[impboy]

I'll try to be brief...

I'm in California and need to smog my '01 Boxster. I go to get it smogged but it says that the Catalyst monitor isn't ready. I call my awesome mechanic and he tells me how to do a drive cycle to clear it. I do that and it works BUT I pop a CEL P0420. So I clear it but that makes things worse. Sure, it cleared the CEL but now my pocket scanner shows that I have three monitors that aren’t ready (Evap., Secondary Air, and Catalyst).

I call my mechanic and he says, “Yeah…clearing the codes will do that.” He tells me to not start over by disconnecting the battery, etc. but to just do another drive cycle. I’m wasn’t able to do a full drive cycle for about 4 days and in the meantime, I’ve cleared 2 monitors just with normal driving and I’m just back to Catalyst.

It’s Sunday morning and very light traffic, perfect for doing another drive cycle. I’ve got the car on cruise control for 55 mph and I haven’t gone more than 2 miles when I pop a CEL. When I finally finish my drive cycle, I check my scanner and now it’s showing CEL P0420 and P0430 but now all the monitors are cleared. I can’t win. I haven’t cleared the CEL codes because, well, that didn’t work last time.

My mechanic is on vacation for a week and I need to get the car smogged before the end of the month in 11 days. Any ideas what I might be able to do?

I think I may need new spark plugs, maybe new coils, or maybe new O2 sensors. It’s been awhile since any of those have been replaced. BTW, the car has 135,000 miles on it.

Any advice and direction would be very much appreciated!