Tom M'Guinn

Here's your chance to help change CA smog laws for 30+ year old cars:

See this link (content copied below for reference):

http://www.semasan.com/page.asp?cont...15CA2&g=SEMAGA



URGENT LEGISLATIVE ALERT


California Introduces Legislation to Allow Certain Vehicles to Pay Fee Instead of Passing Smog Test

Legislation (A.B. 550) to allow an owner of a motor vehicle that is subject to the smog check program to pay a $200 smog abatement fee in lieu of passing a smog test was introduced in the California Assembly. The vehicle would have to meet specified criteria in order to qualify. The bill would require the fee to be deposited in the Air Quality Improvement Fund. The measure will be considered by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

We Urge You to Contact All Members of the Assembly Transportation Committee (Contact Info Below) Immediately To Voice Your Opinion of A.B. 550
• Under current law, the smog check program requires inspection of motor vehicles upon initial registration, biennially upon renewal of registration, upon transfer of ownership, and in certain other circumstances. Existing law exempts specified vehicles from inspection, including motor vehicles manufactured prior to the 1976 model-year.

• A.B. 550 allows the owner of a motor vehicle that is required to take a smog test to pay a smog abatement fee of $200 if the motor vehicle meets all of the following criteria: Is 30 or more model-years old; was manufactured during or after the 1976 model-year; fails a smog test; and fails a subsequent smog test after necessary repairs were made.

DON’T DELAY! Please contact members of the California Assembly Transportation Committee to voice your opinion of A.B. 550.

Please e-mail a copy of your letter to Steve McDonald at stevem@sema.org. Also, please forward this Alert to your fellow car enthusiasts. Urge them to join the SAN and help defend the hobby! Thank you for your assistance.

User 52121

I assume this is only worth responding/emailing to if you're a CA resident?

And we'd still have to show receipts claiming we attempted to fix the car and failed again... so how does that apply to failing the visual? Aftermarket exhaust, aftermarket FPR, etc?

Tom M'Guinn

Probably so re residency, though how could it hurt...

The bill says you have to fail again after making "necessary repairs" so it's hard to know what that really means or how it might get implemented. In the extreme, it could make the exemption extremely limited if "necessary repairs" mean you have to be bone stock and replace aging catalytic converters, etc. The truth is that these cars DO meet the emissions limits if everything is working as originally designed. There was a time when some cars -- like the early 911 -- just couldn't get under the limit in perfect tune/condition. If nothing else, this would address those types of situations, and hopefully is implemented in a way that doesn't require people to spend thousands on "necessary repairs" before becoming eligible for the exemption. If the car needs to be perfect to get the exemption, they might as well just make a list of cars which -- even when perfect -- don't meet the limits. At any rate, it's a step in the right direction for old classics like this that are rarely driven anyway...

User 52121

Yeah.

I don't mean to be argumentative... and I am extremely hopeful that there becomes a way to get our cars around the limits. I'd pay $200/yr for an emissions exemption if it made the difference between keeping and selling my car. I'm certainly unwilling to put it back to stock, in either a temporary (for passing) or permanent (oh hell no) state. I love the car the way it is and am too lazy to do the work of swapping everything.

Tom M'Guinn

On the one hand, I have a hard time seeing CA allow modified cars just by paying $200. On the other hand, it's all politically arbitrary in the first place, so why not? If you have a 1975 911, you are exempt and can run a 5mpg 440 Six-Pack motor perfectly legally, even if it spits out pure carbon monoxide and raw gasoline. But if you have a '76 911, you can't change the coil without failing smog. So why not let us opt out for $200 on 30 year old cars? The total number of miles driven in CA in 30+ year old cars is miniscule in the big picture anyway, and subjecting them to the same rules as new cars is a very high-burden/low-result regulation.

Automobiles have been a huge part of California's culture and folklore, and some day politicians are going to regret their efforts to needlessly wipe out so much of that history.

pcleary1210

This seems like a total wash, to me.

"fails smog after necessary repairs were made". Well...if the necessary repairs were made, then you shouldn't fail smog. If you fail smog, then the necessary repairs were obviously not done.

If my 1986 944T fails smog because of the chip, exhaust, bad injectors, bad cat, and the fact that I inject unicorn tears into the fuel system, they're simply going to tell me to remove all of that and then bring it in. This law won't help people who need NLA parts, and if the definition of "necessary repairs" is up to the shop, they're simply going to list every possible emissions related part as a possible culprit.

Tom M'Guinn

Agreed. I suspect that "necessary repairs" will need to be defined in some way before this becomes law, for exactly this reason. Easiest approach, and one that's been used before, is to put a dollar limit on how much must be done before the exemption kicks in. Those limits usually don't apply to the costs of un-modifying a car though, but could still be helpful for all the guys with stock cars that fail due to tired catalytic converters. If "necessary repairs" means the car must be in perfect factory original form regardless of cost, then there isn't much point in adding this law -- other than for the very very few cars (not 951's) that fail emissions despite being in perfect factory condition.

Rogue_Ant

It does sound similar to what we have in Colorado...
The key would be Section 1.a.4:

"Fails a subsequent smog test after necessary repairs were
made."


What constitutes "necessary repairs"? For Colorado, if your car is 1968 or newer, that means a receipt for minimum of $715 (parts-only, labor doesn't count). Only then can one apply for a waiver for an additional cost (no guaranty to be approved).

http://aircarecolorado.com/index.php...t-and-waivers/

Of course, even if a waiver is granted, in two years you would be required to go through the whole process again.

Tom M'Guinn

Does Colorado have a "visual" test like CA? In CA, you simply cannot have aftermarket parts on the motor unless they are CARB approved for that car, so any MAF-equipped 951 will fail, technically, even if the car emits pure oxygen. That's the potential complication I see in CA. A $715 limit would be great, but in CA I could see the rule saying there is no limit to the amount you must spend to remove and replace illegal modifications like MAFs and intakes, turbos and header, etc. Still better than nothing if the law passed, but not a panacea of smog freedom by any means... We used to have a rolling limit, so that once your car was old enough it was exempt, but they stopped the clock arbitrarily at 1975, so no 951 can ever be old enough to be smog free now. Ideally, we'd return to the rolling date, but prior attempts to reinstate that haven't done well.

PaulD_944S2

I don't like it.

It's not enough; 30 year old cars shouldn't have to be smogged. Period.

George D

The 2stroke blowers, saws, and landscaping folks using same emit more emissions than most internal combustion motors in CA running on the public roads.

Laust Pedersen

So what happened to this bill?

Here it looks like it was amended late March with some clearer language:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/...d_asm_v98.html

and here it looks like it is fizzling out by the author, Marie Calderon, cancelling 1st an 2nd hearings April 9th and April 20th:
http://openstates.org/ca/bills/20152016/AB550/

Laust

docwyte

Colorado doesn't have a visual test beyond checking for emissions equipment. In other words, they could care less about your intake, headers etc as long as you have the proper amount of O2 sensors and cats.

What you guys need to push through is a rolling 25 year law for the classic plates. We used to have it here in Colorado, then they changed it to 1975 like Cali, then they changed it to rolling 32 (??) years.

I have no idea why they didn't bring back the law as it was previously written but I'm not happy about it, particularly since my car just turned 25 years old.

Humboldtgrin

We have to smog these cars if they drive on the road. Maybe everyone here is to young or didn't research to remember the acid rain in the seventies in LA due to the high levels of NOx that was created from bad exhaust emotions. I feel if the tail pipe is clean then who cares what parts you put on for a visual. Personally I don't want to follow a stinky gross polluter vehical, nor do I want to be a gross polluter. My car passed without issues, but I guess I care about the air others breath as well as myself and live in. A catalitic converter is all it takes on a proper running engine to clean up the exhaust gasses. Sorry but if we get a break then there is a good chance many many more will which will lead to a problem again. California sets the standard for exhaust emitions because of how many people are jammed over here. Without the schooling that I received in collage I probably wouldn't care, but knowing now what I didn't know then helped me pull my head out of the dark hole from which I wipe. It's just the way it has to be. We need to always remember how spoiled we are in this time of age. We don't have to clean our horse and buggy and we have paved roads with fast cars. As a species we are moving very fast and many just think about themselves and the convenient factor. I believe that selfishness and greed are key players in our heads lots of the time, myself included. However we still need to be conscious of our soundings and what impact we cause to the earth in our daily life choices. This planet grew over 6 billion in population last century. We are turning planet earth into an Easter Island. Do you all see my point? It's easier to get your car to pass smog then it is to buy a new car, and better for the planet overall, new car being built, regardless if it's a hybrid or not, use more oil when built then they will use while in operation thru out there life most of the time due to how much oil is needed for the machines to make cars. Knowledge is key!

ibkevin

Load of crap! Excessive emissions are automatically captured at the TJ border? Guess how those peasant homes are heated. Been to a state beach park lately with fire rings? Have any idea of how much crap is spewn from peoples backyard bonfires? Do you know how much smoke is allowed when lighting off a ship?

All of my yard equipment smokes like a $10 ***** -- and I love it.

The whole smog system is an excessive bureaucracy feeding a starving pension sham.

Why didn't the price of a smog check down when they started skipping dyno tests? WTF.