Weber State works to make Utah’s air cleaner

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    By Christopher Seifert

    Weber State University, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and car manufacturers are working together to help preserve Utah air quality.

    The cooperative effort has led to the establishment of a state-of-the-art automotive training center, the first of its kind in the nation.

    The training center is used to educate teachers, students, engineers and automotive technicians as well as federal, state and local officials.

    “We have people from all over the world here for training,” said Lisa Burr, office manager at the Center for Automotive Technology at Weber State University.

    The training provided at the center educates individuals about onboard diagnostics.

    Onboard diagnostics monitor a vehicle”s engine and transmission and notify the driver when the vehicle”s harmful emissions exceed tolerable levels.

    The center has been designated the national center for onboard diagnostic training by the Environmental Protection Agency.

    All vehicles sold in the United States from 1996 to present must be equipped with onboard diagnostics.

    “Our interest lies in making sure that the people doing the emission repair work do a good job,” said Chuck Gee, training coordinator for the center.

    The center works with a wide range of car manufacturers to train their employees.

    “We work with quite a few vehicle manufacturers at different levels,” Gee said.

    American Honda Motor Company is one of the manufacturers working with Weber State University to develop the curriculum.

    “We”re basically co-partners,” said E.J. Josephson, an instructional designer with American Honda. “We”re training Honda and Acura technicians across the U.S.”

    Condensing the vast amount of information about onboard diagnostics is the major difficulty, Josephson said.

    “It”s a real challenge to educate the technicians because OBD (onboard diagnostics) is very complex,” he said. “Our challenge is to bring the complexity down to a level that we can use.”

    The center is working to make basic onboard diagnostics information available to everyone.

    “We”re also the recipient of an EPA grant for putting an OBD clearinghouse on the web,” Gee said.

    The clearinghouse will include complete information on how to access the onboard diagnostics connectors for each brand of automobile, saving time for vehicle repair technicians.

    “Hopefully, we”ll have the clearinghouse up and running in May,” Gee said.

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