Oh the Humiliation.....

[Argabarga]

When emissions testing came along, a lot of the shady one-man garages that'd sell you the sticker out the back door kinda went away because they couldn't afford the investment in equipment or record-keeping that came with it, the bad ol' days of "turn on the lights and I'll pass ya' if they come on" just wasn't going to work anymore.

And yes, plenty of guys still sell you stickers if you know where to find em, but the number is down.

And we did have to sic the State Police on a garage once who failed us for 2 things that didn't exist in the manual, and even when we brought in a copy of the manual and pointed it out that these two ITEMIZED things on the bill WERE NOT in the book, the mechanic just shrugged his shoulders and said "Do what you gotta do, man"

One call to Harrisburg later, and they told us to come in and get our sticker.

[Shalom]

Yeah, my '88 Blazer would never pass inspection in states that still do safety inspections.

rust holes in the body: check [1]
front wheels point in different directions: check [2]
operative brakes on one wheel (out of four total): check [3]
exhaust leak: check [4]

Lights, horn, wipers all work, of course. All of which have been replaced (including the wiper motor) in the past few years.

Jersey still does emissions inspections every two years, and I keep it tuned well enough that it passes with no cheating: I go straight to the state inspection station. They did manage to get a decent tailpipe scan even with the leak, surprisingly, and I'm good until April 2016, if it doesn't disintegrate before then. 236,000 miles and counting.

[1] truck was hit by a forklift many years ago, and the twin dents started to rust. Also the vehicle was out of my hands for a couple years, and the people driving it didn't wash the salt off.

[2] I tried to have it aligned, they said there was so much slop in the front end that they'd only be guessing. Needs new control arms/ball joints/shocks/who knows what else. I did replace the idler arm recently with a Moog Problemsolver, and that was one of the things the alignment shop tells me needs replaced, so they may be talking out their ass.

[3] OK, I did have that fixed a few months back. Got tired of having to yank the wheel to the left every time I stepped on the brake to keep it moving in a straight line. Paid more than the truck was worth for the job, but it's a lot more pleasant to drive now. I probably drove it for three years like that. Also had the driveshaft balanced.

[4] That's recent. Not sure where it's coming from. The cat rusted through at the neck last year, and I replaced everything from there to the tailpipe. If the new cat is rusted through again, I will be peeved.

[Cia]

We don't have inspections in South Dakota either.

[Seanette]

California does emission checks, but that's about it.

[BPFH]

No inspections in Michigan. We used to have emissions testing if you lived in Wayne, Oakland, or Macomb County (basically, metro Detroit), but not anymore AFAIK.

Mind you, we do have mandatory insurance for all vehicles as a condition of your yearly registration, and many of the insurers will insist on seeing the vehicle unless it's brand new.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wisconsin, nuthin.

Not entirely sure about that; emissions tests could be required in Milwaukee metro. I've heard people from that area making reference to needing to have their vehicles inspected

[wolfie]

It was a 1985 Dodge Charger <snip> was amazing on gas.

For those who think of either "Dukes of Hazzard" or current production when they hear "Dodge Charger", and are thinking "WTF?" about the "amazing on gas" part, in the early '80s a "performance" version of the Omni 024 was sold as the "Charger 2.2". It was a front-drive car with a 2.2 litre 4-cylinder engine, and I'm sure Chrysler would be very happy if people forgot it ever existed.

[katzklaw]

i owned a parade of crappy cars when i lived in NJ...a 1980 Toyota Celica GT that i paid $300 for and had a malfunctioning gas gauge (led to some interesting side-of-the-road moments), an exhaust leak that i fixed with a soup can and 2 pipe clamps, and kept blowing tail light bulbs (lasted 2 years), a 1985 Mercury Lynx for $350 with bearing knock so bad you could hear it coming from 2 blocks away, had NO acceleration whatsoever, and it drank a quart of oil a week (lasted over a year (including a trip from northern NJ to Niagara Falls and back!), replaced it with the next car before it died. called one of those "cash paid for your car" places, had to pay them!), a 1987 Ford Escort for $400 with surprisingly few problems (lasted over a year, sold), and a 1990 Nissan Sentra for $250 with the front struts shot so it clunked when i took a turn too fast and the key broken in half inside the ignition so it could be started with a screwdriver and you couldn't lock the doors or trunk... but hey, it got 33 MPG! (lasted nearly 2 years, traded in for truck) each and every one of them would not have passed the official state inspection. >.>

the crappy van we own now probably wouldn't pass NJ inspection either, but it's registered in FL, so no inspections there. hooray

[EricKei]

raudf - "fog line" ??

[crazylegs]

The UK has the MOT - details here--> http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/m4i00000101.htm

Quite a few things are checked...

[RichS]

*snip*...in the early '80s a "performance" version of the Omni 024 was sold as the "Charger 2.2". It was a front-drive car with a 2.2 litre 4-cylinder engine, and I'm sure Chrysler would be very happy if people forgot it ever existed.

Don't remember that car, but that brought back some memories.

I've owned 3 Omnis; fuel-efficient, cheap transportation, and a lot of storage space for the first two. With proper care, it seemed like the engine (all 3 had Chrysler engines) would run forever.

The last one, I remember fondly. The last Omni I owned was a GLH; 5-speed was a bit balky, but, man, that 2.2 turbo was fun.

[Ophbalance]

Don't remember that car, but that brought back some memories.

I've owned 3 Omnis; fuel-efficient, cheap transportation, and a lot of storage space for the first two. With proper care, it seemed like the engine (all 3 had Chrysler engines) would run forever.

The last one, I remember fondly. The last Omni I owned was a GLH; 5-speed was a bit balky, but, man, that 2.2 turbo was fun.

Gobless Shelby. The sad thing was that turbo Omni smoked many a "muscle car" of the era due to everyone trotting out fuel efficient models. And oh the fun one could have swapping out to a turbo that could throw down 14 pounds of boost!

[Argabarga]

It's a white line painted on the side of the road that drivers can use as a tool to stay on the road in thick fog and they can't judge by the rear lights of a vehicle in front of them.

Which, unfortunately, can convince at least a few drivers they don't have to slow down in poor visibility and just follow that line....

Like the one guy I towed once, who encountered a super-dense fog bank, and decided to just follow the white line that he COULD see instead of slowing down.

Well he followed it

Right to the point where it veered right to create a right-turn lane for an intersection.

And then he crossed the intersection...

And on the opposite side, there was no right turn lane, and he was suddenly one car-width removed from the road, a fact he might have realized had he not been tooling along at 50 like nothing was wrong.

As it was, he didn't notice it until the ground dropped out, and he drove down the far embankment and into a cow pasture, totaling his car.

Fortunately, he had his seatbelt on, so after crashing through the fence and leaving a pretty good sized divot in the field, he at least was able to unbuckle and walk away in shame.

The cows didn't seem to have been impressed.

[wolfie]

I've owned 3 Omnis; fuel-efficient, cheap transportation, and a lot of storage space for the first two. With proper care, it seemed like the engine (all 3 had Chrysler engines) would run forever.

The last one, I remember fondly. The last Omni I owned was a GLH; 5-speed was a bit balky, but, man, that 2.2 turbo was fun.

My mother once owned a '78 Horizon (twin to the Omni, and '78 was the model year they were introduced). Just curious, but were your Omnis the regular ones (5 doors, including the hatch), the 024 variant (3 doors, including the hatch), or a mix? I'm not surprised they had Chrysler engines, since Dodge is a division of Chrysler. Rumour had it that the 1.7 litre (as in my mother's car) was an "enhanced" (either bored or stroked, can't remember which) version of the Rabbit (1.5 litre) engine, don't know if Chrysler bought them from VW or licesned the design.

I realize that sub-model designations are an "alphabet soup", but was GLH supposed to stand for "Goes like hell"?

[raudf]

It's a white line painted on the side of the road that drivers can use as a tool to stay on the road in thick fog and they can't judge by the rear lights of a vehicle in front of them.

This. And as Argabarga pointed out, a great excuse to speed in fog. Cops love it because they can tell if someone's drunk or distracted by how many times the person crosses it.. and possibly how many mailboxes they remove doing so.