Backfire: Classic California cars serve another purpose for some...
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@rykros-the-disdainful i can't see how the cost of these types of vehicles could possibly justify saving money on emissions testing.
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@rykros-the-disdainful I feel like this is one of the reasons I/we have had good luck buying cars in California. All of my CA cars clearly had issues passing smog, but as I'm taking it out of state that doesn't bother me at all...
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@mybirdistheword It doesn't have entirely to do with saving money. It has everything to do with barely being able to afford a running vehicle full stop. Yes, a car of that age has very cheap registration fees, but more to the point... failing smog means you can't renew the registration, which means you can't drive the car without fear of a ticket... and with repeat offenses... being towed.
So it's more about "inability to pass smog on your daily driver means if you continue to drive it on expired tags you could possibly LOSE the vehicle with fees high enough that you can't afford to get it back".
@sony1492 said in Backfire: Classic California cars serve another purpose for some...:
@rykros-the-disdainful Purchasing a pre-76 car is a no strings attached price, if it drives you can legally use it. Cars that actually passed smog demand a premium in the shitbox tier.
I've personally experienced buying a non smogged cheap car and not being able to register it because it won't pass smog. Clean 323 with a valve tick comes to mind.
If repair money isn't on the table then the last thing you need is your unregisterable car getting impounded then being sent the tow bill you can't afford and being out transportation. Better to keep an old shitbox running then deal with that mess.
Yes. I mentioned as much in my original post, too. I've literally been in this situation before. I've also LITERALLY been in a situation where I bought a car, the alternator died and I didn't have a cell phone. So I went to a local store, begged them to let me use their phone to call the tow, and by the time the tow arrived.... CHP already towed my car. I couldn't afford the $350 "bail" so I signed the title over and lost my S13 240SX that I bought for $250 with an inch of standing water in it, a dying transmission, a broken rear quarter window, and me dumpster-diving for remnant behind the local carpet place to put SOME sort of interior back in it. At least the A/C worked, remarkably.
So, I'm most certainly not deaf to it. I'm annoyed by the loophole and annoyed by the noise, but also sympathetic to their plight and more annoyed that the local PD doesn't enforce the noise laws for all the ridiculously loud local late-model vehicles tearing up the streets around here...
There is a 350Z that I can LITERALLY HEAR A MILE AWAY that goes full throttle through the neighborhood at least once a day. I'm all for a nice sounding exhaust, but, a VQ engine blaring away with what you may as well call a straight-piped car.... that's not cool.
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@rykros-the-disdainful cal does have safety inspection though right? My problem is that I can't understand how it is cheaper to legally run a 70s shitbox than an 80s-90s shitbox. This is coming from somebody that owns a 70s shitbox. I've had to replace basically everything, although the engine rebuild wasn't strictly necessary. Blown bushings, sagging springs,. Leaking brakes. Belts, hoses, fuel lines. You name it. Haven't even passed safety in PA yet...
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@jminer @beefchips Slowly, Oppositelock is going to turn into a nationwide (maybe even worldwide) charity of novice mechanics fixing cars and it'll be glorious haha!
Though that's a government program I'd happily pay for in taxes.
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@mybirdistheword said in Backfire: Classic California cars serve another purpose for some...:
@rykros-the-disdainful cal does have safety inspection though right? My problem is that I can't understand how it is cheaper to legally run a 70s shitbox than an 80s-90s shitbox. This is coming from somebody that owns a 70s shitbox. I've had to replace basically everything, although the engine rebuild wasn't strictly necessary. Blown bushings, sagging springs,. Leaking brakes. Belts, hoses, fuel lines. You name it. Haven't even passed safety in PA yet...
You'd be surprised, but anywhere I've lived in (northern) California... Smog? Yes. Inspections? Absolutely not.
It's odd.
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@rykros-the-disdainful this is where i make a pointless joke about the priorities of cal's state legislature
