Herr Governator signs A.B. 2683, Smog Law not Veto'd / bad for car buffs Options

[Brando]

this policy was more than likely backed by republican tree-huggers, who are in turn backed by motor corp's.

See: push older vehicles that will not pass today's smog standards off of the road.
-> forces people to buy newer "more efficient" vehicles that run cleaner ($$$ in the pockets of car companies and dealers especially)
-> creates more work for non-dealer shops to retrofit/fabricate smog equipment (more $$$ for guys like me)
-> spurs creating new smog-passable setups for older vehicles (i believe the all-OEM/Stock-equipment requirement was dropped in smog-testing under this law?), more $$$ for those developing/installing aftermarket setups.

only bad part i see is with owners of vintage vehicles that use the post-76 cars as modded, non-track cars who love their cars, can't afford new ones, and can't afford to make them pass by today's standards. besides, a catalytic converter helps a LOT, but sometimes not enough :\

[jr91472]

Got my TX state inspection earlier this week, My smog test consisted of explaining to the high school drop out that my disconnected passenger side heat exchanger was NOT an exhaust leak. Had to make him put it on a lift to explain the concept. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/Yack.gif)

$12 later I was done. God bless (cough..cough) Texas! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Not trying to rub it in, but pretty ironic

[lapuwali]

this policy was more than likely backed by republican tree-huggers, who are in turn backed by motor corp's.

Assuming we're still talking about the removal of the 30 year exemption, my reply to this is: horseshit.

Yes, it's in the interest of the automakers to continue to get people to buy new cars. This law will have no significant effect on that. 30 year old cars represent something less than 2% of the cars licensed in California. I'd say the number of people who own a 30 year old car who don't ALSO own a relatively new car would also be less 5% of that number. Given 30M licensed cars in CA (more or less), that would be roughly 30,000 people who are relying entirely on a 30 year old car for 100% of their automotive needs. Try and convince me the auto execs are losing sleep over not selling another 30K cars in CA every year, when they're already selling nearly 3M cars every year, which is enough to supply 10% of the population with a new car every year.

You're forgetting that most people consider a 10 year old car to be "old", and most people don't want an "old" car because old cars are trouble. The absence or presence 30 year rolling exemption has absolutely no effect on these people.

Your analysis of the small-business advantages are also dubious. Again, the fate of most cars that fail smog is the junkyard. The size of the market for people actually buying smog equipment for these cars is already tiny. The dropping of the visual component of the test is only for low-mileage, specially-insured "collector cars", for the shine-and-show set. Unless you make the smog components really pretty, and make them look 100% OEM, these owners won't buy them. What you'll actually see on such low-mileage low-use cars is exactly what Patrick mentioned earlier: people will run them w/o the smog equipment for 23 months, then fit the smog stuff for the test, then remove it again. The market will be for quasi-legal parts to replace the smog stuff (not a market I'd want to be in if there's a crackdown).

On that last point, if you can afford to modify the car to the extent that it won't pass smog anymore, but claim poverty when it comes time to "unmodify" it to pass the test, my heart bleeds.

[bryanthompson]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

[anthony]

Again, the fate of most cars that fail smog is the junkyard.  

This is the point of removing the 30 year rolling exemption. The non car loving green freeks think that removing old cars from the road will make a big impact on the enironment. It's low hanging fruit for them to attack old cars. We all know that there are so few of these cars out there that this law will have no measurable impact on pollution levels.

[bryanthompson]

From this article: http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/108...-11772282c.html

Industry officials argued that the board did not have the authority to adopt such sweeping regulations, that they couldn't be met by current technology, and that they unfairly targeted California, which produces less than 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gases.

Heat-trapping greenhouse gases are believed by many scientists to contribute to global warming.
...
Gloria J. Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the industry trade group Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said the regulations would only reduce worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases by "one-tenth of 1 percent."
...
The board's staff said the cost increases would top out at about $1,000 per vehicle by 2016.

.1% reduction in greenhouse gasses. It seems like a rediculous amount of work for .1% especially when global warming can't be proven in the first place.

[street legal go-kart]

Just for reference,
The 76 914 2.0 will pass the cali dyno test with a hollow cat and a disconected smop pump drive , making the the tailpipe test with change to spare . Unless you know what you are looking for both are NOT obvious.
I,m not saying I have any exp. with the above technique but I know it works.
Most of the guys running dyno's in cali are car heads and will help you maintain current registration.
However I am disappointed in R"nold :finger2:

JT
P.S. The 76 is the most rare of streetable/original/registered cars period. Excluding popsycles ect.

[nebreitling]

especially when global warming can't be proven in the first place.

oh christ...

sure -- let's wait until bangladesh is under 10 feet of water before we do anything. let's wait until we have proof.

[ArtechnikA]

i believe global warming is real.

what i don't believe is that it has nearly as much to do with "greenhouse gasses" as "many scientists" say. i think it's a climatic cycle, just as it has been the past 10 or 20 million years ( the evidence is in the fossil and geological records...).

i think we could cut out production of greenhouse gasses tomorrow and the climatic cycle would continue exactly is of the planet didn't know or care we exist - just like always...

i think global warming is a function of the total number of college graduates. their numbers have increased steadily, with good correlation to the climate changes. or maybe it's a function of swimming pools. geez - it could be anything there's more of than there used to be... or perhaps all those things are merely coincidence, and the planet is just entering another warming cycle...

[Red-Beard]

In the 1970s, "Scientists" were sure that a new ice age was starting.

Now it's global warming. The reality is this: The data that the global warming is based upon, is bunk. It was provided by the UN and was not corrected for urbanization. This was the surface temp measurements.

When the 3 meter, 300 meter and the 3000 meter measurements were done, which are not affected by urbanization, the result do not show a tempeature rise. You have 4 models, 3 match and 1 does not.

This is the liberal left's big scare and they continue to beat the drum even in the face of the real data.

Meltdown for Global Warming Science

[ArtechnikA]

...Global warming is not some UN political scam. It's a scientific fact....

this part we believe.

the rest of your rant showed not one shred of evidence that it's caused by man's influence. you just showed more evidence of warming, which we accept. you said it was bad, which we accept. what we do not accept is that because it's bad, it's our fault ...

[ArtechnikA]

The non car loving green freeks think that removing old cars from the road will make a big impact on the enironment.

they're right! it will! it takes A LOT more energy to make a new car than to maintain an old one !

[lapuwali]

We just happened to be here for something that has never happened on the planet before.

Man had nothing to do with the last major Ice Age, but it did happen while Man was on the planet. The warming trend after the last Ice Age was just as dramatic as the warming trend is now, only the starting temperature is different. Evidence strongly suggests there were similar Ice Ages (and, er, "Hot" Ages) well before the appearance of Homo Sapiens.

It's clear there have been significant temperature fluctuations over the course of the Earth's history. These temperature fluctuations have been just as large, or larger, than the one that's happened in the last 100 years. It's supposed by some that the major difference is that this recent change is happening much more rapidly than it ever did before, and it's the speed of the change that's different now, not the fact of the change itself.

The unanswered question is how rapidly it really happened in the past. The data shows the change occurred and lasted for a long period (10,000 years or more), what it does not appear to show definitively is if the temperature change occurred gradually over that 10,000 years, or if it happened suddenly, stabilized, then changed suddenly again. There are supporters of both theories.

It's hard to deny global warming is happening. I think it's quite fair to say, however, that global warming may not be our fault, or that we can do anything to prevent it. After all of the palaver over the ozone hole over the Antarctic, it was shown pretty definitively that said hole was caused by fluctuations in auroral activity (i.e., the output of the Sun), and that similar holes have come and gone in the geologic past w/o the influence of CFCs or anything else.

I won't deny that mankind can substantially influence the climate (nuclear winter is certainly something we could do ourselves), but the data linking "our" activity and substantial environmental effects has been wrong before, and there's substantial evidence suggesting these environmental effects have taken place w/o our help in the past.

All that said, I'd fully support the introduction of smaller engined cars to the US (which is the whole point, practically speaking, of the CO2 emissions reductions). I'd love it if 50-60mpg 0.75 to 1.0 liter gasoline only cars were for sale here (as they have been in Europe for years), if only to embarass the Birkenstock-wearing self-righteous Prius buyers who love to rub everyone's nose in how green their 38mpg hybrids are.

[ArtechnikA]

We just happened to be here for something that has never happened on the planet before.

love to see your reference for "this has never happened before..."

the data i've seen (which no, i don't have ready access to, although i will go looking now...) shows something like a 500,000-year climate change cycle, documented in the geological record.

we have accurate day-to-day temperature readings dating back - what - 500 years ?
it may not be coincidence that man is around for the last part of the upswing - it's entirely possible that man is here BECAUSE the climate conditions that have existed for the past 10-15,000 years (roughly, the age of civilised man) permitted his rapid evolution.

there's no way to tell cause from effect looking from our perspective.

what's your background 'Bob' ? i think i missed that post ...

obviously if you're a published geologist or a climatologist at NOAA i'll have a much better understand of your positions ...

[ArtechnikA]

Are you saying their research is somehow tainted? Most of what they discussed was the source of my information. I don't think NOVA puts out nonsense. Do some research yourself, you might come to the same conclusions they do.

did they present any contrary scientific opinions ? a well-rounded program would have ...

yes, i think many people in the "global-warming" industry have an agenda. i think PBS has an agenda. i have seen many interesting NOVA episodes (the proof of Fermat's Last Theorum was especially fascinating) but i haven't seen them do many controversial subjects; therefore, i don't have an opinion on how well-researched or even-handed their treatment of such a subject might be.

and i don't think i'd be wanting to trust a single episode of NOVA any more than i'd trust a single issue of Reader's Digest for a life-threatening illness...

[lapuwali]

The last ice age was 2 million years ago. Yeah homo erectus was around, homo sapiens have only been around 200 to 400 thousand years.

Well, that only reinforces my point that there's not necessarily a link between human activity and global temperature changes, now doesn't it? Since it warmed up again post that Ice Age, and there was no human industrial activity to cause it, it's pretty safe to say that "global warming" can occur w/o our interference.

Nonetheless, the last Ice Age was approx. 10,000 years ago. It's thought the land bridge between Alaska and Russia during that period is how humans entered the Americas. Said land bridge existed because of lower sea levels caused by higher levels of ice.

[gklinger]

The last ice age was 2 million years ago.

Umm... Bob... you need to check your facts...

Info

[monkei]

i live in CA. no smog for me. got a 74. watch me put a 928 motor in......(mmmmmm). sorry to piss of the rest of you who got screwed by the governator. gotta draw the line somewhere though, late 70's makes sense to me, since most cars were getting cats, egr systems, and such by then. i agree with anthony, we proubly wouldnt be able to breathe if everybody did whatever the hell they wanted to their cars motors and emissions. then again id be one of em, (aluminum 429 blown/stroked in the '92 Bronco, weeeee)

[dmenche914]

There seems to be a missconception by some that the cost of a smog test is low.

My last test, (July 04) in which the car passed with flying colors was $180. This is the going price for the rolling dynometer test at a test only certified station in San Mateo County. I called five different places, and all were within five bucks of each other in price. Note this is the minimum price, no extra work was done by the "mechanic".

Also some have talked about the vast smog problem in some areas, I agree some areas are bad, but the smog is no where near what is was in the 70's, it is so much better now, so it's not like we are on the verge of death or anything, and secondly, the classic cars are so small in number, and driven few miles, that they are a very minor source of smog.

This law is bad, because it gains so little benifit in cleaner air, for all the hassle and cost imposed on a small (ie not a big enough voter block)group of citizens.

Why pray tell is my car, driven less than 1500 miles per year, with clean exhaust required to pass an expensive "test" which will only increase in price as smog parts become rare, when some one can get a load of wood, bigger than my car, and burn it all in an open fireplace all winter long in a heavily populated suburban area, where the dense smoke hangs on the ground and causing a stink, even in other peoples homes. It even burns the eyes, and it is fireplace smoke, not new cars, not old cars. A prehistoric practice, that has plenty of modern, clean, and cheap alternatives. Good grief, wood burners are more out of date than classic car owners!

Talk about a major source of smog! Why not cut off the past time of wood fires, and tell them to simply turn the knob on the thermostat and burn clean gas as all the homes have gas furnaces anyway around here.

Now that would be a big impact on smog, with little cost to the citizen (I suburban areas, the cost of wood heat is close to that of gas heat) and the work involved is actually less Only reason they do not do it, is cause there is a big voter block of wood burners out there.

Also how ironic that our little polluting 914s which get 25-30 mpg in four cylinder stock form put out near half the CO2 emmisions of the typical big new SUV or Truck, so even when California requires by the year 2016 to have an 18% reduction in truck/SUV CO2, the old crappy 914 will still beat the new truck/SUV hands down. Hell my old 914 puts out less COs than my parents 98 Accord.

(Note CO2 emissions are related to gas comsumption, nothing that technology has been able to do to change that, so a 30 mpg car puts out half the CO2 as a 15 mpg car.)

[phantom914]

There seems to be a missconception by some that the cost of a smog test is low.  

 My last test, (July 04) in which the car passed with flying colors was $180.  This is the going price for the rolling dynometer test at a test only certified station in San Mateo County.

$180! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) last I checked, the test only stations were in the $50 range here in my part of LA county. About $10 less for the regular smog check places. And to think I was whining that it was so expensive. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


Andrew