Inspected by No. 37

I needed to get my truck inspected, as any respectable, conscientious citizen would. Also I got a ticket the last time I went out of town on business.

In all fairness, I was guilty as sin. The new girl at the office and I went to lunch, and on the way back to the board meeting, I saw the lights. Those pretty red and blue flashing lights, surrounding the 15,000,000-lumen strobe headlights that all police cars seem to have now, (used between rave gigs). I obediently pulled into a parking lot, so the officer can write me my ticket without being hit by all the uninsured, unlicensed drivers speeding by on their cell phones, reaching in the back seat to smack their hookers for letting the pit bull spill cocaine all over their machine guns.

Not that I'm bitter.

It was never an issue on passing inspection. I take pretty good care of it, as much as I depend on it for work. Plus I still owe a metric assload of money on it.

So I took off to the local corporate soulless mega-chain lube center, insurance, impatience and $28.34 in tow. The wait was only about 30 min, so I went to lunch, came back ready to drive off without avoiding cops any more. A toothless mechanic with a limp (I'm not making that up) got out and said, as professionally as he could, "There's a problem."

Here in Texas we have mandatory emissions testing as part of the inspection. In the past, they would stick a probe up your tailpipe (yeah, I giggled too). A veritable automotive colonoscopy. My truck failed the emissions test but not because of the actual emissions. It failed because my truck couldn't tell them that it passed. Read that again. Apparently any vehicle made after 1997 can only pass emissions testing if they can hook their iPhone into it and have a productive IM session. But in this case, my truck was using Yahoo! Messenger, where the shop was on a commodore 64. In other words, it was giving their scanner the blue screen of death. But were not allowed to do the auto anal probing. Let's review...

Legally, I'm not allowed to operate a car in Texas unless a mechanic licensed by Texas tells the state that it's safe. However, the mechanic can't tell the state it's safe unless the car tells the mechanic itself it is safe.

Makes perfect sense.

They apparently didn't have the expertise to diagnose the issue, so they sent me in the direction of a couple of different repair shops. I did exactly what any sane person would do, namely pull over and call my ringer, T from work, the perennial "car guy."

"They said my OBD (On-Board Display) might have a short."
"What?"
"According to them, the connector probably need to be replaced."
"That doesn't happen. They're blowing smoke up your ass."
"Thanks."

On his advice, I took it to an Auto Zone, and had them use their scanner. Sure enough, it wasn't connecting. The guy there suggested it might just be a blown fuse. Pliers in hand, we started pulling fuses. And found it. At 15A, to be exact. We replaced it, and sure enough, the scanner and my truck were soon chatting like old cellmates.

And what was the fuse for, you ask?

The cigarette lighter.

I shit you not.

It's the equivalent of having laryngitis due to an ingrown toenail.

With the onboard computer now talking like a meth-addled auctioneer, I run back to the Lubes"Я"Us. And guess what?

Failed again.

Apparently, when we replaced the fuse, it essentially cleared the RAM of the OBD. So they told me to come back after I drive it for about 150 miles, when the computer can reset its settings.

And I need to get my inspection done by Friday.

Got a lot of driving to do.