California New Smog Law Starting Next Year!

[met-head]

Back in the day I used to build and race air cooled VW's. Dual Webbers, stroker cranks, big bore kits, light flywheels, MSD, etc. But the cars had to pass emmissions inspections. So I used to keep a dead stock motor in the garage to swap into mine or a buddy's car just so it would pass, and then drop the big motor back in. Swapping out a VW motor took about an hour. The same thing could be done with a good Insight IMA battery.

[theaveng]

We had these checks in my old states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, except they measured the actual exhaust & printed-out the pollutant levels.

PA charged around $30 (varies from garage to garage) and Maryland used to charge me $50 at the DMV (every five years).

[theaveng]

Originally Posted by Kenpo

Yup diesels are already getting smogged here. They just don't put the sniffer on the tail pipe or they will fail.

Oh c'mon. Diesels will pass without cheating. I don't much about other diesels but the modern Volkswagen cars are rated ULEV-II by the State of California (that's cleaner than our manual insights at ULEV-I), and the pre-2006 diesels are rated as LEV-I. The "sniffer" would show these cars emitting fewer pollutants than the maximum allowed by CARB.

I am tired of this "diesels are dirty" conventional wisdom. They USED to be dirty back in the 90s, but now with sulfur-free fuel, catalytic converters, and NOx traps, they are every bit as clean as the gasoline cars. Update your knowledge to 2013 please. Thank you.

[Kenpo]

Originally Posted by theaveng

Oh c'mon. Diesels will pass without cheating. I don't much about other diesels but the modern Volkswagen cars are rated ULEV-II by the State of California (that's cleaner than our manual insights at ULEV-I), and the pre-2006 diesels are rated as LEV-I. The "sniffer" would show these cars emitting fewer pollutants than the maximum allowed by CARB.

I am tired of this "diesels are dirty" conventional wisdom. They USED to be dirty back in the 90s, but now with sulfur-free fuel, catalytic converters, and NOx traps, they are every bit as clean as the gasoline cars. Update your knowledge to 2013 please. Thank you.

Sorry to bust your balls bud...But thats the truth. I never said they were dirty, those are the exact words that came out the owners mouth at the shop.

[retepsnikrep]

Originally Posted by met-head

So I used to keep a dead stock motor in the garage to swap into mine or a buddy's car just so it would pass, and then drop the big motor back in. Swapping out a VW motor took about an hour. The same thing could be done with a good Insight IMA battery.

Someone could start a IMA battery rental service say $300 for the day .

1) Tech arrives with new IMA battery.
2) Fits battery to owners car. Doesn't fit/bolt down covers etc etc Just throws carpet back in boot.
3) Owners drives it round for an hour and a few stop start cycles then goes and gets it tested.
4) Returns home and tech swaps it back out.
5) Owner pays tech fee and after having driven with a new IMA battery likely thinks about ordering a new one as well

[sharpmj]

Glad I live out in the boonies in Northeastern CA. Only have to smog check vehicles one time when they are first licensed and registered in CA. Only other time is if you sell the vehicle.

[RedJellyBean]

I've left CA but have deliberately kept my CA license plates through now. I guess that I'll have to give up my CA registration once a smog requirement comes down the pipe.

[roflwaffle]

The only difference I've read about is ditching the dyno for 2001 and newer vehicles and checking the OBDII system for codes. The should reduce the costs to drivers of newer model vehicles and have the same impact on emissions because most of those are caused by newer vehicles. IIRC my 82 pickup pollutes as much as 1,000-10,000 hybrids depending on the model, so monitoring that is where the air quality districts are going to get the most bang for their buck.

What I haven't heard anything about is rolling back the current smog exemption for hybrids. It could happen, but I doubt it will because it's not like there are a bunch of hybrid owners running around with huge plumes of black smoke coming from their exhaust because they "chipped" their cars. This is really why CARB started smogging diesels IMO. It's a shame that a few dumbasses ruined it for a lot of diesel owners, but I just don't see the same thing happening to hybrids. I could be wrong, but like I said before, I haven't seen anything about rolling back the current exemption.

[2Slow4u]

Glad I left CA, this is more of a hassle than anything.

As already mentioned, people with the skill and means to put race engines into a car have the means to fool the test by changing something back to stock then back to how they want it.

The only polluters you are going to catch are low income families who can't afford the repairs on their beat up polluting car. I would bet that same group also doesn't bother paying for insurance OR registration anyway. So it's not cleaning up the roads either.

I know some people who have engines that burn oil. If drive it around the block and blow the cob webs out before getting tested, it will pass. But that doesn't mean it stops burning oil.

I also have problems with the pass/fail criteria. This smog crap doesn't let you do any engine modifications at all. The basic cold air intake or muffler, even if the noise and pollution levels are still within spec will fail for being non-stock. I've known people who swap out an engine in their Honda for some Japanese spec high performance version from another car, the thing is still cleaner than stock but fails because its different... Logical? I think not.

Its also not too far of a stretch that people who do significant engine work are also in the repair business or have friends in it. So they just have their buddy fudge the test and issue a pass.

In the end its just more BS regulation that doesn't work as intended. We all want cleaner air and smog is a real thing (global warming is questionable), but the emissions testing is just a hassle that doesn't do much. Stricter regulations for new vehicles does however have a huge impact.

I'll leave my gas tax soap box speech for later, that's even more busted and will have to change in the next decade. Logic says you should pay for what you use, which means it needs to be a mileage vs. weight vs. how many tires based. EV's pay zero tax to pay for the roads, hybrids don't pay their share by getting awesome MPG, and heavy duty trucks don't pay their share for the damage they do based on weight. Sports cars pay too much based on poor MPG but low weight, the list goes on...