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, 08:33 AM)

James....have you read AB 2683? In the preamble it states...."This bill would instead, commencing April 1, 2005, exempt from the smog check requirements, and the smog check compliance requirements, any motor vehicle manufactured prior to the 1976 model-year."..... To me ....that statement is ambiguous at best....76 model years were introduced in 75...they were made in 75..... Further in the bill...it exempts NEW cars from inspection for six years instead of four...."I" think that's how they got it to pass... As to model year versus build date...it's get a "little" clearer...but that preamble language is a hangup....

Yes, Mike. I read every version from introduction to passing. I've read a LOT of bills, and this one is no more ambiguous than most. Again, what the bill says is completely beside the point. How the DMV interprets it is what matters to US, as they are the enforcing agency. Historically, they've always only paid attention to the year on the title, as this is the information they have at hand. They don't have a big database to convert serial numbers to model years (for years before the VIN came into being, which encodes the model year), so they take the year on the title at face value. Again, if you want to dispute the year on the title, there's a procedure for doing this, and apparently some people have been successful in the past.

If you want to hire and lawyer and dispute it, I'm sure you could poke all kinds of holes in this and many other bills. My angle has always been that a people in general and a bureaucractic agency in particular are going to do what serves their best interests as long as they can get away with it. Historically, the DMV has shown their best interest is to license cars and easily and as lazily as they can to prevent every one bitching. If they fuck up, they ignore it unless someone complains, and do as little as possible to fix any fuck ups. If you fuck up, they ignore it unless someone complains, and do as little as possible to resolve the situation.

The term "model year" is used often enough this legislation to have some legal weight. The term "calendar year" is NEVER used in this law as it relates to vehicle manufacture. The term model year is defined elsewhere in the statutes, so I'd expect that any judge forced to resolve this matter would say that the year of the car is the model year, not the build year. Do a check in the CVC and I believe you'll find a definition of "model year" as the state sees it. On that basis, I don't find the preamble to be at all ambiguous.