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Thread: OBD readiness?

  1. #1
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    OBD readiness?

    Hey, does anyone know if VCM scanner can read OBDII readiness codes, and if so what channels to look for?

    I just took my A6 for inspection and it failed readiness for the O2 sensors and evap system. Probably because I've only put 17 miles on it since I loaded the latest tune.

    I know the solution is to drive it more, but so I don't waste my and the shop's time, I'd like to be able to check readiness before I bring it in again. If VCM scanner won't do it, does anyone happen to know if VCDS will?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
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    VCM scanner, under diagnostics and info (check engine symbol) has readiness status displayed when connected to a vehicle

  3. #3
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    Awesome, thanks!

  4. #4
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    Hey... has anyone else had trouble with readiness codes on the 3.0t engine?

    I connected VCM scanner to the car and it showed the O2 sensor and evap tests not being ready. I then cold-started the car and drove it for about 25 minutes, including some idling, some in-town driving, and a few miles on the highway at 65-70 MPH. Got home, checked again, and the O2 now showed ready but the evap still was not.

    I've since loaded the stock tune back to the engine and am going to put it through a few drive cycles to see if the readiness issue goes away. But if it does, I'm curious if it's possible something I did in the tune affected readiness, or if it's just a byproduct of the engine being tuned at all.

    Oh and I checked with VCDS both before and after that "long" drive, and the engine showed zero fault codes. So I'm pretty sorta somewhat sure there's not an actual problem with the evap system.

  5. #5
    I think the ross tech forums had a thread on readiness can't remember now when i first moved to texas went thru and did a bunch of searching on it all as florida doesn't check emissions

  6. #6
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    Yeah I've been doing some searching and seen a number of things indicating that on the Audis, how much fuel is in the tank is a factor... apparently it won't do the evap test if the tank is more than 3/4 or less than 1/4 full. Right now the tank is almost completely full so the next thing I'm going to try is just driving it until the fuel goes down a bit and see if that does the trick.

  7. #7
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    evap test won't run over 3/4 tank

    if you have vagcom you can do a readiness set in your driveway in 5-10 minutes

    not sure how your state is, but in Ga we're allowed to fail one

  8. #8
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    So an update... have driven the car a number of times both locally and on highway (mostly the former), fuel in tank is at about 60% (per VCDS), maybe 10 cold starts, have reverted to stock tune so now the only mod on the car is smaller supercharger pulley. There are NO fault codes in ECM and... I still can't get it to show evap readiness.

    Has anyone else had trouble with this?

    VCDS apparently requires some kind of script to do it's readiness-setting magic and apparently there's no script for this car so that's not an option.

    Oh and this is a '14 A6 with the 3.0t engine.

  9. #9
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    I don't have much insight into these emissions tests, but I do know that I had to do at least three 30 minute drives after clearing codes for everything to show ready.

    Some other things to consider:
    • Are you sure you're back to stock? I know HPT's comparison function doesn't really show when you change diagnostic codes. Or if you flashed your original read, are you sure the original read was stock?
    • You mention no codes in the ECM, but what about other modules?
    • You could try disabling the tests, maybe they'll show ready by default or not available and that will be good enough?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by mukhery View Post
    I don't have much insight into these emissions tests, but I do know that I had to do at least three 30 minute drives after clearing codes for everything to show ready.

    Some other things to consider:
    • Are you sure you're back to stock? I know HPT's comparison function doesn't really show when you change diagnostic codes. Or if you flashed your original read, are you sure the original read was stock?
    • You mention no codes in the ECM, but what about other modules?
    • You could try disabling the tests, maybe they'll show ready by default or not available and that will be good enough?
    Sorry for the slow reply, things have been crazy lately!

    Re the ECM being back to stock, I used the "restore OE tune" (or whatever it's called) function in VCM editor. Re codes, initially the car had a ton of codes, but I cleared them and the only one that came back had to do with rear HVAC. Most had to do with loss of communication with the ECM which I suspect came from the flashing process. Re disabling the tests, luckily I didn't have to... see the next post.

  11. #11
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    Hey for anyone else experiencing this problem... I did a lot of looking around and I guess these engines are notorious for being difficult to get the evap readiness flag set.

    I finally posted about the problem on the Ross-Tech forum, and one of their guys got back to me and suggested some steps to take that worked! Basically you go into basic settings in the engine module and run a few things. You can read the details here: https://forums.ross-tech.com/showthr...evap-readiness