Re: Inspections on Dynos in Virginia

[Chris Maresca <ckm@eainet.com>]

At 8:53 AM -0400 4/26/98, Jonathan Linkov wrote:
>Spoke with the local inspection attendant at the Citgo yesterday.
>Apparently all 4-wheel drive (he did not specify if it was full or
>part-time, but I am guesing it would be full-time), all-wheel drive vehicles
>are exempt from Virginia's new Dyno tests.  The $64,000 piece of machinery
>that the state is making gas stations purchase to do the new, high-standards
>tests, only drive one roller, not two.  So, any vehicle that is full-time,
>or all-wheel drive gets the sniffer up the tailpipe (oooh, sounds exciting!)
>still, which is easier to pass.  No idea about Maryland, and in DC, you just
>pay the people off to pass the inspection still.

In MD, they have 4wd dynos.  They require all full-time 4wd AND traction
control equipped vehicles to use the four wheel dynos.  The test is
basically the operator (who drives your car) watching a computer graph of
the speed he should be keeping, which goes up & down for about 5 minutes.

Kinda funky, actually.  I had my CQ tested not long ago and sat in the
pass. side.  The guys at the test place say they can easily tell badly
aligned cars since they drift on the four rollers, and they accelerate the
car to 40+ mph on these things...   Anyway, they said my car was one of the
best they had seen, some of the worst were Porsche C4's.


Chris.

'90 CQ