Originally Posted by howzz1854

just want to give everyone a final update. i finally was able to get the SAP complete today. for the love of god this was the most painful annoyance. below is what i did, hopefully future owners struggle with this issue will find this helpful.

after resetting I/M readiness back to zero to start over, thinking maybe SAP monitor got stuck. i started driving all over again. all the monitors complete within the first day, first 15 miles. EGR was the first to clear in low speed low rpm city driving within the first 6 miles hovering speed between 30~40mph. after getting on the freeway and cruise for a couple miles at 60mph, another 4 miles after, O2 and CAT subsequently also cleared, along with one other monitor. EVAP took another day with fuel tank between 1/4 and 3/4 sitting overnight. second day when i took the car out for second spin, EVAP cleared. now the most painful part, Secondary Air Injection. i tried multiple cold starts, even woke up early at 5am cold starting and letting it sit, 2, 3, 5, 10 mins, none of it would make the SAP complete. no MIL, Pending DTC, or DTC. nothing! now i was another 100 miles after the I/M readiness re-set. I was at my witt's end.

i think this is where most people have the misconception about Secondary Air. i started reading every topic about secondary air and how it functions from CARB sites, to various BMW, VW, GM, and Ferrari forums. lots of different school of thoughts and different opinions and suggestions. but eventually one thing turned out to be correct above all else. that's this. While it is TRUE that secondary air pump comes on during cold start, but the "non continuous self monitor" test does not run during cold start. it actually runs after warm up at cruising speed at precisely 50~55mph at very low steady throttle for miles and miles and miles on (20 miles to be exact according to what i read), followed by stopping on the side of road and turning off the car, and then wait and hot start the car again. it is then during this condition, the non continuous SAP self monitor will run its test by ingesting air and taking a reading from the O2. When you cold start the car, it is true that the SAP will run, but that is not when the self monitor does its readings. this last bit i saw from a Ferrari forum which caught my attention as the idea itself seem to differ from every other opinions out there. so i figured what the heck, nothing to lose, after so many cold starts and it didn't work. so i went on a long 20 mile cruise at 50~55mph. yes! it is that slow and painful on a CA interstate. everyone looked at me with the look like what the hell are you doing!. i was the slowest object on the road for 20 miles. actually the Ferrari discussion stated 20 miles of continuous drive, but i only made it to 14 miles or so before hitting traffic. disappointed by the hiccup, i went through the slow traffic for another 10 miles and eventually got off the freeway. i pulled over to the side of road and turned off the car. wait 1 min, and got my Foxwell NT301 out and plugged it in. i didn't even start the car and the I/M readiness had Secondary Air marked as Complete!. i think i sang hallelujah with tears in my eye.

i quickly started the car back up and got back on the freeway. didn't want to upset the balance of the Force, i kept the rpm low under 3K. Just like i kept it low since the beginning of this drive cycle from when i left the house, never once pushed the throttle. i gently drove the car back to the Smog station and passed it with flying colors.

altogether i drove 450 miles since the last two weeks when i took the car to smog and failed due to SAP not ready. that probably lowered the car's value by another $1K. it's A$$ backwards that in this great state of California that we have to smog up the air up and down the interstate just to prove that we don't smog. anyone see the ill logic here?

hopefully someone can sticky this, because i am pretty damn sure that countless of other owners will run into this again. and for the record, rdennis and i email/called Aston Martin at Galpin, and their response was not at all helpful. They only told us to drive the car gently, and for hundreds of miles and it'll eventually reset.

cheers!

EDIT: this is the Ferrari thread where the information i got from. apparently it works for Mercedes as well.