Hi all,

My 1997 Civic EX (70k miles) "misfired" yesterday. After I got to like 30mph
it started to behave normally (this happened as I was leaving work). The
check engine light turned on .

I went straight to the local Honda dealer, they plug in something that
looked like a laptop and read a "misfire" error. They told me that it needed
the "Upgrade Emission..."  something. It was a recall for the civic and they
wouldn't charge me a penny. So they did their business the next morning and
I was happy to go. I had lunch and went to get a smog check because I need
to renew the plates in about two weeks.

Smog check failed!. The list of stuff tested show "PASS" and everything
except this line:

RESULT   ECS
FAIL        System Malfunction Light

The check engine light is not on. The guy doing the checking told me to
drive it a couple of days because this sometimes happens after a repair...
the computer will adjust itself while I drive and it should be ok after a
couple of days...and I owe him $39.95 for now. No certificate was issue of
course. He'll be a nice guy (I'm not being sarcastic here) and on Thursday
he'll connect it to the scanner to see if it will pass before he charges me
again.

I was rather pissed that day. I've calm down since then :-). Is this normal
after repairs ? It seems silly to me that the dealer did an emission's
upgrade and now it failed the smog check. Could someone shed some light into
this please ?

Thanks a bunch.