If you will be needing a smog test on your southern California truck soon,
pay attention! The CARB folks relaxed the Jan 1 date a little bit, so that
independent testing outfits have to have _ordered_ a new tester by Jan. 1,
but they can continue with the existing machines through March 31st. Since
a smog certificate is good for 90 days, if your registration is due before
June, plan to get your smog test early. The prices have already jumped from
the $15-40 range to $50-100. They'll go up again substantially with the
full treadmill test.
BTW, we have the EPA, not really CARB, to thank for the new requirements.
My truck passed smog with flying colors in December - even though I blew
up the insides of my catalytic (it rattles now) with a backfire caused by
a loose spark plug wire. I now have two years before I'll worry about a
new cat. Must be at least mostly functional though!
Jim
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:06 EDT