Celica Forums General Discussion General 2002 CELICA GTS AUTO failed SMOG CALIFORNIA

The car has 310K but still runs smooth and strong.

It had CEL P0420 CAT inefficient and the guy added an extender to O2 S2. After that tt never has any CEL and passed SMOG all along.

Recently I took it to a STAR smog station. It passed all criteria, but the guy looked under tha car at the CAT and failed it, noted TAMPERED CAT. Looks like DMV is crackign down, making SMOG Techs check the CAT for any mods. Damn.

Looks like I just have to replace the CAT. I searched eBay. New CATS are less than $100 but they dotn know if it would meet California's regs.

Any bro know where, what brands what model of CATs to buy for Celica GTS?

Thanks.

Have you looked up stock exhaust for your Celica? As you probably already know, its just a simple bolt-on with a few hangers.

Because your vehicle passes every electrical and emission test, but fails the inspector's "eyeball test," (I'm not advising this) maybe swap with a buddy, just for the smog test.

Can you get your smog check at another location? Possibly a No Pass/No Pay location -- if those still even exist.

Toyota's front exhaust pipe including CAT goes for $1,500. Yike!

If I clear all the flags the ECU would reset the P0420 in about 15 minutes.

So will try to bring it to a SMOG place nearby before the 15 minutes. I already wasted $30 on the first failed test. The guy wanted $20 for retest. Not aware of any NO PASS NO PAY stations.

After clearing the P0420 the car can drive about 10 miles before it pulls a pending P0420. I think the ECU only counts when the car is driving not when it idles.

So I will clear all flags then drive it to a nearby SMOG shop. It should pass.

Bought a $20 OBDII scanner from Home Depot cleared the P0420 and reset all flags except EVAP.

Had to drive about 800 miles to clear all flags as my high-speed driving habit did not fit Toyota's driving regime.

Removed the O2 S2 extension, drove 2 miles to the nearest STAR SMOG test before the ECU set any flags. The guy hooked up the car to his SMOG station and said, this car had failed SMOG once, He ran tests, all pollutant tests passed.. The guy did not inspect the engine or exhaust system. I could have brought the car to him in the first place.

Put the extension back on so ECU wont pull the code again.

This is probably one of the better outcomes of a poor situation to be found in.

I'm glad you managed to get it resolved. Hopefully next year everything goes as expected.


edit: thanks for the updates and for posting your resolution. good followups