Diesel vehicles in Utah County now required to undergo emissions testing
Hayden Nelson, a technician at the Provo Car Doctors, examines a Kia Optima during an emissions test at the repair shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo. The new light duty diesel emissions and tampering inspections requirement went into effect on Jan. 1, 2019.
Hayden Nelson, a technician at the Provo Car Doctors, finishes the paperwork for a successful emissions test at the shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo. All current vehicle emissions stations should be able to perform diesel emissions checks.
Hayden Nelson, a technician at the Provo Car Doctors, conducts an emissions test on a Kia Optima at the repair shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo. Vehicles with diesel engines that are a 2007 to 2014 model year will need visual inspections and on-board diagnostics tests for emissions inspection.
Hayden Nelson, a technician at the Provo Car Doctors, finishes up an emissions test at the shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo.
Hayden Nelson, a technician at the Provo Car Doctors, examines a Kia Optima during an emissions test at the repair shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo.
A computer workstation is pictured in the Provo Car Doctors repair shop on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019, in Provo.
Many diesel vehicles in Utah County have to undergo emissions testing as of Jan. 1 to comply with a state law passed in 2018.
A three-year pilot program is now in effect, requiring that all vehicles that are less than 14,000 pounds undergo emissions testing.
Gasoline vehicles in the county were already required to have such tests, though testing on diesel vehicles was discontinued about 14 years ago. All current vehicle emissions stations will be able to perform diesel emissions checks.
The testing is similar to that performed on gasoline vehicles, though it requires a new software, said Scott Burton, vehicle emissions supervisor with the Utah County Health Department. Technicians from around the county attended training on how to use the software and how to perform the visual inspections.
Vehicles from the past five model years are exempted from the testing. Vehicles from 1997 to 2006 are given a visual inspection to make sure the emissions components have not been tampered with. Vehicles 2007 and newer are visually inspected, but also plugged in to a machine that can communicate with the car’s computer to make sure everything is acceptable.
Any aftermarket programmers that are not approved by the Environmental Protection Agency will have to be removed to pass the emissions test.
“You’ve seen people rolling coal?” Burton said. “That’s how they make that happen. An aftermarket programmer will dump in lots more fuel than the vehicle is designed to burn.”
Other types of aftermarket programmers don’t produce the clouds of black smoke, but still produce nitrogen oxides, or NOx, a family of poisonous, highly reactive gases. According to the EPA’s website, NOx plays a major role in the atmospheric reactions that produce ozone, or smog, on hot summer days.
Diesel also produces particulate matter, Burton said, which can collect in peoples’ lungs and cause a variety of health problems.
“That’s why we don’t like to see the black smoke,” Burton said. “That’s a lot of particulate ending up out there in the atmosphere.”
All vehicles that have been tampered with has to be fixed before they will pass an emissions inspection, Burton said, though there is an exemption for those who fail the plug-in test as long as the visual inspection is passed. The waiver allows for the owner of a vehicle that failed the plug-in test to obtain a waiver if they spend $750 to fix the problem and still can’t pass the test.
Utah already has a Smoking Vehicle Hotline, where people can report vehicles that are producing visibly excessive emissions. These new requirements, however, will help catch altered vehicles that are not producing the visible black smoke, Burton said.
As of Wednesday, Burton said about 40 emission-testing locations were fully equipped to do emissions testing on diesel vehicles. The rest of the approximately 220 testing locations in Utah County should get the software downloaded and be testing diesel vehicles within the next couple of weeks.
Utah County has approximately 20,000 diesel vehicles that will be affected by the testing requirements.
At the end of each year during the three-year pilot program, Utah County will submit reports to the state on how many vehicles failed, and how many had been tampered with.
