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I did four drive cycles in the last week. The easy part is going 55 for five minutes. The hard part is slowing down to 20 without braking and causing a pile-up. I actually found a place I could do the drive cycle in early evening on a weekday in the heart of Queens. The 55 for five minutes part isn't carved in stone. One time it worked, another time took 14 miles.
The first drive cycle was from Northern Blvd at Cross Island Pkwy, headed north towards Throgs Neck Bridge. The Cross Island is a problem now due to major construction at the Throgs Neck, There's no way to predict if traffic is moving or not. Bear left to the Whitestone Expressway south, and look for the Astoria Blvd exit. The destination was the exit at Astoria Blvd and Ditmars Blvd, where the highway ends. This two lane highway runs parallel to the old Shea Stadium and is all but unused most of the time. Put on the flashers as you coast down to 15 or 20 with all the time and highway in the world. This cycle completed in 6 miles, with one monitor not ready. It's cool to watch them come on one after the other. Some of them require ignition off and a restart, which I did after I got off the highway.
The cursed PO442 (small emission leak) came on the next day while going for an inspection, so I needed to rerun the drive cycle. This time I was going reverse, from Astoria Blvd to Long Island. I planned to take the Whitestone Expressway to Cross Island south, and get off at Northern Blvd east, which is a nice, rather long steep uphill exit. I figured that would be enough road to get down to 20. However, after 6 miles only two readiness monitors were set so I aborted that plan and kept driving to the dread LIE (Sunday morning early). I figured I could do the 55 part no problem, and the strategy was to exit at Shelter Rock Road eastbound which I remembered to be a very long exit. This is what I did. The Shelter Rock Road eastbound exit is made for the drive cycle. The service road is three wide lanes that are virtually unused on Sunday morning. I very casually coasted to the right side of the service road without another car in sight. I stopped, turned off the car, and restarted, and poof, three more monitors set. I had five monitors, sufficient to pass inspection. In a period of five minutes maybe four cars passed me. This drive cycle took 14 miles to complete. No idea why the difference, but all's well that end's well.
There's yet another great location for completing the drive cycle. Start somewhere around Citi-Field Shea Stadium site (like the Astoria Blvd entrance to the Whitestone expressway) and go Whitestone-Cross Island-Grand Central Pkwy WESTBOUND, then follow the signs not to GCP but to Union Tpke. This is another long, luxuriant stretch of two lane divided highway exit with rarely a car. I aborted this one due to earlier traffic though.
posted by 24.90.99...
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