California smog check will now look for modified ECU software

Vehicles with an unapproved ECU tune will fail the test

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/07/14/modified-engine-ecu-software-fail-california-smog-check/

 

Hellstate.

Would add that a bunch of tech bros and other rich pals of Governor numbnuts are running around with flashed ECUs in their fancy sports cars.

Guess they don’t care since they don’t keep them for more than 4 years.

 

Just another way to keep the middle class money rolling in, upping the cost of inspection, gas, food, and all utilities. How do you think they keep getting pay raises?

 

Pretty soon the only people who still live there will be Bruce Jenner and a bunch of homeless people.

 

Would this affect the people with Magnuson superchargers?

 

TPTB will not be satisfied until everyone is in EVs. Doesn't matter if it's logical/practical or that the marketplace should dictate. Doesn't matter if other countries are building new coal plants for electricity. Within the next 20 years there will no smog tests because the IC will have been sent to the forever junkyard.

 

IIRC it’s CARB certified.

 

Do the homeless really live there, though?

PS they prefer to be called "houseless"....

 

Easy work around. CA's DMV "allows" one to exempt a vehicle from performing a smog test. I have a 1990 2DR, 3.0L V-6, manual 4x4 with 500k+ on the odom. She passes Smog every other year. After teaching one son to drive stick, I have the CEl (code 12), after 6 years of no CEL. Automatic fail! Everything is copacetic, coming outta the tail pipe, but that's not good enough for old Hair-gel Hitler! Look up REG 5103 on CA's DMV website. I simple told the state, my "Patches" was in OR, while my son was off to college. Location, how long it's gonna be gone, who is driving it, etc. I have the tags on her plate. I figure, if the state has enough time and $ to find ONE old 4Runner for skipping a smog, we're all in bigger trouble!

 

So, if you're renting an apartment or live in a Condo, do you qualify as "houseless"?

 

Unhoused.

 

No, it's CARB certified

 

"Urban campers" in Denver...

 

Ha!! We call them transients in San Diego. Found out that is not the correct term the other day

 

Guess this will be showing up in Colorado aka East California soon...

 

As a lifelong car and truck enthusiast, I would NEVER move back to California (I am a Navy brat who was actually born there in 1989 and lived there a combined total of less than four years) just because of the bullshit emissions regulations. My uncle has two Volkswagen Buses, a 1971 that is exempt from smog testing due to the year, and a 1977 Westfalia camper. The Westfalia originally had a fuel injected motor, but my uncle has owned both buses about six years and the engine in the Westfalia was replaced at some point prior to him buying it; The problem...?

The replacement engine is carbureted and from a slightly older bus; It runs fine and is most certainly not a smoke-belching "gross polluter", but the engine is not up to 1977 EPA standards, so it wouldn't pass smog.

 

Come here to Texas, where every other vehicle has a bumper sticker that says "Don't California My Texas!!!"

lol

 

In Pennsylvania, where I've lived since July 2005, anything 15 years or older qualifies for a "Classic" license plate that exempts it from emissions testing but not safety inspections; The one stipulation is that the vehicle with the classic plate not be the owner's ONLY vehicle, and that they have at least one other vehicle with a regular passenger plate. This is to discourage people with one vehicle 15-year old vehicle as a daily driver from skirting the universally loathed annual emissions test. My Tacoma is a 2010 and will legally be eligible for a classic plate in 2025; I was planning to get a classic plate for the sole purpose of avoiding annual emissions testing, but then I found out you had to own at least one other vehicle with regular registration. I plan on holding onto my long-paid-off old truck for the sole purpose saving money to buy a house, and obviously buying a second vehicle doesn't fit into that equation if I want to buy a house before I turn 40; Luckily, I take care of my truck, and it has NEVER failed an emissions test or safety inspection in the 12 years I've owned it!

Antique tags are event stricter; Any vehicle 25 years old or older is legally an antique in Pennsylvania, and is exempt from both emissions testing and the safety inspection. However, you can only put like 2,500 miles a year or something like that and even though PennDOT is very loose in enforcing this, insurance companies that specialize in antique vehicles highly restrict where and when you can drive them.

 

There's a "Don't California my Pennsylvania" movement too!

 

As for my uncle's 1977 Westfalia, he has a brother in Texas; His brother allowed him to register the Westfalia at his house in order to obtain a Texas title. Texas also requires safety inspections, and in some areas emissions testing, but like Pennsylvania they have a 25-year exemption that allows owners of classic vehicles to get antique tags. My uncle basically cheated the system and has been driving his beloved Westfalia around Northern California with Texas antique tags for over half a decade with no issues whatsoever! Again, his 1971 VW Bus is exempt from smog testing because of its year...

California has no antique or classic loophole, or low-mileage exemption (In Pennsylvania, if you drive 5,000 miles a year or less, you are exempted from emissions testing if you live in a county that requires it); In California, it must be smogged if it's a gasoline vehicle newer than 1975 or diesel vehicle newer than 1996, regardless of how many miles you put on it annually. My uncle has a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins as well that he bought used in Texas in about 2008; Even though his primary residence is in California, he owned property in Texas and had the Ram registered in Texas as a farm truck because it was obviously cheaper. When he sold the property in Texas, he registered the Ram in California, subsequently getting a California title and plates; ALL diesel vehicles were exempt from smog testing in California at the time he registered it there. Not long after he registered it in California, the CARB bureaucrats decided that all diesel vehicles 1997 and newer had to pass a bi-annual smog test just like gas vehicles; The testing criteria for vehicles without spark plugs isn't stringent from what I've heard, but my uncle was PISSED. My uncle takes excellent care of his vehicles and doesn't modify them in a way that causes them to pollute more.

So yeah, as far I'm concerned, California can go pound sand!

 

And then my cousin (the oldest daughter of the aforementioned Volkswagen-loving uncle) had a 1996 Jetta that she bought used in like 2000 or 2001; When it was newer, it was fine, but as the car aged and surpassed 100K miles it ALWAYS failed smog at the first attempt. My cousin would have to spent a small fortune every time she went in to get the car smogged, usually because the car needed oxygen sensors, and then it would pass smog on the second attempt; However, when it was time for another smog test two years later, it was the same old song and dance...

She finally got fed up with the Volkswagen and traded it for a used 2010 Honda Civic in December 2010; The 2010 Civic never failed smog, and was as reliable as you'd expect a Honda to be, but as it aged it started to have issues and my cousin traded it for a brand new 2018 Honda Civic that she still has. The shitbox '96 Jetta was a stick shift, while the 2010 and 2018 Civics are automatic, and my cousin misses having a manual transmission but she certainly doesn't miss having a car that regularly failed smog!

 

Lord have mercy LOL, Leave PA the heck alone, Aliquippa and Beaver county can only handle so much!!!!!!!

 

I’m confused about your statement.

We have ALL of those natural disasters in California and then some.

And let’s just be clear, this state has zero forestry management/raking. And it keeps catching fire. And the emissions from those fires add up to more than every single car in the state.

 

It's usually the people who live in Shit hole redneck, white trash, inbred, middle America who say these things. Makes me laugh.

 

Drive by this paradise every day.

 

I guess we need a refresher course on why smog laws were enacted in the first place:

 

Because LA is in a bowl surrounded by mountains, whereas most big cities aren’t.

Once again California tries to rule the entire country.

 

Each state has the right to make its own laws.

It's in the constitution.

You don't agree with this?

 

The whole country has to abide by CARB BS instead of refusing to sell certain cars in CA.