DMV Info needed, 1974 914 does it need to be smoged Options

[sjhowitson]

Help,

I hope I don't open a big can of worms but, what is the smog rule in California reguarding 30 years old or not. I have a non op on my 74. It is a giant pain in the behind to trailer it all over when I need work. I would like to get it registered for the road. It will not pass smog now. It was a 4 now it's a six. Anybody have any ideas? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/huh.gif)

[lapuwali]

QUOTE (mikez @ Feb 23 2005, 07:30 AM)

76 need smog inspection....75 and under don't....technically you need to keep your smog stuff....but...... (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/dry.gif) If you read the new law...there are some loopholes that need to be fixed or can be used if someone steps up and bitches loud enough....like build date versus model year...

The year that REALLY matters is the one on the title. That's the one the DMV uses to determine what smog regulations your car has to meet when they send you license renewals. I've heard of cases where people have successfully negotiated a title change with the DMV, convincing them a car was year X when the title said year Y, and gotten a new title with year X. An owner of a '76 914 may very well try this and get it retitled as a '75 (with some legitimacy, too, considering all '76s were just left over '75s being dumped to clear inventory).

Those ambiguities have been there for decades. The 30 year rolling exemption was in place since 1998, and the law prior to that had a 1965 cutoff. The issue is how the DMV decides to interpret it, and historically, the DMV has taken a very liberal view. They don't do this out of some sense of civic justice, but rather out of the fact that fewer people bitching means less work for them, and they have to deal with the general public day to day, not the uppity tree-huggers, so they have pretty much always ruled in favor of the little guy.

The ambiguity introduced into the new law that's really an issue is a clause that states that 1975 and older cars are forever exempted from the smog regulations. The old law stated that they were merely exempted from the then-existing tests. The language used could be reasonably interpreted to mean that they can never institute a new test (like remote monitoring) at nail pre-76 cars, whereas the 30 year law could not be reasonably interpreted that way. The old law implied that while you didn't need to be tested, you still had to follow the regulations, so if they caught you in some way other than the regular test, it was your ass. The new law implies this is no longer true, and it's a complete get-out-of-jail-free card.