Please educate me about emissions certification

I just purchased a 2010 335d with 27,000 miles on the clock at my local BMW dealer. Apparently the car had come in the day I saw it advertised. The dealer agreed to let me test drive the car with the understanding that it had not gone through pre-sale inspection, and would have to be serviced and detailed before I could pick it up. I bought the car and expected to pick it up later that week when the dealership had completed the inspection/service. Surprisingly, my salesman told me that the car needed to be driven about 100 miles as part of the inspection process, and invited me to take the car home and drive it that distance before bringing it back in to the shop. This seemed a little strange to me and I asked him why this extended road test was necessary. He said that because it was a diesel and hadn't been driven for a while that it was standard operating procedure. So I did as they asked. The dealership called the day after I returned the car and said that in fact, the car needed to be driven 1000 miles!! before they could certify the emmisons?? They were very vague about what exactly was going on - they assured me this was PERFECTLY normal for diesel motors, and mumbled something about resetting the ECU. I asked if this had anything to do with the Diesel recall in May that I had read about and they said no. So I took the car home and am piling on the miles so I can bring it back in. There are no warning lights illuminated on the dash, and the car is still under factory warranty. Can anyone tell me what's really going on with my car?

boy or boy seems like theyre trying to STIFF you never heard of this, only when they want to get you a higher INTEREST rate to pay!!!

What they are saying has some truth... how much I cannot tell remotely. When the OBD-II codes are reset, the readiness codes are also cleared, showing code readers that the car is not ready for testing. This is to prevent people from cheating by clearing the codes just before going in for the emissions test, getting it passed before the service/emissions codes come back. Some of the various tests the vehicle does requires certain conditions, or a certain number of start-stop cycles, so how much driving is required to set the readiness flags is quite variable, although 1,000 miles sounds totally excessive. However, if one only drove the vehicle for 1-2 miles trips and it never got up to operating temperature, the readiness flags might never be set.

You can speed this process up by ensuring the vehicle is driven under various conditions, including over 55 mph for a constant period of time, e.g., 10 minutes or so.

Do a google on:

Emissions test readiness flags

And you will find loads of information, including some suggested driving cycles to use to ensure the readiness flags get set.

P.S. If you know anyone with a OBD-II code reader, many of the newer ones will read the readiness flags and tell you if it is ready to pass an emissions test. Some car parts places, such as PEP Boys, etc., will read the codes, or lend you the code reader, for free.

Thank you VERY much for the information. I'll be speeding up the process exponentially.

The engine in the 335d has two peculiarities that might come into play.

1. This engine has a diesel particulate filter (DPF). The device collects the soot from the exhaust that would otherwise come out the tailpipe as smoke. Every so often the engine has to burn off the soot that gets collected. It does this by running a higher exhaust temperature for a while. The engine needs about 20 minutes of constant running in order to achieve total burnoff. If you don't drive continuously for that long, it won't complete this process.

2. This engine uses urea injection for NOX control in the exhaust. The urea is stored in two tanks under the trunk. Every so often the system moves urea from the larger unheated tank to the smaller heated one. I don't know the timing of this.

Either of these two conditions might result in the type of emissions certification you are describing, although 1000 miles sounds like way overkill to get them both through one complete cycle.