Rob Edwards

For which car in your stable are you needing a CARB compliant cat? If it's for the 2003 911, you have four (!) cats. THe good news is that they all should have the same EO, D-193-96, which is what's on my cats:

I don't think that scribing this # on any old cat is gonna work....

Cuda911

Two cats only, four O2 sensors.

So, some idle rambling musings here.... suppose someone were to go into an aftermarket exhaust shop, see some numbers on a CARB-approved cat, and then on the way home the car scraped bottom on a speed bump and through the the miracle of the Lord's mysterious ways, the resulting scratches in the cats had an amazing resemblance to the numbers the were on the cats in the shop. Again, this is TOTALLY hypothetical....

Bill51sdr

You know, it really is not that hard to pass these smog tests out here if you keep your engine maintained. I am kind of amazed that so many here have such trouble with this. Both 928's I have owned never came close to failing a test, nor has any car I have owned. My experience with the Miata was due to trying to save money on what at the time was a legitimate OEM cat replacement. The original cat had deactivated and I could tell by the smell of the exhaust. I proactively replaced it prior to smogging it several years ago. The car's emissions were never an issue and that thing has nearly 245K miles on the original, unrebuilt engine. The people I know on these forums that are having problems every two years are not running stock fuel or ignition parts on the engine and non OEM cats. One guy I know has been back and forth to smog stations several times and one time screwed up and got a dreaded "gross polluter" scarlet letter attached to his car. To me it is simply not worth any alleged performance gain to have to go through this BS every two years here. I miss my 928 but not the apprehension every two years that just maybe it might not pass the smog sometime in the future. There are enough issues with these cars without having to deal with the smog ***** here.

Cuda911

This has nothing at all to do with maintenance. Under the new rules, the car has to pass a "visual" as well as the sniffer. Your car could have ZERO emissions, but it will fail the visual if not OEM or CARB-approved. And, CARB is approving almost nothing.

danglerb

Thanks to all for a great job of inducing paranoia, taking my Euro in for its retest tomorrow.

Mongo was your test STAR only?

Did the test change in Jan 2014?

Why all the fuss with "CA only Cats"? Simple, New cars stick the manufacturer with a no exceptions 50K mile warranty. After market cats were required to have a 50k mile warranty, but with ZERO teeth. As my muffler guy puts it, cats don't die, people murder them, nobody gets warranty claims paid, no incentive to make high quality replacement cats.

After market cats have no tolerance for bad AFR, and more likely than not, are designed to barely last 50k miles of no problems ever with the engine. After market cats were turning up failed too often in smog tests so CARB eliminated all of the generic replacements and forced a more rigorous test for approving cats.

The Calif approved list for cats CHANGES from year to year, as do model numbers for the cats.

What a PITA it will be when the smog test starts requiring the serial numbers off every car tested, no more sharing a set of sure to pass cats. That must be coming down the pike, recording all the numbers, motor ID, casting number on heads, intakes, etc.

STAR only is the future for all the non OBDII cars, and one mistake knocks a tech out of the STAR program.

It will get worse.

worf928

Clearly, the next step is for CA to make humans illegal.

jeff spahn

Only if you were born is this country. If you sneak across the border you can still get a license, a YOB, free food, free housing, free medical.

EMan 928

Looks like battery tender has a new product for the California crowd:

http://batterytender.com/products/au...fficiency.html

Bill51sdr

Maintenance includes all systems in the car, including the emission systems. You may not like that but that's just the way it is.

Mongo

As I read through this thread more and more, it looks like this law can be challenged with enough manpower and some good attorneys.

Primarily, the key to overturning it would be proof that a non-serialed cat is just as clean, if not cleaner than a CARB stamped one. At the same time, I've noticed that CARB cats have smaller piping diameters than stock systems; If it can be proven that smaller exhaust pipes can render the fuel economy on the car inefficient compared to factory specifications, than would that also not be proof that the CARB approved cats are not good for a vehicle in its overall lifespan?

I know this thread may be leaning towards OT, but in order to keep it in the forum, it would be great to have more mechanic feedback and even legal feedback on this issue. I see groups such as the NRA pushing back the legislature over the gun topic, but who is pushing back on laws that hamper vehicle ownership and what parts can be installed? Of course in a case such as guns, there is the second amendment, but what about the rest of the Bill of Rights, Federal Law for emissions, etc.?

DKWalser

I'm not an attorney. Even if I were, I don't practice in CA. So, take all this with a grain of salt. I don't think a legal challenge along the lines you suggest would have a ghost of a chance of being successful. The California legislature was concerned that after-market cats were of such inferior quality that the cats would quit working a few months after they were installed (rather than the 60 months new-car cats are expected to last). So, the legislature changed the law to require all after-market cats installed in California to be certified by CARB and also required a visual inspection of the cats as well as the sniffer test as part of smog certification. The sniffer test demonstrates the cat is working at that moment of time. The visual inspection proves that the cat is one that was manufactured to standard that will ensure that the cat keeps working.

Could the legislature have used a different method to meet its goals? Yes, but it's hard to argue that California's method is an unreasonable way of achieving those goals. It's only if the method were unreasonable that the courts would (should) step in.

Political pressure has a greater chance of being successful. If you could get large numbers of car enthusiasts to unite over this issue, California's legislature might listen. As an outside observer, I doubt that's going to happen any time soon. It seems more likely that San Francisco and parts of LA will adopt no drive zones (as did London, recently) that prohibit the use of internal combustion vehicles.

hacker-pschorr

I agree, side comments / discussions doesn't mean the thread should be moved. There is a lot of good info in here and this problem will only get worse as time goes on.

SEMA - all of us should be members and supporting them. It's not just a big car show.

Thanks to SEMA it's not any worse than it already is. On the Factory Five Forum there has been many instances of SEMA coming in and supporting new or updated laws to make it easier to register hobby cars in some states where it's rather difficult.

SeanR

Didn't know that, thanks.

Cuda911

This sounds like a huge pile of nicely cured socialist fertilizer. So, make people criminals now for something that may or may not happen in the future? If our founding fathers could have looked into the future and seen what is going on, they probably would have just said "ah, screw it," drank a few beers, and given the place back to the Indians.

Mongo

SEMA?! Really!? That is great!