DEQ Too

Clackamas DEQ station inspector Doug Hatfield uses a mirror to look under a vehicle. - Boyd/The Oregonian

If you live the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, your car has to pass an emissions test before you can renew your vehicle registration (license plates). The DEQ (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality) handles the testing. They are not the same as the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), who handle the registration.

It used to be that you had to drive to a DEQ test facility and they would inspect and test your car. Back in the bad old days (25 years ago?) it was quite an ordeal. They had rollers embedded in the floor of the test station, kind of like a dynamometer. You drive in until the drive wheels are on the rollers. They would look under the hood and look under the car using a mirror, stick a probe up the tail pipe, then you put the car in drive and step on the gas until the big meter hanging on the wall says 1500 and hold it there for a minute. Then, if your car passed, which most modern cars did, they collected your money, stamped your paperwork, handed over the precious stickers and sent you on your way.

ODB-II Connector and Pinout

Later, when automakers had gotten the computer controls sorted out, they dispensed with the visual inspections and physical testing and simply plugged their computer into the diagnostic port in your car. The computers did their little robotic handshake / dance and then you went through the paper and payment process as before.

This year we have a new deal: DEQ Too. Now you don't have to go to the actual DEQ test facility, you can take your car to your local shop, and if they are connected, they can do the DEQ test right there.

My wife's car needed an oil change, so I took it Clays Auto Service and they ran the test for which they charged me $25. Now all I need to do is go online and I can complete the registration, and here's where things went south.

I go to the website and I pay the DEQ fee (what? Didn't I just pay that? No, silly, that was the other DEQ fee.), then I have to go through this annoying identification procedure with the DMV only to find out that I cannot renew the registration because it is not my car. It's my wife's car. WTF. Fine, get my wife and all her magic numbers, and try again, and now my credit card is declined. Double WTF. Double fine, double trouble, double, bubble, toil and trouble, I'll just write a check and mail in the form. Ha, silly boy, not that simple. To do that you need a DEQ certificate. Great, there is no such animal. Only the great DEQ computer in the sky knows that the car has passed the test, and it isn't telling nobody nothin'.

Stay tuned for part two, wherein this situation is resolved or I am hauled off to the loonie bin.