... Leno's Law, have a look-see, if 'n when you find time: Bill Text - SB-712 Smog check: collector motor vehicles: exemption. … it’s not necessarily California Smog Check, per se, just the last two years, which has gotten way-way-way out-of-hand. Abuse of power, it’s the whacked out DMV people here in California, totally out of control! Multiple vehicles in my household, all, I maintain top-down full coverage. All of them pass smog check, like a cool breeze. I'm no slouch. I comply. I don't do stupid mods. I don't cut corners. Take your choice, any one of my vehicles, you could eat from the engine bay. I do my civic duty. I play by the rules. I circle my vehicles to smog check, as required. No problem, with my hybrid daily driver, no problem with my winter weather 4WD station wagon, both rubber stamped through the process, I pay them the winkie chump-change fee, no drama. Oh, no-no-no you don't. Different story, whole ‘nother thing entirely, rolling my vintage AW11 supercharged. Last time at Smog check with the two-seater? Something goes wacky, some DMV bureaucrat behind the curtain, barking orders at the smog check technician through the interface, ordering photographs? Photographs? At smog check? I got the smog check technician, uploading photos of my vintage AW11, to DMV? I don’t particularly appreciate devious government bureaucrats, hiding behind the curtain, pushing buttons on me. I shouldn't have to roll a rare, pristine, immaculately detailed, irreplaceable vintage vehicle with parade plates, to the smog check station: California Vehicle Code Section 5051 Nobody knows exactly what's going on, behind the scenes, at California DMV - Samuel, '04 Ruthiemobile ///////////////////
Smog Check? I will give the folks out on the left coast credit for one thing. The air in the LA used to be pretty awful and if you cram 18 million people nut-to-butt into three coastal counties you really do have to pay attention to things like water quality and availability, vehicle emissions...etc...etc. I think of the LA basin as America's gated neighborhood with an overabundance of HOA Nazis. I'm OK with letting them be them, as long as they realize that...... Most counties in America have a population of less than 20,000 residents. Specifically, there are significantly more counties with less than 20,000 residents (1,294) than there are counties with populations exceeding 50,000 (965). (***) If you want to do stupid stuff THERE, g-head! Just don't California MY county! (***) Disclosure: The above figures were provided by AI and I didn't take the time to do the math. MY county is growing and has more than 50,000 souls. LA County has, by some estimates, close to 10 MILLION. Also, these numbers may be provided by a near-peer opponent whose name rhymes with Shina. I tested this hypothesis by asking the same session how many protesters were killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre and AI took the rest of the session off.......
... absolutely nothing, as of this writing we can point to from the automakers, where form follows function. They're putting -- what is it? 18" wheels? To Subaru's BRZ? 19" wheels? To Toyota's new Prius? Insanity! Reduce reciprocating mass, by definition, you automatically reduce smog. If smog was really the issue, we'd be seeing a wheel diameter mandate. If smog abatement were truly the objective, policy community wouldn't be sitting on its hands, allowing the tire monopoly to mandate oversized, overweight SUV wheels to every single offering, on the showroom floor. My rule of thumb, always play by the rules, never put a personal vehicle beyond 4 hours track-time, don't do stupid mods, minimize reciprocating mass, never (NEVER) put weight to any vehicle without an offset, (a) removing weight from higher up, and/or (b) ameliorating reciprocating mass. Rule of thumb, (a) brakes 'n tires are everything, (b) lack thereof, there is no substitution for, weight. Real racing wheels I've put, shotpeened, 7 pounds a corner (e.g., to die for!). Lightweight wheels transformed my AW11, from a benign sporty pekinese-like commuter car, to a snarling, ankle shredding wolverine, 22 mph faster, at a 4th gear apex. Inertia. Wheels don't weigh what they weigh. In motion, a function of 1/2 mass, times the square of its velocity, faster they spin, more they weigh. Deceptive characterization notwithstanding, my 20 pound OEM wheel less my 7 pound competition wheel, points not only to a whole lot more, than a mere 56 pound reduction, and not just to a whole lot more, once the car's moving. Point being, to some significant reduction on emissions, whensoever the car's put, to a treadmill. Enough so, to raise red flags. Combination affected, my AW11 is faster, more efficient, yet more smog compliant than it was, when it rolled off Toyota's Sagamihara assembly line. Whensoever presented for California smog check, it raises red flags, not because it isn't compliant but, because it is, moreso, than should be, otherwise. "... duh? Er? How can this be?" Obtuse, as the day is, long, wholly oblivious to electromotive principle, DMV people grope to intellectualize this phenomena. And, I must be punished. Indicative of COVID, DMV people yet have no punishment to mete out, for being too healthy. Even the most obtuse of democrat has no choice but begrudgingly concede, like the Dr. Fauci face diaper special, it's about conformity. Smog compliance has nothing whatsoever to do, with smog abatement. ... question of the day? Why do I like commas? ANSWER: Because, it pisses you off. Makes me feel good -- Samuel, '04 Ruthiemobile - ////////////////////
... the absurdity, just one Winter-Nationals NHRA event late March, Pomona Fairgrounds, emits more pollutant over an early-spring weekend, than what every lawnmower in California collectively emits, annually. California democrats aspire to criminalization of, your lawnmower? Gas stove? Your water heater? Gasoline powered car? But, cigarettes are legal? IRL, SCCA, IMSA, NHRA people get a free pass, too? Hypocrisy capitol of the world, here in California smog compliance is much like illegal immigration abatement. Hot-cold, on-off, push-me, pull-me, the policy community ratchets down, with a brave show of enforcement, for a little while, before losing interest, inexplicably throttling off, falling back asleep, leaving everybody alone. Air here's as bad as it's always been, nothing's changed. In California, as of this writing, compliance depends upon where you are. And, who you are. Keep a low profile, the only time you'll ever deal with DMV, licensing and biennial compliance at registration. Rural areas, high income urban enclaves, just blending in, adopting a low-profile, seeing into keeping the car quiet, keeping your out-of-state tags updated, those people get away scoff-free, driving gray market, out-of-state, non-compliant vehicles indefinitely. No one ever the wiser. Stupid Jay Leno, parading himself as our Moses of car culture, DMV can't let him slide on his car collection folly. Because of him, DMV has to come down on all of us, just as hard. Crafting policy to make Jay Leno happy, policy community has to evaluate throwing us a bone. Sugarcoating it, to make it look, equitable? Equitable. Out here in the burbs (e,g., high population density; mid-to-low income suburbs), where smog compliance and enforcement are concentrated, caught red-handed with an out-of-compliance vehicle, you wind-up tangled, in the California DMV red tape machine. What you you have to understand: it's the government. Before presenting your out-of-state go-fast car for initial smog check, you need it looking as OEM as possible. Once you're through all that, and you get your tags, then welcome to the club, you're free and clear to reinstall your go-fast aftermarket stuff. The old switch-a-roni works like a charm, too. (1) buy an identical car with California tags, register it in your name. Once you get the tags, then (2) swap out OEM components for which register your out-of-state vehicle, then (3) swap your go-fast stuff back, (4) sell-off the car you just bought. Or, keep it. Daily drivers make life a bunch easier. Used cars here in California sell for a song. Perhaps consider a drive-it-'til-it-drops daily driver. Otherwise, we do have smog check guys trolling our muscle car forums now and then, checking in from time-to-time, offering up the midnight special. Over-compliant, I've never had reason to bypass California smog check. But, I think there's a few of these guys, out in Orange County 'n Inland Empire, taking particularly good care of our SoCal street racers. Current thing we're seeing insofar as DMV intel, how they're smoking out these midnight special guys, querying the smog check database for range (e.g., maximum distance customers travel for a particular good or service) and threshold (e.g., minimum number of customers required to sustain a viable economic endeavor) discrepancy, smog check stations characteristic of high range, low threshold, particularly vulnerable to detection. Risking your specialty vehicle to a smog check station where business is slow, or an atypical distance away from your residence, is likely to attract DMV attention. My situation, that my AW11 tests, cleaner than it should, even that attracts undue DMV scrutiny. Worst thing a car guy could do on-line, posting up a profile to an auto enthusiast messaging board! Even here, at the Prius Chat, FBI have their creepy people sniffing around! Hopelessly overstaffed, sitting on their hands all the live long day, DMV people aren't the only government boyz, twiddling their thumbs, nothing else to do but while away a 40 hour work-week trolling on-line, cross-walking messaging board people to our VINs, brushing up on the small-talk, staying up on the kewl lingo, looking for interesting people to single-out for their amusement and merriment. Underground drivers' group I hosted, I had FBI people, trying to infiltrate, headlong. Not because, of doing something wrong, mind you. But, for no good reason because, we're having fun! Feds like having fun. Fun is very important to them. They don't particularly like being left out. DMV people, exactly the opposite. They don't like fun. They don't particularly appreciate you, having fun. Never-never-never let California DMV, much less the FBI know, you're having fun. Samuel, '04 Ruthiemobile - ////////////////
... issue looming at California smog check, license plates failing to properly correlate with our VINs, isn't a DMV issue. Peculiar phenomena on the BAR smog check interface, presenting my vintage two-seater for smog check, its parade plates would not correlate to its VIN, stunting its progression thru smog check. Not until the smog check tech had presence of mind to deleted the license plate number from its text field on the smog check technician's Bureau of Automotive Repair interface, was the vehicle allowed to be smog checked, by the smog check technician. I'd spent the afternoon last Friday, researching the issue, at my local DMV office, then again with DMV officials, in Sacramento. No problem there, both instances, querying my parade plate number calling up the correct VIN, doing it the other way, entering the car's VIN correctly calling up its license plate number, no data integrity problem at DMV, the problem would have to be, California AQMD (air quality management district), CARB (e.g., air resources board), or BAR (e.g., California Bureau of Automotive Repair). My sense of it, the Jay Leno people touched a nerve with California SB712, that some bureaucrat knee-jerked at AQMD, BAR or CARB, ordered their DBAs and ETL specialists to do a database roundup, lassoing up everything they thought to be a specialty or vintage vehicle, in an effort to grasp exactly how many vehicles could be expected to be declared exempt from California smog check; assessment of the potential environment impact of SB712. Discussing the matter with the California DMV people, we agreed perhaps the CARB people goofed up the SQLs, and now the BAR smog check database won't always accurately correlate VINs to plates; plates to VINs. I was officially told by California DMV, when presenting our vehicles for California smog check, advise the smog check technician, enter just your VIN, don't enter your license plate number into the smog check technician's interface. My smog check guy had presence of mind to do exactly that. My vintage AW11 passed, like a cool breeze - Samuel, '04 Ruthiemobile - ////////////////
