Maintaining your car can be a bit of a chore, and one part is making sure it complies with the EPA’s Clean Air Act. In this month’s Drivers Ed with Debbie, we learn about that all-important chore, the emissions test.
There it is, you get the letter in the mail from the DOT saying it’s time once again to renew your license plates… but wait, you can’t just fire off a check this time… CONGRATULATIONS, it’s YOUR TURN to take your car in for Emissions Testing. It happens every other year for all cars that use either a gas or a diesel engine. Even hybrids are included.
I spoke with the DOT’s Inspection Maintenance Unit Supervisor, Bryon Gerick, about why we actually have to do this, “We currently are required to have emissions testing through EPA’s Clean Air Act. DNR measures the air in the state and then designates which counties need emissions testing.”
But when you bring your car in to be tested, they don’t actually test for the particulates right there.
Gerick says, “We test the onboard computer through OBD2. We plug into the vehicle, and that checks all the emissions components to make sure everything’s working properly on the vehicle.”
As long as those systems are working properly in your car, you are fine and you’re helping to keep our air clean.
So in case you haven’t done an emissions test before, here’s what you do:
You take your car and that little note from the DOT into a testing facility. There are actually a whole bunch of them all over the place, and the DOT has worked on improving their website to help you find your nearest test site.
Once you get there, Gerick says, “You just let them know that you need an emissions inspection, and then they’ll take your vehicle in. It takes about two to five minutes to perform an actual inspection.”
And the tests are uploaded in real time, so you can actually go online and read the report right away.
Once you pass, they give you your new stickers for the license plates, and away you go. You don’t even have to pay. The tests are free in Wisconsin.
And on the off chance your vehicle does not pass, “You get a list of the trouble codes printed out on your fail sheet, and then you’d have to bring your vehicle in for a repair,” explains Gerick.
Incidentally, NOT taking your car in for inspection is not an option.
He says, “If you don’t get the emissions test, then you’re unable to renew the plates.”
Opening up a whole other kettle of fish that you really don’t want to get into. Unregistered vehicles are a problem in Milwaukee, too. But that’s another story for another time.
The nice thing about the website is, “We have an interactive map so you can actually see the actual facilities around you, and you can click on those facilities for the address and for the phone number so you can easily get to it through your phone and call a facility if you want to find out what their testing hours are,” says Gerick.
So now that you know that it can be a totally painless process, you can go into the next two years knowing you did your part to help keep our air clean.
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