A comment on the new Swedish regulations regarding PTI
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (20 March 2018). After the CITA WG2 (Environmental Protection Systems) meeting is Stockholm last week, our Vice-President and expert Mr. G. Müller expressed his concerns about the new Swedish regulations regarding inspection of cars that will start on May 20 this year.
During an interview he informed the journalist about the general situation in Europe, explaining that many countries would like to modernize the whole periodic emission test, which is already 25 years old.
In this context, it is proofed by several studies that it is meaningful to measure real emission at the tailpipe, to tighten the thresholds for modern vehicles and to read out the diagnostic trouble codes stored in the OBD-system. Starting from May, Sweden will rely on the indication of the MIL (malfunction indicator lamps) as a pass/fail criteria, which is not up to date anymore. The reading of the diagnostic trouble codes and the failures stored in the OBD would allow a much better evaluation of the emission system. This rule change concerns 1.2 million cars that get greatly increased permissible limits, thus allowing significantly greater amounts of harmful emissions.
“Even if Sweden is a leading country in the environmental field, I am very concerned that it does not follow the trend in the rest of Europe, but instead allows higher emission levels because of a not up to date periodic emission test ”, said Mr. Müller.