Still Waiting For Equipment––

Amaral Motors Slated For Emissions Testing

By Kaaren Valenta

Amaral Motors on South Main Street is slated to be among the testing stations for the new Connecticut Emissions Program, but owner Daniel Amaral has some doubts whether he will be ready when the program begins on September 19.

“I don’t have the [emissions-testing] equipment yet and I haven’t heard about when the equipment will arrive,” he said on Wednesday. “It’s very exasperating. You’d think that since they have a starting date, they would have the equipment here for you.”

In April 2002, the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles decided to replace its 25 vehicle emissions testing stations with a network of service stations, dealerships, and repair shops that will use equipment provided by Agbar Technologies of Chicago.

Mr Amaral said he attended a meeting in March in Bridgeport to learn about the planned program and subsequently applied to be one of the local emissions testing facilities.

“There are requirements and I was able to fulfill them,” Mr Amaral said. “We have restroom facilities. Customers can drive in the front door [of the garage] and wait in the showroom where they will be able to watch their car, so I won’t need a video camera there.”

The new system will use video cameras on every testing lane, however, and an iris-scanning device that will ensure only authorized inspectors use the equipment, according to DMV Commissioner Gary J. DeFilippo. Data from the testing will be uploaded to the state, and will be monitored. It also will allow the state to keep emissions information about every car in its computer system. The DMV will be able to use that information to reject vehicle registration requests for cars that have emissions problems.

Mr Amaral said he is concerned that the system may cause problems if drivers decide to sell or trade in a car when the emissions test is needed.

“I’d rather see a sticker on a windshield, but that’s gone now,” he said. “It’s going to be more complicated and I’m wondering if they will be able to keep track of all this.”

Mr Amaral said a pit has to be dug into the floor of his garage to accommodate the dynamometer, a treadmill-like device that is part of the emissions testing equipment.

The new testing equipment will allow inspectors to plug into the computer systems of newer cars to evaluate emissions performance, a test that takes 35 to 45 seconds, according to an Agbar spokesman.

Older cars and some others will have to undergo a more traditional emissions test with a tailpipe probe.

No emissions test is required for new cars until they are five years old. The four-year exemption is set annually with the introduction of new model-year vehicles. Agbar will notify motorists when their exemption period ends and the date for their tests to begin on the vehicle.

The cost of the test will remain $20 for a test repeated every two years.

Christopher Stock, executive vice president of Agbar, said 262 stations will be ready in September.

“We will add another 20 to 25 stations in the next 60 days, and should have 275 stations for motorists to choose from by the end of October,” he said.

Amaral will be the only station in Newtown. There will be other tests stations in Bethel, Brookfield, Danbury, and Monroe.

For 20 years, Envirotest Systems Corp ran the state’s vehicle emissions program tests and tested about 1.5 million cars annually. The new test centers will inspect about 950,000 vehicles each year. The system was changed after more than a dozen Envirotest workers at a testing station in Bridgeport were accused of taking part in a plan to solicit bribes of $50 to $150 to pass vehicles that actually failed the test.

This summer Agbar Technologies began sending notices to vehicle owners to schedule emissions tests beginning in September. Agbar also plans to have a website that will allow vehicle owners to look up test dates by vehicle identification number.