Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben M.
Make it pass visual (easy)
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Not so easy when EVRYTHING is gone. It will have to have an EGR intake, single exhaust with a cat converter, miles of vacuum lines, etc.
Not worth the effort every 2 years
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben M.
Doesn't mean people don't deliberately try and skirt the rules or that there isn't the occasional tech out there who will take a few c-notes to pass a grossly failing car, but it definitely isn't the norm and you should not rely on it.
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Illegal smogs are harder and harder to get nowadays due to most guys doing it getting busted. And quite frankly, anyone doing illegal smogs in this day and age are utterly idiots. You eventually get caught. What a lot of guys don't think of is that we see 5 gases coming out of the tailpipe, the BAR sees a WHOLE lot more. I've had a BAR rep that I know show me some of the things they see, which is a whole lot more that what we get to see. Exhaust gas temperature and moisture content are a couple that I remember off hand. A car like the one in question would require a "clean piping" which means using another car for the test with the car in question's VIN number entered into the machine. They have computer programs that look for these things, and guess what? There's going to be another car out there that will have all the same readings (the one used for the clean piping), which quite frankly adds up to auto DNA.
And then there's the brainiacs who do "clean plugging" on '96 and newer OBD2 cars that has the smog machine plugging into the vehicle's onboard computer system through the DLC under the dash - guess what? You can get a vehicle's VIN number on your scanner screen by plugging into the car. The state SAYS that they can't get VIN data that way yet, but do you really think they are going to notify us when they do? Do you really believe them when they say they can't yet?
ANd then there's the whole camera issue - there's a camera port on the smog machine because they plan to someday film the techs doing the smogs, but they say they can't do that yet. Do we believe them?
Considering that you have to have a minimum of 2 years in the automotive field, be a top notch diagnostic and driveability tech, be certified in several areas of ASE testing, and somewhere around 150 hours of training in a BAR certified training course just to be eligible to take a test that has less than 50% passing rate in order to get the license, does it make sense to risk it all for a couple hundred bucks?
There are guys doing it, and the guy that I know works almost exclusively undercover going around and watching techs from down the street, on his laptop, etc.
I know a guy that got busted because the BAR parked a motorhome with a camera in it at the parking lot of the shopping center where his smog shop was and filmed him for daysn end.
AND... Hard to believe I'm sure {sarcasm} - they can watch your screen and everything you input into your machine from their laptop while sitting across the street from you while you have an entirely different vehicle sitting on your dyno.
No it's not fantasy stuff. It's what we know to be fact, but what about the stuff they don't tell us about? It is the government after all...
And the last thing any of us want is the surgeon general breathing down our necks...yes, the surgeon general. Smog issues are considered a health hazard here in commiefornia.