My car (1995 Honda Accord v6) is not setting the o2 sensors, the EVAP, nor the cat. I understand that I need the o2 sensors to first. But, I can’t figure out why they persist in being “not ready”. I have no MIL codes. My car overheated last year. We replaced hoses and checked for cracks in the block. Car seems fine. Any ideas are appreciated as I need to smog my car and if I can not Do so, I may have to abandon it :[

thanks.

 

Those monitors will check off after you have completed a drive cycle.
Usually some combination of idleing, high idleing, driving on the freeway at a given speed for a set amount of time, driving around in stop/go traffic and then shutting it off and letting the car sit for 30mins to an hour.
You can ask your local smog shop what monitors they need to see checked off so they can smog the vehicle. Not all monitors need to be checked off to smog. It is just a way to prevent someone with a code issue to pull up to the smog station, pull the memory fuse, put it back in to pass a smog test.
The monitors just verify that components are working correctly and are accepted.

 

Thanks Mad_Mike!

I've "googled" the drive cycle for the accord. The one i found, someone posted here in another thread. The first 3 steps are accomplishable: 1) idling for 2.5 min; 2) idling in drive with ac and rear window defrost for another 2.5 min; 3&4) turn off ac & defrost and accelerate to 55 and stay at 55 for 3 min. The next step, step 5: slow to 20 mph without braking, was accomplished only twice. I was able to get back on the freeway for steps 6&7: accelerate to 55-60 mph and hold for 5 minutes. I actually managed steps 6&7 twice. However, the last step: slow to 0 without braking is impossible during most times of the day (I haven't got desperate enough to get up at 1am to try without traffic).

Am i doomed if i cannot slow the car to 0? Note that i have to do driving between items in the list. If this jeopardizes the drive cycle, there is no way for me to complete the cycle. Also, I've only got about 80 miles on the car since we re-connected the battery. The battery is only a couple months old, by the way (someone said the ecm was sensitive to battery spikes/drops).

I figured that the monitors should have reset. But, maybe i'm impatient? Someone else mentioned 200 miles driven. This is just a really bad time for driving.

Any ideas are welcome. I will update if something changes.

Thanks in advance for any help!

-Teah

​​​​​​​Thank

 

What I do, but I am lucky to live in an area with all sorts of ways to get from point A to B.
Allow the car to warm up normally, or if in a hurry hold it to ~2K rpm, til the gauge reads normal temp. I don't wait for fans to kick on/off.
Hit the road and get on the nearest freeway.
Get up to speed and drive to a town that is ~20miles away, head back and divert to another town that takes me another 20miles, and then head home via a canyon road.
The canyon road lets me to quite a bit of off throttle high vacuum engine braking events. Basically if the engine is gonna spit a code, it will happen on this little route.
This takes me about an 45-60mins to do. On the freeway I hold a steady speed to allow the PCM to monitor and adjust/compensate for any wear. But I don't hold '60MPH' if traffic is doing 70MPH, that's just asking for an accident or ticket.
I've never had a problem with monitors not being set, or at least the required monitors being set.
As for the slowing a car down to 0MPH without braking, that sounds like some pure nonsense. If there is a steep enough hill/grade in your area you could just roll up to that & pull over and set the hand brake if the car starts to roll back.
I say do what you can for the monitors that sound within reason. Idle, high idle, drive on the freeway at n speed for 30mins and then do some stop and go and you should be fine.
What you are getting the car to do is relearn, and not driving purely off the preprogrammed base map tables.

 

Thank You. I don't know much about cars other than what i read here and there. :]

Also, found out this morning that the battery cable clamp was not tight, so replaced the clamp today. Hopefully, this cable clamp looseness is the issue.

I do like your suggestions. I have to drive across town on Wednesday for a celebration so that would be one of few times i can drive the freeway at a fairly constant speed for a long period of time. Based on what you said, dropping below or going over the "set" speed shouldn't be an issue.

What you say about "relearning" makes sense. In the mean time, i will try to drive around town and keep my fingers crossed that the battery cable was my problem.

I will update in a couple of days to give status for anyone else who might have had this concern.

 

Just call or show up to your local smog station, or the station you are planing on using and ask them. Be upfront. They will work with you in getting your car legally smogged. A happy customer is a repeat customer.

 

Since the car is old (and the smog place we go to is helpful when the guy is in a good mood), we don’t want to put a lot of money into trying to troubleshoot.

So, we are trying to figure out the issue before we take it in. But, we are running out of ideas so just taking it over may be a good option.

So, for anyone’s reference, this is where I am:

1) Car (95 Accord EX V6) overheated and the ECU shut down car in March 2019
2) Changed battery in August 2019
3) Checked EGR, O2 Sensor (2), and Cat Monitors in early December 2019; none were ready
4) Found and fixed loose battery cable clamp in mid December 2019
5) Followed 2 different drive cycles several times; drove 100+ miles
6) Checked EGR passages
7) Used software to see O2 sensor (upstream) voltage moving around and O2 sensor downstream voltage moving much more slowly
8) Braking power disappears occasionally when hard braking
9) on Dec 31, monitors for EGR, O2 sensors (2), and Cat are still not ready.

Thanks to Mad_Mike and anyone else that as any other helpful information

-Teah

 

A 1995 Accord is not subject to a monitor check to pass smog. It is not OBD 2 certified(even if it does have an OBD2 port) as far as I can remember.

 

With respect to not being OBD2 certified, yes, this is true, per se. However, since it does have the port, the monitors that i have, apparently, need to be checked. This being said, here's where we are now.
10) Brake booster had failed. replaced it
11) Drove to Palm Springs from LA (~250 miles). Made sure to not brake for 20 minute stretches
12) Codes still not ready
13) for the 95 accord V6, there are two models of the ECM/ECU/Computer. My car had the newer version (51)
14) 3 days ago, we changed out the computer with one we had obtained from a scrap yard as a just in case
15) immediately after the replacement one of the O2 monitors was ready
15) next day, drove the car on the streets about 40 minutes, 2x and checked again and the ECR monitor was ready
16) next day yet again, drove the car on the streets for 40 minutes, then, later, the freeway for 6 minutes. Checked the monitors and all 4 were now ready (Cat, O2 sensor, HO2 sensor, and EGR)

Not sure why the ECU went bad (guessing it was the overheat, but who knows), but apparently, it did. I wish there was a way to have checked the ECU first, but i guess i wouldn't have realized i had a bad brake booster if i had.

We will be taking in the car to the smog station on monday.. will status again at that time.

 

Possibly the capacitors went bad in your ecm. 1995 is in the year groups where things are starting to leak or fail

 

okay. (sorry, not my field of expertise). Does this mean the ECM is repairable or that its toast? Just curious what the statement means.

i forgot a couple of other things we did to insert in the above list:

12a) checked the fuel pressure and leak down.. it was still good
12b) checked the cylinder compression. it was surprisingly good.

note: if you rent the tools from one of the auto stores, be prepared to do so a couple of times. We had to use two different locations of one store and then had to switch stores so we could finish. Also, one of the places had the cylinder compression tool, and it would show the compression, but wouldn't hold the value. If there were not two of us, we couldn't have completed the test.

I think that covers everything except to note that the car passed the smog today.. the smog guy said it barely passed, so we are still on of the "get new car" fence (hopefully will be there for a long while).

 

No they dont. Whoever told you that is wrong.

The vehicle is subject to EIS testing only, not OIS testing. There is no monitor check in EIS testing.

I am a practicing California smog technician, have been for the last 15 years. Ive certified 100s of Hondas,Toyotas and Fords that are late model OBD1(94-95) with OBD2 ports. They do not need a monitor check.