It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => General Board => Topic started by: Alphabet Soup on February 28, 2013, 09:13:45 AM
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The topic being discussed on another site got me curious - what sort of vehicle inspections are conducted (if at all) in your area?
Washington state operates emission test stations under the authority of the state department of ecology. They test for emissions only - no safety tests. Even this is only applied in urban areas. I live in the most populated county in the state and was subject to the tests - so I obtained a post office box in a neighboring rural county and use that as my primary address, side-stepping the testing requirement. Illegal, I know - but since it is all about control and revenue and not safety I don't GAS.
I just went to renew the tabs on one of my cars and got hit with an additional $25 for a plate replacement fee. You have to replace the license plates every 7 years.
What flavor of foolishness do you have in your area?
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Nothing to do with cars and inspections, but we have an $80.50 driver's license renewal fee, good for 8 years. In NY State, the fee s $62.50. The $18 difference is a surcharge drivers in NYC and the surrounding suburban counties pay to support mass transit.
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NC used to have just safety inspections, for $13.50. Then, in the name of the environment ::snort:: the emissions testing became required, $30, for every vehicle newer than 1996s, even current model years. Did I say ::snort:: ?
We must pay property tax on the vehicles, so just lately the tax and plate renewal fee -- renewal is a misnomer because now every year a new plate shows up -- are billed together. And since they did away with the windshield sticker, I find myself in the dark as to keeping up with when inspections are due and that has to be done before one can pay the other two taxes/fees.
Oh, and they've slapped on an additional $2 fee for doing all this by mail (they want us to do it online) so I present at the DMV just to make them do their damn jobs in the manner I desire without having to fork over the two bucks.
Since the Republicans took over the legislature, however, they're looking into doing away with the safety portion of the inspection. As you might expect, the auto-shop people and the dealers are whining like the rent-seeking bastiges they are.
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In Ca we have bi-annual emissions tests. Usually costs about $50 of which $18 is the certificate that gets submitted to Sacramento electronically from the Smog check facility. There are no safety checks done though.
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Back in college daze a friend was making effort to bring
his car online, the motorhead was rebuilding a '51 Studebaker, and it wasn't ready to pass inspection. He
bought a box of colored pencils and created and excellent
reproduction of the state inspection sticker. It was
so effective he decided to keep his money and the sticker.
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We used to have annual emissions testing. One of the few positive aspects of the Jesse Ventura years was the elimination of that waste of time and money.
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Back in college daze a friend was making effort to bring
his car online, the motorhead was rebuilding a '51 Studebaker, and it wasn't ready to pass inspection. He
bought a box of colored pencils and created and excellent
reproduction of the state inspection sticker. It was
so effective he decided to keep his money and the sticker.
Hehe. In my less lawful days I once had a friend paint over the expired license plate tab stickers on my motorcycle with the proper color and year. I got pulled over for speeding, and the cop couldn't tell. Things weren't computerized back then, so he ID'd me by the plate number, and the verification that the tabs were current was a visual check by the officer, and he suspected nothing.
I stood there while he checked everything out and wrote me the speeding ticket, fearing that he would discover the fake tabs, and he didn't.
But alas, wouldn't you know it, I didn't have the balls to follow through on the lie. I feared repercussions at a later time, so I squealed on myself right there on the spot. He went over and looked at the painted sticker, shook his head, smiled, and followed me home, telling me not to drive until the tabs were replaced with the real thing.
I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that he coulda nailed me with something that he didn't, because I was honest in the end.
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Pa has an annual safety inspection. Usually around $20
The more populated areas have an emission inspection, too.
Annual registration is $39 for passenger cars and $50 something for pickups
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Emissions tests were the biggest joke ever.
I don't blame you for doging it 'Soup. ::thumbsup::
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Emissions tests were the biggest joke ever.
I don't blame you for doging it 'Soup. ::thumbsup::
I only have one vehicle subject to the tests - a 2001 Durango. Since I was issued a company car I hardly ever drive it (only 62k miles). the cut-off point for testing is apparently 20 years old. The van I bought from my mom is 22yo. The Ranger is 24yo. The pickups are 76yo (although the engine in one of them is a '96 and they wanted to force me to submit to emissions on it).
I take decent care of my stuff and see this as just another unwelcome intrusion into my personal business in order to force me to conform to an arbitrary standard and to wring more money from me.
Screw them.
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I remember safety inspections in Iowa, back in my high school days. Give $20 to a mechanic you know, he'd pass you.
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What she said:
NC used to have just safety inspections, for $13.50. Then, in the name of the environment ::snort:: the emissions testing became required, $30, for every vehicle newer than 1996s, even current model years. Did I say ::snort:: ?
Also, in North Carolina, we have a gi-normous computer system that tracks titles, registrations, property tax and now . . .
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Wait for it, Pan!
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You there, Glock?
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Any other Tarheel livin folks I forgot?
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Tah Dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The STARS system (State Title and Registration System) NOW KEEPS UP WITH WHETHER YOU HAVE PAID YO DAMN TOLL ON THE BRAND NEW (AND NOT USED VERY MUCH) FIRST EVER TOLL ROAD IN DE STATE!!!!!!!!!
Dat's right, kiddies. If you don't inspect yo vehicle - BAM! No license plate for you! If you don't pay yo taxes - BAM! No license plate for you. If you don't pay yo damn toll on the road that nobody uses - BAM! You don't get yo license plates.
I was behind an unfortunate fellow at the DMV License Plate Agency (it's a sub-contract from the state, good folks.) who forgot to inspect his truck. After a thirty day warning letter, he forget again. So now, the unfortunate victim had to pay a $200 fine for failure to inspect, he had top pay his taxes on the vehicle and he had to go get it inspected, ALL BEFORE HE WAS ALLOWED TO PAY $28 for his license plate sticker!
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I did not know about the toll portion of #540, BAS. Just stellar. (And more on the non-usage issue in a minute.)
Howsumever, as regards that dandy STARS computer system, it is having .... compatability issues ... in that it does not always transmit your inspection completion information, so better get yourself a hard copy from the station that does it to include with your tax/fee/permit/toll payment.
I figured the new toll portion of #540 was being under-utilized because the State has taken to advertising its wonderful time-saving and close-shopping availability features on local radio. Not only is it not paying for itself, they're tossing tax money into ads now.
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In tennessee, some counties have emissions testing, some don't. I'm not aware of any safety inspections but you can get a ticket if you leave your vehicle on blocks in your yard too long. ::whatgives::
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I could, and have, rant for hours about the NC auto inspection racket. Ok, here we go:
Toll roads. For years we were told breathlessly that NC had among the best roads in the country and that having among the highest gasoline tax in the South was a small price to pay. So now I guess we get to keep the high gas taxes and pay to use the road at a toll booth. Stellar. We don't have them near Charlotte, yet. But my dad recently drove on one for like half a mile (from on ramp to exit ramp) on the way to Raleigh and a few weeks later he gets a bill in the mail for 18 cents. So yeah, recouping that 18 cents was definitely worth the cost of postage and some sinecured bureaucrat's time to stuff the envelope.
The "safety and emissions" is rank rent seeking. Like Pan I have also heard that the NC legislature is considering a proposal to do away with it. I doubt it will happen. Too many people getting their bread buttered by having the state force their fellow citizens into paying customers. The last such proposal failed. They also tried a compromise of changing it from every year to every two years. That also failed.
I also have to endure this process every year when my inspection is due. Because of my car's numerous quirks, it constantly throws an error code for a leak in the evaporative control system even though it has been confirmed with a smoke test that there is no actual leak. It is merely a case of the computer detecting a leak condition due to either a bad sensor or programming error of some sort. But none of that matters because "Hell is the impossibility of reason", and that goes doubly so for bureaucracy. Every year I have to reset the error code, then drive the car around long enough for the computer to indicate that it is once again in an "inspectable" condition, but not long enough that it throws the error code again.
Now, living as I do in very close proximity to South Carolina, probably a third of the cars you see on Charlotte roads are from that state, and they have no form of inspections there at all. So while I am subject to all this hassle, ostensibly to keep NC roads safe, those same roads are on a daily basis traversed by South Carolina drivers in cars whose ability to go from point A to point B is truly a miracle unto itself. Drive in SC sometime and you will see for yourself. Cars just drive around with no license plates, not a single functioning form of illumination on the rear of the vehicle at night, etc.
Nevertheless I would happily take the semi-anarchy of SC highways over the petty ministrations of these overweaning bureaucrats any day.
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ZIP
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In the 80's my Mitsubishi lost power going up a hill, it was the catylitic converter. I was a struggling young man and did not have the $$'s or skill to replace the part. The loss of power was due to excessive back pressure so I thought "Why not just drill a hole through thing to relieve the pressure". My friends at thr time said that I would never pass a smog test, but I thought it would still get me arround for a while before I had to get it smogged again, so I thought "why the hell not". The next day I jacked the truck up, removed the catylitic converter, and ran a tire iron through it to make a hole about 1" in diameter. Put it back, got in, kicked it over and went for a test drive. Ran better than it ever did. About 14 months later - Regestration -- SMOG Required. By that time I had all but forgot about my little mechanical repair. Took it in, it passed with flying colors. Did every 2 years after too, till it threw a rod about 10 years later.
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I once did the same thing benb61.
I had an early 80's Ford with a V6 that was notorious for leaky head gaskets. The seepage of oil through the cylinders and into the exhaust system fouled the converter. With no money for such luxuries I popped a hole in it and drove it that way for a year - until the head gasket blew for the third time.
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I now have three vehicles, all pre-1996, so the emissions test is not necessary. One car is a sweet lil 1995 Mustang Convertible, I asked my mechanic friend to remove the cat converter and he told me that "although it does not have to be inspected for emissions, they check to make sure you have a cat converter in the safety check."
He's gonna take it of and clean it out with a rod.
"Thy rod and thy staff comfort me"
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That reminds be what the biggest problem with Minnesota's program was. It exempted older cars, the very cars that were responsible for 99.99% of the pollution! ::outrage::
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That reminds be what the biggest problem with Minnesota's program was. It exempted older cars, the very cars that were responsible for 99.99% of the pollution! ::outrage::
I have a 1969 Firebird that I have recently restored, well actually a resto/mod. I had a Pontiac 455 built for racing, it develops about 600 HP and runs cleaner than my 2006 corvette (see my avatar). Most people who own "Classic" cars (and I did say most) care for their vehicles and keep the maintenance up, that being said there are another large group of people that own old cars because that can't afford a new one, which means they can't afford to even maintain that, if you will, POS. I would have no problem if Ca. required me to smog check the Firebird, except for the cost and bureaucracy of the system, but the car would pass with flying colors.
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In 1991, I took my '89 Escort from NJ to CA and had to pay CA a few hundred dollars for the privilege as, it not having been mfg'd in CA, its emissions system was suspect. When I took it to inspection as a prelude to registering it, I asked the tester if the car met CA's emission standards. It did. What was the point to my having to pay the "entry fee", then?
Because they could make me. He chuckled when he said it. And then he berated me for never having had the timing checked. He "knew" that was so because the socket for the computer test plug had electrical tape over it to keep it dirt-free, which is the way it comes from the mfg.
What he didn't know was that both times my father checked the timing, he replaced the tape.
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By the way, fellow Tarheels, I heard today on the radio that cities were asking the state to help them collect parking tickets by refusing to issue a license plate until parking fines were paid.
Big Brutha is watchin you . . .
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That ain't my brutha!
;)
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Also in NC, and I imagine other states as well, your annual "safety and emissions" inspection also oddly includes a recording of the vehicle's mileage. What are the odds this hasn't been done in advance of a forthcoming annual mileage tax?
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In my state the state constitution precludes ongoing toll roads. It's OK to invoke tolls for a particular road project on that thoroughfare, but they (the leftist cork-soakers) haven't been allowed to set them up willy-nilly....until now. Because they have relentlessly spent their allowance on elaborate accommodations for buses that no one rides they don't have the money to fix the infrastructure (forget about new construction - it ain't happening!).
So they're going forward with plans to place tolls on every major road in western Washington. The know how bloody expensive the court battles will be but they consider it funny money anyway so they don't GAS. This way they get to terrorize the commuting public whilst simultaneously raiding the general fund while plundering the transportation fund.
Liebruls are evil!
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By the way, fellow Tarheels, I heard today on the radio that cities were asking the state to help them collect parking tickets by refusing to issue a license plate until parking fines were paid.
Big Brutha is watchin you . . .
Shoot, they gots that in MD. If you fart and don't have permission, you cannot get new registration without paying the fine and then the flag fee on top of that. You're 100% f#$ked thanks to the millions of drones that complain about it all yet are per-programmed to vote DemonRat.
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Lot of Cloward-Piven & Allinsky following asshats out there, the destruction cannot be tabulated fast enough to keep up with these demons!
In Minnie we are attempting to crush entreprenurialism once and for all, expand voting rights to absurd no-holds-barred levels and promote homosexers deviancy...
I cannot tell people to go to Hell anymore, there bringing it here!