I'm not too worried about getting my 2006 HSE to pass California smog testing, but a couple years ago when doing pre-smog maintenance chores at home, I cleared the codes (all unimportant) using my GAP tool and had it tested soon thereafter. Stupid me, because it's considered a fail if the last code clear was too recent (you can imagine why...). Smog checker apologized but still charged me the base testing fee (this wasn't one of those pass-or-don't-pay or pass-with-free-retest places, if in fact either species of testing facilitiy still exist any more).

So to avoid that from happening again, I've been trying to figure out when the vehicle's computer is ready for testing following a code clear. Is it based on the number of drive cycles (i.e., engine turned on, run, then turned off), the total time elapsed with the engine running, the total miles driven, or some sort of complicated combination of two or more of these measures? And if you don't know for sure, it would be helpful to hear about instances where you cleared your codes, drove the LR3 for a while, and then passed smog (or at least didn't fail for the "too soon" reason). Knowing that someone drove her or his truck each day for a week and racked up 100 miles before a successful test, for example, would at least give me something to shoot for. I don't use my LR3 as a daily driver (not at $4.50 for a gallon of premium; my Chevy Bolt EV does the work and shopping duties) so guidance would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Nick in Palm Springs

 

I don't have experience with the LR3 but definitely have in the past with my Audis

100 miles is a generic answer, I think I got it cleared closer to 50 sometimes
It is more about completing a "checklist" of things during "normal drive cycles"

They include things like starting, maintaining steady speed for X miles, X amount of time, stopping, letting car rest X amount of time, etc.

Maybe someone will have better info related to the LR3, but if you shoot for 50-100 miles and 1-2 days, you should be good.
Also, even my super cheap generic code reader tells me if I have incomplete monitors, so it's easy enough to know for sure when the car is ready for testing.

 

I found this for 2000-2009 vehicles at the California Bureau of Automotive Repair website: "PDTC presence will be ignored if the vehicle has completed at least 15 warm-up cycles and been driven at least 200 miles since its OBD information was last cleared (as determined by Mode $01 PID $30 and $31)." (see https://www.bar.ca.gov/obd-test-reference#PDTC ) Though that's for Permanent Diagnostic Trouble Codes, it does seem like one would be reasonably confident of avoiding the "not ready for testing" problem if an LR3 had 15 start-warm-drive cycles and 200 miles since the last clear. Unless there's a way to check readiness-for-testing using the GAP tool (anyone know if it'll do that?), I'll just drive the beast until I reach the 15/200 point.

Cheers,

Nick in Palm Springs