For those of us who have early to mid-seventies cars, this is the bill that now closes the loophole that allows us exemption from the smog laws for some cars, which lately have become even stricter.

People part of PCA-GGR have forewarned us all, but now it may be too late. Of course as a driver of those eighties waterpumpers, it may have little consequence, except that it may or may not change my mind on those early 911s I've been thinking about, and that I've had my eye on....

Governor signs bill on smog checks Schwarzenegger also OKs hybrids using carpool lanes

This sucks!

 

In my area (Southeast Wisconsin), most passenger vehicles built during or after 1968 are tested every two years for emissions if you don't apply for collector type plates. So, when considering that early 911 purchase, we always have to wonder "will it pass the smog tests...". They visually inspect the cars too (though most workers don't know a heat exchanger from a catalytic converter).

Once a vehicle is 20 years old, you can get your car tested once more. If it passes, you can get a collector plate which allows you to be exempt from testing as long as you own the car (and you can drive it all year except for January). But, if you sell it, the new owner has to get the car to pass emissions before they can register it.

This has been going on here since the mid 1980's. You'll find ways around it just like we do...

 

I think the issue for us in CA, is that before this bill was passed, SC owners (and the like) could look forward to the day when they could happily rip the smog pump of their 78-79 cars and toss them in the rubbish bin forever... With my 71 I can toss in a 3.6 and run it WFO. Imagine the fun 75-77 car owners were looking forward to... easy 3.x with PMO upgrades, etc. As it is, 75's will be exempt, so the value of a 75 911 will likely go up compared to a 76-77.

It's not that it's hard to get an SC to pass smog, it's that someday it was going to be possible to toss PMO's on it and dump the CIS should someone want to. The author of the bill is not terribly sympathetic to this concern, for obvious reasons. They say they want to maintain control over older vehicles in hopes of getting them off the road sooner (plausible) but I also suspect there is a lot of renvenue being lost to the >30 year old cars not being smogged any more.

For the enthusiast who wants to rid their mid 70's car of smog controls for good, the "workaround" will continue to be "rip out the custom motor and install a stock one for the day required to get the smog check every two years".

Vol

 

That's the least of our worries, they also passed new smog regs for new cars too! Sounds like they make kill the current crop of performance cars as the regs in 75 did. Grab that gt-3 while you can

 

I agree and would bet that they saw this as a perfect opportunity to raise more revenue for the state.

 

they dont know or care about us car nuts. It really has nothing to due with smog, there aren't too many old cars left really when you look. they have all bit the dust. even 80's cars are getting rarer. and a well tuned SC is pretty clean even by todays standards. Its about jobs and the economy. They are trying to get poor and lower middle class people who cant afford to get thier cars smogged, to turn them in for a credit (from the state im sure) towards a cheap new car, manufacturers are guaranteed new sales, new jobs are needed in all levels, more tax revenues are generated in local and state levels, more money made on registrations, insurance, Its the snowball effect, thus keeping the economy pumping. Same reason you get a tax break when you buy a house. And I thought Arnie was a car guy.

 

This thread may become an Arnie trashing thread soon! After we had Davis as guv, we got rid of him becasue of many issues, but one I remember is the fact that he was not pro-buisness and that it was super tough for people to do business here in our beautiful state. Times have changed and now (IMO) it's become decidedly pro-business/money, anti-Joe citizen. Perhaps this is to be lauded due to our current fiscal disaster, but passing laws like the above seems like a cop-out for people looking to "pass the blame" when it come to environmental issues.

Here's part of a message that was circulated prior to passing the law (via PCA-GGR listserv):
Although I understand it as not cool, I am not surprised that the woman pushing this slop was threatened with her life.

 

I wonder if they could reduce overall emissions in the state by building more highway lanes.

If you're average speed on the way home is 10MPH because of the traffic, your car is running longer, so you're putting more pollutants into the air, right?

 

[QUOTE=fixnprsh]they dont know or care about us car nuts. It really has nothing to due with smog, there aren't too many old cars left really when you look. they have all bit the dust. even 80's cars are getting rarer.

Actually they do know about us car nuts, but it's true they don't care. There was a lot written lately in the SF Chronic about the car nut resistence efforts. THe author of the bill had no idea there was a passionate group of car geeks out here who care about this one way or another. We are an unintended casualty of what apparently they are trying to accomplish.

As said before, an SC is a pretty clean car and not hard to make pass smog. The early 70's cars with carbs and MFI had a very hard time. They are still exempt. So the cars that REALLY needed relief got it back when SB 42 was passed. Now we look like a bunch of wealthy car geek libertarians who don't want to be told what to do with our precious toys, and of course there is little sympathy for that...

 

True. What burns my *** about this is the inherent hypocracy of government on this issue. On the one hand they claim to want to "reduce pollutants" by repealing the exemption on 30+ year old vehicles and on the other, they do everything possible to make sure people keep buying those big obnoxious, gas-hogging monstrosities called SUVs that are safety AND environmental hazards. They do this through the creation of tax incentives, exemptions, etc.

I think the motive for this bill is partially financial - by repealing the exemption, Schwarzenneger is forcing a LOT of older vehicles off the road or to other states. As such, there will be an increase in vehicle sales (probably not one-for-one, since a lot of the older cars are not necessarily daily drivers, but I believe there WILL be an increase). As such, there is an increase in revenue to the state (sales tax, title fees, registration fees, etc. . .)

I believe there's a business opportunity in this actually and I intend to capitalize on it - people in other areas of the country desire west coast (particularly CA) cars since they last forever and don't rust. If a glut of older "classic" cars from CA suddenly floods the market (which it will) the prices will drop (supply exceeds demand). I intend to snap up as many as I can, then sell them at substantially higher prices to those states where demand for CA vehicles is still high and they can command a reasonable price.

In many other states, older vehicles DO have emissions requirements exemptions or some other provision to allow people to keep them on the road, so they're perfectly legal to send there and sell as a pristine "California car". Voila! I figure I certainly stand to make some money off this.

 

I think they should make some sort of inspection exemption, like if you have a street registered SC with carbs and a hot motor, the car is in good mechanical shape, and it can be documented as low mileage (recepits from maintaince, etc.) and be able to take it to the smog referee and have it inspected and writen of as exempt so they can establish a line between nice collector and hobby cars and the gardener and his gross poluting chevy truck. oh but then the gardener will have to buy a new truck and it will cost us $50 a week to have our lawns mowed.

 

uh-oh, look what our friend GOOGLE turned up! and oh is she a cutie too!
Greetings from sally Lieber!
Send her an Email like I did, some body link this to some other sites and I'll post up in the main disscusion form

 

I assume that the new law will only require that you meet the emissions standards of the model year. Those standards are not really that difficult to meet.

It does appear that there is little to be gained by I/M program for older cars because there are so few of these older cars. But, it sounds like there is a serious air quality problem and this is one of the measures to control emissions. I doubt that this young lady could convince the rest of the legislature to pass this law just because she thinks it's a good idea.

Back in the 80's, the CA legislature refused to pass a law requiring an I/M program. Within a week, the EPA froze all federal highway funds and sewage treatment plant grants to CA as required by the Clean Air Act. The CA lawmakers realized that there was a LOT of money at stake and passed the bill within a few days.

The regulations are a little different now, but it is still true that federal highway funds cannot be spent if the road project will make air quality problems worse in non-attainment areas.