How (and why) to Ramble on your goat sideways
10-19-2017, 09:33 PM
Former Vendor
iTrader: (31)
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 15,442
Total Cats: 2,100
Smog fee in CA is $8.25. My friend who's a smog tech did my truck (all stock, no funny business) for $10 and a 6-pack of craft beer last month. Report your shop to BAR and find a new one.
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10-19-2017, 09:50 PM
Motion to create a GoFundMe account for Aidan to tide him over this crisis. 
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G, I have a similar smog experience here in norcal recently. Went to a new El Cheapo smog station and tried to get a smog cert on a '93 Jeep Grand Cherokee so I could sell it. It passed the emissions test just fine, but failed visual because the number on the aftermarket cat wasn't "on the list". I protested that it was indeed a genuine (overpriced) CARB cat that I bought 7 years ago after the OEM cat had failed. They said sorry, it's not on the current list, so it fails visual.
I go home and do research to find out CA delisted a bunch of aftermarket cats about 5 years ago. I look back in my records for the last 3 smog checks (Yes, I saved them) and they all have scribbles on the invoice with the CARB number of my cat and then some notation indicating it's good. I return to the same smog station that marked it as being good on the previous invoices and he says "Sorry, you need the original receipt to prove when it was installed, cuz how do we know you didn't install a now delisted cat just recently." I said cuz your own invoices for the last 6 years note the part number right there in your own handwriting!! Nope, not good enough.
I call CARB and they confirm, without a receipt showing date of installation prior to its delisting, they must fail it. So here I am now with a vehicle which passes emissions test, but fails on the technicality that I threw out the receipt after the 5 year warranty on the cat had expired. FML
The only fix is to take out a perfectly good working cat, one that used to be on the list of CARB approved cats, and buy a new cat (from the current list) and install it. FUKING INSANE!
/end rant
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G, I have a similar smog experience here in norcal recently. Went to a new El Cheapo smog station and tried to get a smog cert on a '93 Jeep Grand Cherokee so I could sell it. It passed the emissions test just fine, but failed visual because the number on the aftermarket cat wasn't "on the list". I protested that it was indeed a genuine (overpriced) CARB cat that I bought 7 years ago after the OEM cat had failed. They said sorry, it's not on the current list, so it fails visual.
I go home and do research to find out CA delisted a bunch of aftermarket cats about 5 years ago. I look back in my records for the last 3 smog checks (Yes, I saved them) and they all have scribbles on the invoice with the CARB number of my cat and then some notation indicating it's good. I return to the same smog station that marked it as being good on the previous invoices and he says "Sorry, you need the original receipt to prove when it was installed, cuz how do we know you didn't install a now delisted cat just recently." I said cuz your own invoices for the last 6 years note the part number right there in your own handwriting!! Nope, not good enough.
I call CARB and they confirm, without a receipt showing date of installation prior to its delisting, they must fail it. So here I am now with a vehicle which passes emissions test, but fails on the technicality that I threw out the receipt after the 5 year warranty on the cat had expired. FML
The only fix is to take out a perfectly good working cat, one that used to be on the list of CARB approved cats, and buy a new cat (from the current list) and install it. FUKING INSANE!
/end rant
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10-19-2017, 10:33 PM
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,045
Total Cats: 6,607
What baffles me about this whole situation is that I passed CA emissions with this setup, and without any bribery involved:
I understand that enforcement has gotten more strict in the many years since I left. In my case, I selected an inspection station which was clearly a one-man operation in a bad part of town, with only one functioning bay, as the other bay was filled with the many motorcycles owned by the man who ran the place.
(The RRFPR on the firewall is there purely for cosmetic effect, as it's listed in the CARB EO for the Greddy kit which formed the basis for this build. Fuel is flowing through it, but the innards were removed. This was with the MS1. Or I might have still had the eManage Ultimate when that picture was taken, can't remember exactly.)
The exhaust was a full 2.5" system. Downpipe was made by... whoever that guy was that used to be on the forum who made that pipe. Catback was Enthuza, and the cat itself was some random Magnaflow that happened to fit.
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10-20-2017, 12:22 AM
Elite Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Posts: 5,167
Total Cats: 856
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10-20-2017, 01:04 PM
Elite Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Posts: 5,167
Total Cats: 856
So you had a receipt at one point, right? Remember the name of the company that sold it to you? Perhaps you could ask them for another copy, and when they say now, perhaps you could restore a scanned image of that receipt from a backup. You say you don't have a backup? Sure you do, it's kind of a fuzzy, lossy backup, but you sort of vaguely remember what it looked like, right? Company address up top, your name, date, invoice with some numbers in middle and a total at the bottom. That kind of stuff.
Turning your mental backup into a piece of paper is what photoshop is for.
--Ian
Turning your mental backup into a piece of paper is what photoshop is for.
--Ian
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10-22-2017, 10:14 PM
Elite Member
iTrader: (2)
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 3,468
Total Cats: 365
God damn. And to think I had to pay $40 to join a car club and get SP special plates which permanently register my car with the state, forever, with never another emissions inspection again.
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10-24-2017, 05:08 PM
Elite Member
iTrader: (21)
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 6,597
Total Cats: 1,263
Second surgical consult (UMass Medical School) is scheduled for 2 weeks from now. I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about the whole thing, now that it's not just "someday".
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