The county it was in in Washington didn’t require smog, so the car may never have been smogged. We recently bought a 1997 Landcruiser from Washington state.
I strongly suggest you get an OBD2 monitor to see how your car is running so you can diagnose little one-off issues like this that might save you from having to run through these drive cycles countless times. The ECT thing above may not be terribly uncommon if you drive a 20 year old car like me. I drove about 40 miles over a handful of trips, and BOOM, my monitors were ready. A bit more research later I figured I needed my engine coolant thermostat replaced, so I took the car into the shop and had that done ($250 job).įollowing that, the ECT ran over 80. My OBD2 monitor showed I was never getting close to that. In reading this through you’ll notice one of the pre-test conditions is that the Engine Coolant Temperature (ECT) must eventually get over 80 degrees celsius. The link dewok provided seems to be dead, but I found the Toyota bulletin for Toyota Drive Cycles. I attempted this and a couple of other drive cycles I found online numerous times with no success. I have a 2002 Camry V6 XLE for which the catalytic monitor refused to run following some battery work. All monitors were ready when I came home.īy the way the thermostat I replace is the one I ordered for my daughter’s car which is 2008 corolla. Just drove to a nearby town to pickup my spare tire for a round trip of around 50 miles. After replacing the thermostat, my scanner reads ECT (engine cooling temp) at 183F once it warms up until I turn of the engine. If this condition is not met then your fuel will not burn cleanly causing engine problems and will kill the CAT. This means your thermostat must be in perfect condition in adjusting its valve to control the coolant flow to radiator for heat release as the engine heats up. But what it didn’t say is that your engine temperature must remain constant at the optimum temperature of 183F until you turn off your engine. The first requirement of the drive cycle is that your engine must be at the operating temperature (179F in my case). After 50 miles, all monitors were ready.īefore that, I drove over 400 miles following the manufacturer drive cycle many times without hope. I replaced the thermostat and went to pickup a spare tire. I spent a month observing and investigating why my CAT monitor was not ready and root caused to the defective thermostat.
If your engine is not, then the drive cycle will not work. The manufacturer drive cycle is designed for a ‘properly’ operated engine. In that case, it may be time to have your vehicle properly diagnosed and repaired by a shop that has the training, equipment, and experience necessary to diagnose and repair OBD monitor issues. If several reasonable attempts at running the drive cycle fail to complete the catalyst monitor, a problem may exist that is preventing your vehicle from running the monitor to completion. In most cases, you should be able to complete the catalyst monitor after following the drive cycle a couple of times.You may need to extend the drive cycle.Also, in Southern California, it may only be possible to maintain these speeds early on a weekend morning. Tip: try to stay around the middle of this range (55MPH). After warming up the vehicle, drive at a steady speed between 40 & 70 miles per hour.I usually recommended letting it idle for ten to fifteen minutes after sitting overnight. Allow the vehicle to run at idle until fully warmed up.Do not turn off the ignition switch during the test procedure.The monitor will not run if active diagnostic codes are present.
Per Toyota, the following drive cycle should run the catalyst monitor on 2004 Toyota Highlanders:ĬATALYST MONITOR DRIVE CYCLE INSTRUCTIONS