How to Pass Emissions Inspection With An Unfixed Evap Leak

[packetfire]

A handy hint for those with more on their minds than Volvo maintenance.

I hesitated to just assume that I had a bad J-Hose on my Evap canister, and as the canister and hoses are only accessible when one drops down the exhaust and removes the heat shield, I decided to delay that job.

But how to pass inspection NOW?

1) Fill your gas tank
2) Clear any Check-Engine light with VIDA
3) Complete the "readiness drive cycle" required to get all the other systems (except Evap) reporting as "Ready".
4) Top up the gas tank again, just to be safe
5) Go to inspection, and pass, assuming that your car is older, a year for which one "not ready" system is permissible. (And these older cars are the ones where the J-Hose tends to fail).

What happens here is that your Volvo will no try to run an Evap test if the gas tank is full. Yes, it is just that simple!
I learned this because I got first a warning about a loose gas cap, and later a CEL for a "major leak". I could clear them, I could manually run the diagnostic test myself, but I could not get the car to run the test while driving until I burned enough fuel to get down around 1/2 tank.

[jonesg]

A full tank would nearly total my car.

[abscate]

Not counting the evap , it’s about 20-25 miles to get all the other monitors ready if you adhere to the cycle.

Low fuel level will also inhibit the evap monitor, the criteria is something like 11 liters < tank < 60 liters for the evap test