When did California have a safety inspection program? I only know of the emissions inspection program, which still exists, but for most vehicles is simply does OBD-II say everything is fine, and is it not making visible smoke.
> California appears to have an annual safety inspection
I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. In many urban counties, there's an every other year emissions inspection (Smog Check), but that's not looking for safety issues. And for most post-2000 cars, it's a quick visual inspection under the hood, read the ODB-II emissions readiness status, and pump the throttle and look for smoke (might be diesel only), older cars that are 1975 or newer get a probe in the tailpipe at idle and 15?mph on a dyno, even older cars don't get checked.
Here in Oregon my '03 TDI gets a quick ODB-II and a visual inspection (i.e. is the Check Engine light off, is the exhaust not full of smoke, etc.). Of course, I'd expect CA to be the most stringent state.
I don't understand how California detected this. The one time I had to take my 2010 Jetta turbo diesel for a smog check, the inspection was ENTIRELY visual. The inspector did not insert a probe into the tailpipe. He did plug the test rig into the OBD-II port under the steering column and turn the key to the accessory position (presumably to electronically capture the VIN), but that's it. I even asked him at the end if it was an entirely visual inspection and he said, puzzled, yes but that's what the computer told him to do.
> Older cars aren't subject to smog protection and if the module is set to the OEM configuration it will.
Only cars prior to 1974 are not subject to smog check in California.
And part of the smog check is a visual inspection which will fail in the presence of any non-factory emission related equipment (such as engine control modules) even if their behavior is 100% identical to factory.
California has a new emissions check system for vehicles 2000 and newer. No tail pipe probe or dyno regardless of the vehicle. Just visual inspection and plug in the OBDII reader. The OBDII reader checks the sensors for proper functioning and checks the ECU to make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Smog tech only really has to do the visual chek. Diesel trucks also get a snap test (step on the accelerator quickly and diesel smoke must dissipate within several seconds).
Vehicles 1999 and older still get the tail pipe probe and dyno portion as well as the OBDII (if they have OBDII).
And in California, which is often considered the strictest state ever invented by man, we have stringent emissions tests but no safety inspection at all! It really confuses all of the California-bashers when you tell them that.
California does smog, but no safety inspection that I know of. You can have a car with the brake lines repaired with duct tape, but as long as the check engine light isn't lit and it passes smog, you're good to go.
I met a guy at the La Jolla Concours d'Elegance who had imported an ('82?) Trabant. He had gotten it registered with the CA license plate "IRNCRTN". Apparently, Cal DMV saw that it was over twenty-five years old, gave him an exception and the plates, and then demanded that he have it smogged.
A two-stroke Trabant.
I believe he showed the DMV the bottle of oil that he poured into the gas tank after every fillup, and asked them if there was a smog check place willing to hook what is essentially an old lawnmower up to their million-dollar diagnostic apparatus. This seemed to work.
Last I looked, CA smog test for post 2000 model year cars is ODB2 only. There's a handful of 2000 and earlier models that also qualify. Anything earlier gets probed until it's old enough.
In the US, older cars generally just need to pass the emissions regulations in effect when they were manufactured.
In practice, that means that most states which have any emissions inspections now just connect to the OBD2 port, check for ready and no faults, and pass the car, with cars that predate OBD2 being either visually inspected for obvious defects or not inspected at all for emissions.
Most cars are, but it’s generally not statewide and just focused on areas with high local pollution.
More to the point, it’s just an emissions test. It usually doesn’t test every car and (at least in the states I’ve done it) it’s just a computer checking that the cars computer is giving a normal report. There’s no safety inspection in most states and there’s no way to fail emissions for a safety issue if they did see something
Interesting to note is that 1997-older diesel trucks/cars did not and still do not require any smog testing at all.
"Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles 1997 year model and older or with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVWR) of more than 14,000 lbs, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, motorcycles, trailers, or gasoline powered vehicles 1975 and older."[0]
You're not wrong, but tailpipe tests were quite common in many states. In CA, like other states, they're being phased out.
Nevermind the fact that California has no safety inspection, unlike many Eastern states in particular. It's fairly silly to call CA the "gestapo" although they are more aggressive about emissions than anyone else, as you mentioned.
I am a driving and motorcyclist enthusiast, and have modified cars and regularly participate in track days. Somehow I've never had a problem with CA emissions, nor have most of my like-minded friends. It's just not that bad, and it does a lot of good.
California is known for having the toughest regulations in this area.
Kentucky had a limited emissions inspection regime from 1999-2005, when it was killed by the Republican governor. The only current inspection requirement I know of is if you purchase an out-of-state used vehicle. We have plenty of ancient cars on the road that have never been inspected.
Sometimes police officers will pull you over if you have obviously-broken headlights or such, and tell you to fix it, but not often.
Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I see cars on the road in CA that somehow pass emissions but are in extraordinarily bad mechanical shape since there is no safety inspections. As long as the air is clean I guess.
Since I'm no longer in CA I will readily admit that I've had more than one sideways smog done. Their rules on things like an intake needing a CARB EO is ridiculous. This is the same state that said the Elantra N has too loud exhaust, stock, even though it meets federal limits. Their BAR inspector ran it in "sport" mode instead of "normal" which is against their policy.
I'm under the impression that many emissions testing programs (at least in the US) have discarded their more sophisticated testing mechanisms and now just rely on the ECU saying everything is okay. Since most cars on the road are new enough to have that ability. Oregon definitely ditched the dynos, and while they use a sniffer for really old cars, I wouldn't be surprised if they ditch that before much longer.
They're getting a lot more strict on ECU testing, too. Used to be you just needed to have no check emissions codes being thrown. Now they're more thorough, for most ECUs they can check to also verify no modifications to the emissions settings (can't just tell the computer it has no cat so it doesn't throw codes).
Do they even look at the ECU on a car after 2009? California trusts the ECU on most cars after 2001, but they do plug into it. Seems kind of BS to me, at least there should be some randomized real testing, and if those don't look good, some models get blacklisted from ODB-II testing.
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