UPDATE:California residents: Help smogging an E30 M3

[mgold]

Someone asked me if there is problem smogging an E30 M3 due to the fact that the BAR insists that there is a check engine light on the E30 M3 which doesn't exist!!??

[Tangent]

Your best bet would probably be to call a few likely smog shops that you might go to and ask them about it. Some smog shops might know while others will be clueless monkeys that only know how to reference books that are quite often dead wrong...

I had a similar problem at one particular smog shop with my 89 Camaro. They insisted that ignition timing was supposed to be 7* BTDC and had a book to back it up. While that's true for most Chevy small blocks it's waay off from the 0* advance my 305 TBI engine was supposed to have. Since I no longer had the factory smog info sticker (that was no longer available from Chevy to boot) I was stuck with a situation where the shop insisted that I needed a setting that would guarantee failure on the sniffer, but an engine that really needed a setting that they'd fail on the visual inspection.

[Jon325i]

Your best bet would probably be to call a few likely smog shops that you might go to and ask them about it. Some smog shops might know while others will be clueless monkeys that only know how to reference books that are quite often dead wrong....

I know someone with an E30 M3 that faced this issue....and the advice you heed is correct. Some smog shops are run by brain-dead idiots while others actually know a thing or two. Case in point: when I had to recently smog my '91 325i, as the tech in the shop was putting the car into position on the rollers, the dumbshit placed the front tires on the rollers since he thought my car was front-wheel drive :roll:

Mark, I would advise this E30 M3 owner (if they're local) to contact a couple of independent BMW shops like Schatz&Krum or IPB Autosport and see if they know of a reputable smog place where they are familiar with these cars.

Jon

[mgold]

Jon,

Its a local person for sure. I'll advise her to check with those shops. The biggest problem is that she has to bring it to a Test Only location, and those places are the worst :?

[reelizmpro]

The emissions sticker on some M3's say "OBD exempt" on the bottom corner. You can also have the tech call a BMW E30 M3 specialist like Turner or some other shop that knows M3's.

[mgold]

My friend called BMW NA yesterday and got directed to the engineering dept. where they admitted knowing about the lack of check engine light on the '88 M3s. Nobody
had told them about the change in the smog procedure which makes the car
fail the visual check and never get tested.

Within the week BAR will be receiving a letter from BMW's engineering dept.
outlining the problem and asking for the correction!

In the meantime, she has been referred to a 'test only' shop who understands BMW's.