Ben Allison

saw this article today. Looks like CA wants to start doing "drive-by emissions testing".

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...rsincalifornia

so much for those who've got the X over on 364 days/year and put the cats back on for testing

Tom M'Guinn

I just posted the same article on the 944 board. Too bad there isn't a clearer rule against "omni-present monitoring" in that bill of rights thingy. Anyone seen the movie "Logan's Run" recently? We seem to be inching ever closer.

Ron_H

First, let me say that I do NOT support this scheme, or any other random intrusion like speed cameras/sensors. !#@$***!!##*!!!

Now let me relate my recent experience with California's smog process. In CA, we must obtain smog certification every other year, unless our car is over 25 years old and is therefore exempt. We must pay a state authorized station to perform this check and it costs around $85 to $100 around here in the Bay Area.

This year, I took my Rabbit to one place which told me after I paid the fee that the gas cap was not sealing properly and they failed the car. Of course they generously offered to install a new cap, (and re-test for another fee), the car and the cap at a later date. Nice guys, huh?? Well, I promptly walked over to the car, unscrewed the cap and heard a whooosh as the air rushed in (or out). I gave the guy the finger, and walked out less my smog check fee of course.

The next shop was more money, but reputed to be "honest", which of course means they don't use a gun to rob you...!! Of course he said the car didn't pass but that I needed to install a new catalytic converter which he would do for about $150 and labor and then he would retest and it would pass .... for another fee of course. Another compassionate fellow, who had no explanation after I asked why the car had passed 2 years earlier with no cat at all. I gave him a double barreled finger (both hands) and left, rid of all that "filthy" cash I had when I drove in.

The next shop told me I needed a "tune up" which he would be most happy to perform for a fee of " a little over a hundred dollars" and then re-test for another fee and most likely it would pass. I got in to my car and spared him my usual parting greeting to save time, and drove off. Well, I had hood pins on the Rabbit to keep the hood from flying open which it once did. The nice thief in the smog station had neglected to re-install the locks on the hood pins......the result was a smashed hood and cowling a few feet down the road. (should have given him two fingers and a swift kick before I departed ).

Now the car is out of the body shop thanks to my threatening to call the insurance commisioner on State Farm who wanted me to pursue this issue at my expense, and tried to threaten me with totalling the car if I didn't drop the claim (a used hood costs less than $100 plus some bondo and paint). I won't tell you what I called them before they agreed to apply my zero deductible comprehensive clause and pursue the shop owner on their own.

I asked Devek to recommend an honest smog shop, and sat back anticipating a rollicking display of laughter. Instead they recommended a shop adjacent to theirs. I took both my 928 and the Rabbit there. The bill was $100 +/- for each car, I spent the time petting Susan and Marc's two super friendly Mastifs, (about the size of small horses), and both cars passed smog without a hitch. The shop's name is Sanders and it is next to Devek. Nice people and my finger stayed in my pocket.

Of course the Rabbit had to be registered late for an additional fee.

Isn't life in California a joy?? Only two years to go before I get to do this all over but now I only need to worry about Sanders remaining in business . But Ahnald is looking into insuring that won't be an issue as we speak. What a great life, eh??

Dennis Wilson

I live in Tulsa County, Ok where we are always marginal or out of EPA compliance, yet the local police have no concept of traffic control. Twice last week, I sat in 4 plus miles of stop and go traffic only to find that it was caused by a police car blocking the fast lane (4 lane expressway) when the cars involved in an accident were in the median. They can't tell me that 2000+ cars aren't poluting more in this situation than the one or two smokers they might catch with monitoring. BTW the stop and go traffic caused 2 other accidents (rearenders) and almost caused a third when a jerk on his cellphone nearly got me. He was a pretty good driver to be able to veer into the median wthout ever taking the phone from his ear.

Sorry about the rant.

Dennis

Ron_H

Dennis:

Right on.

Isn't it amazing how gubmint promises us that it can solve our problems, and in doing so, seems to create more problems that they can "study" and solve anew? Lucky us.

Jim_H

I wish they WOULD do it in OR. Before they started using mirrors to look for cats, 928's passed without cats. The way I read the article if you are driving down the road with a plume of smoke following you you are going to get stopped, good. "Most" cars wouldn't be "victimized" the way I read it, the way we all are every 2 years now.

jserio

I believe the gubmint is spending somewhere around 5-10 billion a year on research and studies and 0 on fixing the problems they have found out. Whoever said crime doesn't pay is obviously not an elected official. Just my 2 cents.

Ron_H

Joe:

Well put.

Bryan

Although I don't live in CA and don't know all the details of this system, I've got to imagine that this system is only going to be able to pinpoint pretty gross polluters. Which most 928s aren't, even without cats. Quite a few 928s pass emissions tests with no cats - and this is with the sniffer shoved up the tailpipe. Am I to understand this system is accurate enough to tell something that the sniffer can't by analyzing the air behind your car as you fly past? I doubt it. Especially when your emissions are on the hairy edge of acceptable anyway.

Have you ever been behind a car that's just belching hydrocarbons and/or oil smoke? Old Caravans seem to be pretty common offenders. You be driving along 50 feet behind them and smell their exhaust. This is who this system is probably going to nail, and I don't really have a problem with that.

Bryan

BC

San Diego has "smog only" shops that only do the smog check and DO NOT FIX. That pretty much takes away the "you'll need this" issue. Also, this place that I found actually will charge you an upfront fee for testing (less then 50 dollars) and then if you fail, will only charge a 14.95 retest fee when you come back.

Nathan Valles

Anything dealing with SMOG seems to be a sore spot with a lot of people. Let me add my 2 cents.

I have always lived in the San Francisco bay area, Mostly growing up in San Jose with lots of trips to the LA area. I remember in the 70's when I couldn't see the mountains that were literally only 3 miles away from my front door because the smog was so bad. At the same time the LA basin was even worse. Smog controls have cleaned up the air tremendously over the years. By 1993 I could see over 45 miles away on a clear day from a friends house in the foothills.

I also remember taking high school auto shop in 1979 and putting a perfectly tuned 1967 mustang and a very poorly tuned 1977 mustang on the exhaust gas analyzer and having the 1977 put out less emissions due to the smog controls.

We've all heard of 928's that didn't pass smog with cats in place, and others that will pass without cats. I think that proves that emissions cannot always be determined by how the car runs. In most cases the owner doesn't even know he has a problem until the car fails to pass a smog test.

I have no problem with smog controls or even smog vans as long as the benefits continue to outweigh the associated headaches. I even like the rolling road tests that started in California. I am a firm believer that gross polluters should be removed from the streets. Any vehicle that you can see or smell the exhaust from should be repaired or replaced. Remember the flaming exhaust tips from American Grafitti? Those were merely spark plugs in the exhaust tips that would burn off the extra unburned fuel spewing from the engines.

Maybe you live in a place where the air is clean, or maybe you don't remember the smog of the 70's. If your air is clean then keep it that way. If you don't remember the 70's then you have no frame of reference to know how far smog controls have come in cleaning up the air.

OK, my ranting is done. - Back to your regularly scheduled program.

dr bob

California has had these "drive-by" IR smog monitors on the roads here for years. The article makes it sound like this is something new. My understanding is that you get what amounts to a fix-it ticket in the mail if you have a serious gross polluter. I have no problem with that, by the way. Plus it's no big deal to spot the test points, since they have a van set up on freeway ramps, and th etest instruments set out on tri-pods on opposite sides of the ramp. Plus the camera, of course, on another tri-pod. Doesn't take a genius to juist lift off the throttle as you go through the test point, so you have virtually no fuel flow and lots of dilution from your speed.


Los Angeles, like other spots like Houston and even Denver, has a metro area smog problem that's tough on residents. This morning I look out from my office at what could easily be a great view of downtown L.A. and the ocean south of there. But today we have a little bit of a "marine layer", which I guess is easier to say than "fog" or "low clouds", that holds the morining traffic vapors down and makes a nice grey pall over the otherwise spectacular view. What causes this mess? NOx and particulates from diesel trucks and buses, ships and aircraft. And some of it even comes from cars. But that's less and less as older cars take themselves off the roads, to be replaced by new virtually zero-polluting cars. As much as California fiddles with oxygenated fuels (and forces them on the rest of the country by example...) , it's the slow migration to newer cars that's had the biggest effect on smog levels.

As far as smog check stations, well... There are good ones and bad ones, like any other business. I drive in, tell the operator that the maintenance is done on the car and that it will pass fine, and it does. OK, I had to get the guy to do the 928 in second to get the NOx to come in, but that's another issue. Did the Explorer a couple weeks ago, and got the "gas cap" runaround. I failed two years ago on the same thing, and ended up with a new cap, so this was a suprise. So I mentioned that the cap was new last smog check, and then identified that the o-ring in the testing machine was cut a little. I grabbed some oil off the dipstick to lube the sealing face and it passed just fine. I'm sure this guy will get a new o-ring for his tester before he uses it again. I'll be sure to lube by gas cap just in case.


Overall, I suspect that the benefits for the many outweigh the inconvenience. Option is always "public transportation" which for some reason is exempt from all smog regulations. Reason? It would cost way too much to bring all those PM-10 and PM-100 (soot-) belching city buses into compliance...


Rant mode off..

Ron_H

Don't misunderstand me. I am not against smog checks and controls. And Los Angeles' smog problem is nothing compared to some other places I've experienced. In the '70s I was in Osaka, Japan and literally could not see across the street through the smog. Life existed underground. It made LA seem like a paradise. I am just against unethical smog check stations that rip off the public and want more than a fair share of the spoils from the system. There were stations in this area that would re-test for nothing and those that would do it on a pass or don't pay basis, but they have disappeared, or at least are not apparent here (South Bay Area). Finding an honest shop is such an unbelieveable event I just had to shout about it.

Of course, my 914/6 is smog exempt being over 25 years old so it is not a problem. Shall I drive vintage cars and not need to worry about it? I think I should simply maintain my cars properly and resent the attempt to rob me which wasn't there a few years ago. Or buy a Prius.

2V4V

My .02,

We have the "big brother"-esque mobile sniffers here in the Midwest too, though here, they do not (yet) use them for "gross polluter" identification.

They are, to my mind, harmless in and of themselves. If that incredibly (relatively speaking) inaccurate POS can grab a bad reading off your drive-by, you need to fix that car or send it to the crusher anyway.

A high mileage non-rebuilt 928 will easily pass a dyno-based, tailpipe sniffer test. It will even "quick pass" because it's blows so freakin' clean - IF everything works - that means airpump, all vacuum controls, properly set timing, cat(s) in place. AKA, a functional, tuned-up car.

I have even seen a few pass (not spectacularly, of course) without a cat at all - no, I do NOT advocate pulling cats. Hi-po cats are cheap, available and will cost you maybe 5-8 HP. If you are not at a track, there is zero downside to running a cat.

Unless you have a really screwed-up your EFI, or have a serious problem, the revenue collectors will never get a bad reading off a 928 on a drive-by IR machine. Cat or no cat.

Greg

Ron_H

I agree with gbyron. My 928 was in good repair before I drove in for a check, and it cost a bit of cash to keep it that way. The Rabbit had a "new" engine with everything functional, and would pass with or without cat in an honest shop.

Another point: In California, you can snitch on cars with visible smoke by calling 1-800-EXHAUST to report a sighting. I presume some goons will go to the guy's house and drag his polluter junk away from him and beat him up too. A few times I have almost considered doing it because of such terrible smoke coming from some guy's rolling wreck. The smokers seem to be the exception rather than the rule, just like Mustang exhaust noise screaming "Here I am, Smokey".