Appointment required, same day appointments accepted. Additional $8.25 fee applies for certificate an...
show more
Appointment required, same day appointments accepted. Additional $8.25 fee applies for certificate and $5 for electronic transfer. Limit 1 per person, may buy 1 additional as gift(s). May be repurchased every 90 days. Limit 1 per visit. Must use promotional value in 1 visit(s). Valid only for option purchased. All goods or services must be used by the same person.
Professional technicians administer state-required emissions and smog tests to ensure vehicles fit within regulations
- Additional fees apply for certificate and electronic transfer.
Catalytic Converters: Keeping Combustion Clean
Cleaner cars make for cleaner air. Learn how catalytic converters help with Groupon’s guide.
A car’s engine is a dirty place, and it produces even dirtier exhaust. Vapors exit the combustion chamber carrying a nasty trio of smog promoters: nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide. As these pollutants barrel through the exhaust manifold (the set of tubes that feeds exhaust from each cylinder into the exhaust pipe), there’s only one thing standing between them and the innocent air outside: the three-way catalytic converter.
Situated just before the muffler, the converter is home to honeycombed ceramic cores coated with some combination of platinum, rhodium, and palladium—three rare metals that interact with the main components of the pollutants. When exhaust enters, the metals trigger chemical reactions that heat the gasses and rearrange their molecules. Under their influence, nitrogen oxides splinter into pure oxygen and nitrogen, while hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are oxidized into less-harmful carbon dioxide and simple water. Since their introduction during the 1975 model year, these unseen cleaners have made air more breathable and much tastier: the EPA estimates that cars built today are 98% cleaner than their counterparts from the 1960s.