97 Civic EX upgraded emission recall failed smog check ?

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.

 

Misfiring temporarily lights up the check engine light. (A familiar
sight with my Accord Hybrid.) The light went out when the problem went
away but the dealership didn't clear the computer's record of the
failure.