Well, my knuckledragging friend is almost right. There *is* a
Federally-mandated emissions warranty (and CARB mandates one in California).
For many years, that was 4 years/50k miles (CARB's is 10yr/100k miles). It's
my understanding that the Federal requirement now matches CARB's 10/100k
requirement. There's some talk of extending that to 150k (keeping the 10
years), but I don't think that's actually happened yet.
This has lead to some interesting fun maintenance facts for some vehicles.
Example: my late, lamented '94 Probe GT called for a timing belt replacement
at 70k miles. The same car, with the same timing belt (I checked -- same part
number), sold in California, did not call for timing belt replacement until
105k miles. The reason? It's an emissions component, since it regulates the
valve timing, and if they called for its replacement at 70K in California (with
the 10/100k emissions warranty), they'd have to cover it under the emissions
warranty. In the 4/50k rest of the country, though, they could call for its
replacement at 70k miles and the owner would be responsible for the approx $500
cost ($150 for the belt, the book gives 4.5 hours to do the job. I did it
myself, the first one took 5.5 hours as the service manual was written for
doing it after removing the engine from the vehicle and I hadn't yet learned
the tricks of doing it in-vehicle, the second time I did it in under 4 hours,
the third time I did one -- in someone else's car -- it only took about 3.5).
Jim Crider
autojim@despammed.com
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