2012 MY persistent CEL, can Techstream erase this?

It's not a matter of 15 cycles or 200 miles as some may try to tell you. It's a matter of driving the car until the particular monitor routine for the particular code you have gets a chance to run and confirm the problem is fixed.

Normally, just driving around long enough and having a bunch of cycles ends up being enough for all the monitors to run, but they aren't sitting there counting your cycles or your miles. Each monitor is waiting for the right driving conditions that enable it to run. For every code, those conditions are different, and they are described in the section for that code in the Repair Manual.

For each code, you can also look up a Confirmation Driving Pattern that you can use if you're impatient and don't want to just wait for the right conditions to align by chance. This will be a pattern of things you can do and ways you can drive that will bring about the right conditions for the monitor to run, and each code has its own confirmation pattern shown.

The first step is usually to do a code clear (even if there are no current codes). That resets all of the monitors, so they will all try to run again at the first opportunity. Then you use the rest of the pattern to create the opportunity for the monitor that you care about.

Some of the confirmation patterns will also have "make a universal trip" as one of the steps. The "universal trip" is a common piece that's described on its own, toward the front of the SFI diagnosis section.

One thing: while the repair manual is darned good and errors are very rare, it is not completely unheard-of for some code's confirmation driving pattern to have a small mistake. I had a permanent P0102 stick around for a year once, despite my confirmation attempts, until at last Elektroingenieur happened to spot the one step that was missing from the confirmation pattern in my edition of the manual.

 

There's some confusion here. Two things have to happen: (1) each monitor has to complete, and (2) each one has to complete with a judgment of normal.

It's not completely clear what you're reporting when you say they "have been set" (which is different from the specific language about completion and judgment). But if they all had completed with normal judgments, you wouldn't have any permanent codes, so we know that didn't happen.

As explained above, the California BAR is oversimplifying how the car actually works.

However, because they are a government agency, they also might have the power to make their oversimplification "stick". There might be a clause in there for some codes that will allow them to pass you after their "15 warm up cycles and 200 miles" even if you didn't get completion and normal judgment by then.

Still, everybody's happier if you just complete the confirmation pattern and get the normal judgment.

In addition to Techstream's overall monitor status display, there is also an "All Readiness" utility, which you can use to check on the status for any specific permanent code.

You get to it via Powertrain / Engine and ECT / Utility / All Readiness.

In the utility, you enter the specific trouble code you are asking about. It will then tell you whether the status for that specific code is "incomplete", "normal", "abnormal", or "unknown".

Naturally, once it gets to "normal", the permanent code goes away. If "abnormal", the monitor completed and found the problem's not really fixed yet, so there's more work needed. If "incomplete", the monitor just hasn't had a chance to complete yet; you can try the confirmation pattern again. If "unknown" (this should be rare), something extra weird happened in running the monitor, and it couldn't make a judgment.

 

I got the P0441 and it turned out to be the evap purge valve. Tried the gas cap first, it was easier. Code returned, so got this: VALVE ASSY, VACUUM SWITCHING 25860-37020 (EVAP SOLENOID). It is bolted to right side of intake manifold under air box. Code cleared right away, and permanent code was gone in a couple days.

 

Chap, will this code clear if the 12V bat is disconnected? And the problem does not still exist to be detected...

 

Once the problem is fixed and does not exist, the code will go away after the car has re-run the monitor test for that issue and confirmed that the issue is fixed. It will not go away before that confirmation happens. In case of impatience, there is a "confirmation driving pattern" shown for that code in the repair manual, which can be the quickest way to get the monitor test to be run. If you're not that impatient, you can just drive normally and expect the car to eventually re-run the test and the code will go away then.