by the emissions readings alone - I know for a fact that around the time I got that poor MOT emissions result the engine was running like crap with an obvious misfire and lack of power, and at the time had fitted what later turned out to be a faulty coil pack...

In fact before I took it in for the test I was worried it would fail the emissions BECAUSE it was running so badly... and it nearly did...

Might be nothing to worry about but lets just say that its right near the upper end of the limit... and the emissions limits have come down since last year as well. I see Mike got let off easy by his tester who applied last years limits (0.3% fast CO, 0.5% slow CO) instead of this years limits. (0.2% fast CO, 0.3% slow CO)

If it had been tested against the new limits it would have been marginal indeed. Something to keep in mind for next years test.

[Xantidote]

I see Mike got let off easy by his tester who applied last years limits (0.3% fast CO, 0.5% slow CO) instead of this years limits. (0.2% fast CO, 0.3% slow CO)

Simon:

Isn't this a case of moving the goal posts? I have always assumed that a car can only be tested against the parameters/emissions that existed at the time it was built/first put on the road. Am I wrong?

[Northern_Mike]

Mine simply ignored them.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[RichardW]

No change to the emissions as far as i can see - the lower limits only apply to cars used after Sep 2002 - unless listed in the data emissions book - which the V6 Xantia is, at the higher level.

[Mandrake]

Are you sure it hasn't changed Richard ?

I find it a strange coincidence that this years MOT for the new V6 taken in Glasgow and for the old V6 taken somewhere near Manchester both show the same new lower limits...

Or is it just a coincidental case of two garages being lazy and leaving in the "generic" figure and not looking up the model specific figures ?

In any case, a V6 running well should be able to exceed even the lower limit by an order of magnitude, that was my main point earlier on.

[Northern_Mike]

Caning it down the M6?

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[RichardW]

Are you sure it hasn't changed Richard ?

Not quite....mis read the manual..... first up is a basic emissions test, which is 0.2% / 200ppm fast idle / 0.3% CO natural idle http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s07000308.htm. If this is not passed, then it goes to CAT test, where the limit is relaxed to 0.3% / 200ppm fast idle / 0.5% CO natural idle http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4s07000309.htm