DealMaker

Sort of a follow up to another recent thread, but have any of you moved to Calif. with a "49-state" vehicle and gotten it to pass smog inspections. Specifically a mid-1980's 22RE? Does anyone have experience with what the CA laws would be? I can't imagine that with as many people that move to CA, they all have to leave their 49-state cars behind. Any info anyone can provide would be great.

White83

It'll be smoged as a Federal vehicle, should be no worries.

jimbo74

yup, when you take it to dmv to get the paperwork transferred, it wont have to pass CAs smog stuff if its originally out of state vehicle

obscurotron

Actually, you are quite wrong.

I recently sold my 97 Tacoma. I was the 2nd owner, and the truck came with a migrant, who left Washington state, for sunny California. The truck had to pass the California emissions testing for the county in which I lived. Any vehicle imported into California, be from the other 49 states or overseas, must (with a few limited exceptions) pass California ARB emissions tests (sniffer, functional and visual for my county).

There is at least one county left in California (Mariposa) that has a simple visual inspection, and a minimal sniffer. It does not use the enhanced Smog-II standards (as of this past summer) for testing cars and trucks under 14,000lb GVW.

Don't give out wrong information. It makes it tough on people asking legit questions, and it makes me want to hurt people.

DealMaker

Thanks for all the help, guys. It is indeed a fuzzy topic. I googled this all night last night and found varying answers. For instance, Calif. has different vehicle smog level standards for different areas. Unfortunately, I live in an "enhanced" area which apparently requires more extensive smog testing on more hi-tech machinery. From what I reasd, the federal vehicle can pass smog, as long as the federal limits are within the Calif. limits! Now how stupid is that?!?! Anyway, I'm off to a smog shop to ask some in-person questions before I seal the deal to buy this out-of-state vehicle. Oh, and the vehicle has a performer cam, that probably doesn't help my smog situation any!

This one site I saw said a PWC puts out more smog in 7 hours than a vehicle does over 100,000 miles!! Can that be right??

obscurotron

I think you were getting confused by the bureaucratic nonsense that DMV uses to publish their rules and regulations.

If you live in an enhanced area, any vehicle (again with limited exceptions) must pass the enhanced test, regardless of its state of origin. The standards are based on model, year and other factors I'm no longer privy to. California doesn't test or care if the truck falls within the Federal limits. They only care if it meets the CARB limits.

If you live in a non-enhanced area, then you only need to pass that test, which is a stationary RPM-only test (no load). However, I have noticed that under load, the truck actually runs cleaner, comparing a non-enhanced and an enhanced area (we changed over between the 2 checks), under load.

Go pass smog and don't worry about it.