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### How to Fix Your Car When You Get That Pesky Emissions Code: A Deep Dive into EVAP Systems

If you're unlucky enough to encounter a pesky emissions code in your car, chances are it's related to your evaporative emission control (EVAP) system. In this guide, we'll walk you through how the EVAP system works, why it might fail, and how you can fix it yourself without breaking the bank.

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#### What Exactly Is an EVAP System?

The EVAP system is designed to prevent gasoline vapors from escaping into the atmosphere. Before modern emission controls, these fumes would simply evaporate or escape during refueling, contributing to air pollution. Today, the system captures these vapors and routes them through a canister filled with charcoal, which filters out harmful hydrocarbons before releasing clean air.

The system works by ensuring that gasoline vapors are either burned in the engine or stored safely until they can be processed. This not only reduces emissions but also prevents unnecessary loss of fuel.

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#### Why Does My Car Throw an OBD-II Code (PO446)?

If your car's dashboard lights up with a PO446 code, it means there's an issue with the evaporative emission control system. Specifically, this code indicates a problem with the venting system or the canister itself.

Modern cars make accessing the EVAP canister more complicated than in the past. While older vehicles like your classic *Sala car* might have exposed components under the hood, newer models often require dropping the gas tank or removing tires to access the same parts. However, some manufacturers, like Toyota, have simplified the process by placing the venting system in front, making it easier to inspect and repair.

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#### Inspecting and Repairing Your EVAP System

1. **Locating the EVAP Canister**

For a Toyota, the canister is usually located under the vehicle, near the rear wheels. It's a large component that looks like a bulky steel box. Accessing it might require removing a few bolts or even taking off a tire, depending on the model.

2. **Checking for Clogs and Leaks**

One of the most common issues with EVAP systems is clogging. Over time, debris like dirt or leaves can accumulate in the system, preventing proper airflow. Inspect all hoses and connections for signs of wear, cracks, or disconnection.

3. **Reattaching Knocked-Off Hoses**

Mechanics often knock off small hoses while working on other parts of the car. If a hose comes loose, you'll need to reattach it carefully. Use a clamp to secure it in place and ensure it doesn't rub against any sharp edges that could cause further damage.

4. **Replacing Worn-Out Components**

Rubber hoses exposed to gasoline vapors degrade over time. Replace them with specialized hoses designed for EVAP systems. These hoses are resistant to the chemical effects of gasoline fumes and will last longer than generic alternatives.

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#### Why Some Systems Fail More Than Others

While Toyota's design is relatively durable, other manufacturers have struggled with their EVAP systems. For example:

- **Chevy**: The vent valves in Chevy vehicles are prone to failure.

- **Chrysler**: The electronic components in Chrysler's EVAP systems often break, requiring you to replace the entire assembly.

This can be frustrating and costly, especially if you're stuck with a $375 EVAP canister replacement. Always check for visible damage or wear before assuming you need a full system overhaul.

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#### Resetting Your Emissions Code

Once you've fixed the issue, it's time to reset the code. This is simpler than you might think:

1. Turn on your car.

2. Press and hold the reset button (usually located under the steering wheel).

3. Keep holding it until the dashboard lights flash, indicating the codes have been cleared.

Take your car for a short drive to ensure everything works as expected. If no new issues arise, you're good to go!

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#### Bonus Questions and Answers

**1. My 2011 Lancer Shakes at 60 mph. What Could Be Wrong?**

Scotty, my friend, recently faced this exact issue. After some research, I found that the problem is likely due to unbalanced tires. When tires lose their balance, they can cause a "speed wobble" at certain speeds. The solution is simple: take your car to a tire shop and have them balance or rotate the wheels.

**2. What About Solar-Powered Car Covers for EVs?**

Armor sells a thin-film solar cover that charges electric vehicles while parked. While it might seem like a game-changer, there are some caveats:

- The solar panels aren't designed to provide massive amounts of power.

- They’re prone to UV degradation over time, especially if left in direct sunlight for extended periods.

- Prices are high, so it's probably more cost-effective to charge your car via traditional methods unless you live in a sunny desert and rarely drive.

**3. Mercedes Airbag Light Is On, and My Seat Is Worn Out. Help!**

If the airbag light is on and your driver's seat is worn down to the foam, there's likely an issue with the sensor grid inside the seat. Unfortunately, you can't just replace parts of the airbag system; it needs to be recalibrated by a professional mechanic. This means either fixing or replacing the entire seat assembly.

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#### Final Thoughts

Fixing your EVAP system might seem daunting at first, but with the right tools and a bit of patience, you can tackle most issues yourself. Always remember to document everything before making changes so you can troubleshoot effectively if something goes wrong.

If you ever find yourself stuck or unsure about a repair, don't hesitate to consult a trusted mechanic. Your car—and your peace of mind—will thank you!

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This guide is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding and fixing emissions-related issues. Stay tuned for more expert advice in future articles!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'll show you how you can fix your car if you get this stupid emissions code happens all the time now show you how the evap system works well open a lot to keep gasoline vapors from polluting the atmosphere and evaporating like it did when I was young goes through the system comes up through here and then it will burn the gas is that sometimes since gasoline vapor is hydrocarbon it can be burnt or burned through the engine or if you just refueling your tank or it's just sitting there in the hot Sun the vapors go through the system through the EVAP canister that has charcoal and stuff that filters out the hydrocarbons and then pure air at least what they call pure air comes out of the vent and it doesn't pollute the atmosphere cuz I drew carbons is gone now when you get this po4 4/6 code that means there's something wrong with the venting system well you really want to start without code yes at the EVAP canister itself now in old cars like my sala car they're easy to get to just open the hood in this case yes right here here it is well modern cars not so simple now some cars you even got to drop the gas tank to get to the EVAP canister horrible design in the case of this matrix we just have to take the left rear tire off it's a heck of a lot easier than dropping the whole gas tank now when we get under here we can see there it is not hard to get to now this here is the filter for the system this goes back to the front of the car and this comes off of the actual canister which is under further now central Carlisle get a big man and it makes steel jacks and so it doesn't fall on our head when we go under here we can see the whole setup the giant EVAP canister and there's a problem here what often happens is the vests can get clogged up with crud now in this case all always is around there's nothing clogged up so we're gonna follow the vent the whole way to the front of the car because Toyota is a better Van Susteren a lot of others like actual Vince Don Eric's barges can get Americas they're attracted to gasoline vapors for some unknown reasons or something to their sensory inputs but Toyota vents in the front so we're gonna take the stock Bob you follow the Vince we can see the stupid house came off a lot of times when people are working I'll knock these goofy little hoses you can see this part to rip that's just insulation what you want to do is peel back the insulation squeeze the clamp the problem is that rubs on it that's what made it go bad so hold that back then squeeze this on now it's nice and tighten this thing you can see rubbing on it that caused the problem I got this on a little tighter they should have been made a little bit longer but at least it hasn't worn a hole in it yet now these evap systems are continually checking themselves as you drive and when they find a leak they trip a code that there's a problem in the system thank goodness it wasn't a broken EVAP canister cuz on these babies a big old thing is $375 they're not giving it away but you can see with Toyota it's a better design it's sealed in the back so crud doesn't get enough you have some American cars all the crunch and the tires gets there and then it jams into the vents and plugs them up or worse gets on electronics that isn't sealed that well done the electronic short out these Toyota systems are much more bulletproof as you can see the only problem with this is the hose that come off I see that all the time on these sometimes it's back here where the hose comes off somebody checks the air filter off then the hoses come disconnected so if you're ever working on one Chuck all the hoses and even better so everything's working fine before you work on it get your camera take a picture of everything and then if something goes wrong look at your picture and compare it to what the car looks like now you or someone else knocked off a hose somewhere that's what normally absoluto ever systems themselves don't usually break but through you an air hose just get knocked off or if they're really old like my 94 silk oh the rubber hoses just went right find them and see which ones are rotting and have fallen off or sometimes they completely collapse because realize you are gasoline vapor going through these rubber hoses and eventually that will decompose them and when you do replace them replace them with special hoses that are made to take gasoline vapors not any kind of a radiator hose or a naked vacuum hose that just has air suction these things that they are saline vapors and they have to have special hoses or they will come apart of course if you fix it yourself then you want to reset it you just push the race car just shots then it erases the codes you can take it for a ride that's the problem the cold won't come back so I'll realize even though these evap systems are controlled by computers often it's simple mechanical things that go wrong either crud gets in the vent and plugs it up if you got a low down one or in this case Toyotas hoses accidentally get pulled off with the Toyotas it's not coming anything goes wrong with them any electronics now let's say you're working on a Chevy well the EVAP canister vent valves go bad a lot knows even more so on to chrysler products they're just cheaply made and EVAP canister has electronic vent valves and they just break and then you got to replace the vent valve and unfortunately in many of the cases you got to buy the entire EVAP canister assembly because it only comes as one piece so they rip you off when it does break because this big ol iver canister on a toyota it may cost 300 something box but they very rarely go bad unless you wrap the car and they get crushed in an accident and you can't blame that on a car flower just gonna put the cover back on close the hood don't forget to remove the jack stand and put the tire back on always fun when it's slippery anyway but now you know how an evap system works now you can often fix it yourself extremely cheaply and here's some bonus questions and answers Artemus so Scotty my friend recently purchased the 2011 Lancer with 90,000 miles 6-speed automatic around 60 miles an hour starts to shake the steering what could cause that Oh 90% of the time of war it's just the tires are out of balance when they get out of balance you get to a certain speed they shake that's called a speed wobble because when they're not balanced a certain speeds they'll shake all bunch sometimes they'll only shake like it's 60 that when you're on 80 they stop shaking that's always the tires being out of balance so just go to any tire and have the balance jacked maybe rotate the tires put the front and back and a back in the front like if you even want to try it yourself put the front in the back in the back in the front if it stops shaking a steering wheel you can live with it cuz if you got tires that are a little out of balance in the back a lot of times it won't affect it much at all I'll throw my life I'll put the worst tires in the back and the good ones in the front they don't shake and I don't care I leave it that way there's no chest you want a company called armor as a thin-film solar car cover that can recharge an electric vehicle while it's parked pretty interesting huh you can cover it up helps charge it now we're not talking about gigantic amounts of electricity or of course they have figured out to make the solar panel they say then it can be rolled on her old fifty thousand times and still works or it isn't cracked I put kind of a disclaimer on him because maybe they test it at 50,000 folds right but I'm sure they didn't have it sitting out in the Sun with the UV rays decomposing it do that 50,000 times over the course of say if you do it done once a day or something and take what 50,000 days to test it so I'm sure they haven't done that I'm sure in the real world this thing isn't gonna last 50,000 times the ultraviolet rays are certainly gonna partly destruct the thing over time all car covers get wrecked by the Sun eventually now how it works is if you're exposed to the Sun for eight hours it can give you up to nine point three miles extra driving for sitting there for eight hours so we're not talking amassing from behind a powder but I mean hey let's say yeah I like a car you know driving all that much a lot of people buy electric cars cuz they don't drive it that much then hey maybe you could just keep recharging I think especially a little out in a desert say if you park and a lot and don't drive it it's just sitting there recharging wouldn't be a bad idea for that and of course you got to live somewhere where there's a lot of Sun if you park your car in a garage we're gonna cover garage or the garage you're next to your house it's not gonna charge at all it's gotta be on the full Sun and you gotta live in a pretty honest area because these things aren't cheap oh look there's that expensive car cover I think you steal it so but it is interesting that it's thin enough and flexible enough that you can take it on put it off Sigma I'm curious about us didn't get the price Oh sure it's not cheap you're probably so much better just plug it into the house and paying the pennies for the electricity then you learn about one of these things that probably cost a small fortune Charlene's agar cells they got in no way for Sadie's gl-5 fifties air bag light is on and the seat on a driver side is worn all the way down to the foam help there's sensors in there for weighing you when you get in for the airbag that sense is probably broken on a Mercedes it's called the sensor grid you'll have to replace the whole thing and I'll have to rip the seat apart it's worn down anyways you're gonna have to reupholster it or if you want to try if you can find a used seat but isn't worn out from a junkyard to have that put in an avid mechanic recalibrated you can't replace any of those parts on an airbag system on Mercedes and expect it to work it has to be recalibrated by a mechanic so one way or the other you're gonna have to see another mechanic if you want that airbag system to work correctly there's that complex so if you never want to miss another one of my new Chi repair videos remember to ring that Bell youhey I'll show you how you can fix your car if you get this stupid emissions code happens all the time now show you how the evap system works well open a lot to keep gasoline vapors from polluting the atmosphere and evaporating like it did when I was young goes through the system comes up through here and then it will burn the gas is that sometimes since gasoline vapor is hydrocarbon it can be burnt or burned through the engine or if you just refueling your tank or it's just sitting there in the hot Sun the vapors go through the system through the EVAP canister that has charcoal and stuff that filters out the hydrocarbons and then pure air at least what they call pure air comes out of the vent and it doesn't pollute the atmosphere cuz I drew carbons is gone now when you get this po4 4/6 code that means there's something wrong with the venting system well you really want to start without code yes at the EVAP canister itself now in old cars like my sala car they're easy to get to just open the hood in this case yes right here here it is well modern cars not so simple now some cars you even got to drop the gas tank to get to the EVAP canister horrible design in the case of this matrix we just have to take the left rear tire off it's a heck of a lot easier than dropping the whole gas tank now when we get under here we can see there it is not hard to get to now this here is the filter for the system this goes back to the front of the car and this comes off of the actual canister which is under further now central Carlisle get a big man and it makes steel jacks and so it doesn't fall on our head when we go under here we can see the whole setup the giant EVAP canister and there's a problem here what often happens is the vests can get clogged up with crud now in this case all always is around there's nothing clogged up so we're gonna follow the vent the whole way to the front of the car because Toyota is a better Van Susteren a lot of others like actual Vince Don Eric's barges can get Americas they're attracted to gasoline vapors for some unknown reasons or something to their sensory inputs but Toyota vents in the front so we're gonna take the stock Bob you follow the Vince we can see the stupid house came off a lot of times when people are working I'll knock these goofy little hoses you can see this part to rip that's just insulation what you want to do is peel back the insulation squeeze the clamp the problem is that rubs on it that's what made it go bad so hold that back then squeeze this on now it's nice and tighten this thing you can see rubbing on it that caused the problem I got this on a little tighter they should have been made a little bit longer but at least it hasn't worn a hole in it yet now these evap systems are continually checking themselves as you drive and when they find a leak they trip a code that there's a problem in the system thank goodness it wasn't a broken EVAP canister cuz on these babies a big old thing is $375 they're not giving it away but you can see with Toyota it's a better design it's sealed in the back so crud doesn't get enough you have some American cars all the crunch and the tires gets there and then it jams into the vents and plugs them up or worse gets on electronics that isn't sealed that well done the electronic short out these Toyota systems are much more bulletproof as you can see the only problem with this is the hose that come off I see that all the time on these sometimes it's back here where the hose comes off somebody checks the air filter off then the hoses come disconnected so if you're ever working on one Chuck all the hoses and even better so everything's working fine before you work on it get your camera take a picture of everything and then if something goes wrong look at your picture and compare it to what the car looks like now you or someone else knocked off a hose somewhere that's what normally absoluto ever systems themselves don't usually break but through you an air hose just get knocked off or if they're really old like my 94 silk oh the rubber hoses just went right find them and see which ones are rotting and have fallen off or sometimes they completely collapse because realize you are gasoline vapor going through these rubber hoses and eventually that will decompose them and when you do replace them replace them with special hoses that are made to take gasoline vapors not any kind of a radiator hose or a naked vacuum hose that just has air suction these things that they are saline vapors and they have to have special hoses or they will come apart of course if you fix it yourself then you want to reset it you just push the race car just shots then it erases the codes you can take it for a ride that's the problem the cold won't come back so I'll realize even though these evap systems are controlled by computers often it's simple mechanical things that go wrong either crud gets in the vent and plugs it up if you got a low down one or in this case Toyotas hoses accidentally get pulled off with the Toyotas it's not coming anything goes wrong with them any electronics now let's say you're working on a Chevy well the EVAP canister vent valves go bad a lot knows even more so on to chrysler products they're just cheaply made and EVAP canister has electronic vent valves and they just break and then you got to replace the vent valve and unfortunately in many of the cases you got to buy the entire EVAP canister assembly because it only comes as one piece so they rip you off when it does break because this big ol iver canister on a toyota it may cost 300 something box but they very rarely go bad unless you wrap the car and they get crushed in an accident and you can't blame that on a car flower just gonna put the cover back on close the hood don't forget to remove the jack stand and put the tire back on always fun when it's slippery anyway but now you know how an evap system works now you can often fix it yourself extremely cheaply and here's some bonus questions and answers Artemus so Scotty my friend recently purchased the 2011 Lancer with 90,000 miles 6-speed automatic around 60 miles an hour starts to shake the steering what could cause that Oh 90% of the time of war it's just the tires are out of balance when they get out of balance you get to a certain speed they shake that's called a speed wobble because when they're not balanced a certain speeds they'll shake all bunch sometimes they'll only shake like it's 60 that when you're on 80 they stop shaking that's always the tires being out of balance so just go to any tire and have the balance jacked maybe rotate the tires put the front and back and a back in the front like if you even want to try it yourself put the front in the back in the back in the front if it stops shaking a steering wheel you can live with it cuz if you got tires that are a little out of balance in the back a lot of times it won't affect it much at all I'll throw my life I'll put the worst tires in the back and the good ones in the front they don't shake and I don't care I leave it that way there's no chest you want a company called armor as a thin-film solar car cover that can recharge an electric vehicle while it's parked pretty interesting huh you can cover it up helps charge it now we're not talking about gigantic amounts of electricity or of course they have figured out to make the solar panel they say then it can be rolled on her old fifty thousand times and still works or it isn't cracked I put kind of a disclaimer on him because maybe they test it at 50,000 folds right but I'm sure they didn't have it sitting out in the Sun with the UV rays decomposing it do that 50,000 times over the course of say if you do it done once a day or something and take what 50,000 days to test it so I'm sure they haven't done that I'm sure in the real world this thing isn't gonna last 50,000 times the ultraviolet rays are certainly gonna partly destruct the thing over time all car covers get wrecked by the Sun eventually now how it works is if you're exposed to the Sun for eight hours it can give you up to nine point three miles extra driving for sitting there for eight hours so we're not talking amassing from behind a powder but I mean hey let's say yeah I like a car you know driving all that much a lot of people buy electric cars cuz they don't drive it that much then hey maybe you could just keep recharging I think especially a little out in a desert say if you park and a lot and don't drive it it's just sitting there recharging wouldn't be a bad idea for that and of course you got to live somewhere where there's a lot of Sun if you park your car in a garage we're gonna cover garage or the garage you're next to your house it's not gonna charge at all it's gotta be on the full Sun and you gotta live in a pretty honest area because these things aren't cheap oh look there's that expensive car cover I think you steal it so but it is interesting that it's thin enough and flexible enough that you can take it on put it off Sigma I'm curious about us didn't get the price Oh sure it's not cheap you're probably so much better just plug it into the house and paying the pennies for the electricity then you learn about one of these things that probably cost a small fortune Charlene's agar cells they got in no way for Sadie's gl-5 fifties air bag light is on and the seat on a driver side is worn all the way down to the foam help there's sensors in there for weighing you when you get in for the airbag that sense is probably broken on a Mercedes it's called the sensor grid you'll have to replace the whole thing and I'll have to rip the seat apart it's worn down anyways you're gonna have to reupholster it or if you want to try if you can find a used seat but isn't worn out from a junkyard to have that put in an avid mechanic recalibrated you can't replace any of those parts on an airbag system on Mercedes and expect it to work it has to be recalibrated by a mechanic so one way or the other you're gonna have to see another mechanic if you want that airbag system to work correctly there's that complex so if you never want to miss another one of my new Chi repair videos remember to ring that Bell you\n"