I posted a thread on vwvortex the other day, in the regional NorCal forum, asking if anyone knows of any motor-swap cars that have passed smog testing at the State Referee station. I’m within inches of passing my car, after a year of changing and fixing things to comply, and I’m excited to finally get my CA plates. And I wanted to know how rare it was for someone to follow the process to completion without circumventing the rules.
Immediately, and persistently, people posted things like “go to so-and-so, they’ll take care of you,” and “250 bucks and I can get you passed, you won’t even need to take the car anywhere.” This was after I was totally up-front about the fact that, hey…I’m good. My situation is sorted. Don’t need a hand, but thanks. Just want to know if any cars had passed the “legal” way. And of course, since nobody posted saying “I did,” or “my buddy put in the work and passed his,” or anything like that. So, I guess, there’s my answer. People usually either give up and sell the car, or they go to a shady shop and pay a bunch of money to squeeze through an obscure loophole.
I started thinking about it, and there are so many facets of this whole situation that are just sad. First…people somehow think that the rules are there for no reason. I mean, I’ll be the first to note that yes, the CA smog testing system is a bureaucracy that is, at best, only marginally concerned with clean air. More often, they just want you to conform to their arbitrary rules, even if your non-conformist method makes the air even cleaner. But, in a broad way, at least the system weeds out the really bad cars and cleans the air a bit.
If you’ve fucked with your car in such a way that the check-engine light is no longer functioning properly (i.e. you can’t trust that the light actually means there’s a problem, and yes, there are a ton of people out there who’ve done this), then that just shows a lack of concern on many levels. No concern for exhaust gases dirtying the environment and destroying the climate, no concern for taking care of a rather expensive piece of merchandise, no concern for whatever safety you may be diminishing, etc.
I work on my own car. This kinda stems from the fact that, when I was young, my dad made it clear to me that a) the car dealer is the best place to get parts to fix a car, and b) the car dealer will charge you out the ass for labor and parts, because they know they can, and they know people will just pay it. So, at a certain point in my life, I decided I was never going to pay someone to do something I could take care of myself. Started doing my brakes myself, doing my oil changes, fixing things like broken door handles, etc. Trips to junkyards were enlightening experiences, and eventually I started looking at cars just as they are: big puzzles, some of which are easy, and some are a little more complicated.
This saves me a lot of money, but makes for a more difficult life, with less free time.
But most people don’t work on their own cars. They’re more familiar than I am with the mounting costs of auto repair. But, in the face of this fact, my experience tells me that those same people don’t actually maintain their cars. They avoid the cost as often as possible, and they find new and exciting ways of getting around the regulations that are put in place to ensure that certain levels of disrepair aren’t tolerated.
When I came to CA, I started researching what it would take to get my car CA-legal, given the fact that my engine isn’t the one that came with the car. Most of the info I found were ways of registering the car as an “alternative fuel vehicle” to get around the law. Take it to a shop, hook up a propane tank for a 1/2-hour test run, and a couple hundred bucks later, you’ve got a “legal” car in California, even though you’ve just basically orchestrated a big fat lie. To get around what? To get around having to make the car actually function the way it’s supposed to function.
When I was in college, I had a boss (at one of my three jobs) who gave me a lift home one day. I mentioned to him that I really needed a car, and his response was “if there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it would be: ‘For as long as you can be without a car…be without a car.’” He didn’t go into detail, but I could pretty much figure it out. Cars are nothing more than a big pile of oxidizing responsibilities. And, as with anything, those responsibilities are yours to do with as you please: handle them, or shirk them. Most people, sadly, don’t get this. They figure, one more rusted-out junker that’s spewing shit into the air…hey, no problem. Then, on another end of the spectrum, there are the folks who just HAVE to have a pimp SUV to do their thang. Never think about the fact that the tires cost hundreds of dollars each, they just gotta roll in style, till they’re rollin’ on threads. Gas station trip costs $150? Huh. Well, it’s worth it, right?
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Update: I PASSED!
