Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:39:00 -0800 (PST)
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "Maher, Steve (SD-MS)" <SMAHER@gi.com>
Subject: RE: what year did california get it's own bus?
>>You don't have to abandon your non-CA car when you move here... at
>>least, that's the official line. What you DO have to do, is pay a $300
>>fine for every non-CA car you bring into the state. They call it an
>>Environmental Fee or some such, but it goes into the same general fund
>>that traffic tickets and court fines go into. The gummint's way of
>>getting around the Constitutional ban on interstate tariffs, maybe.
>>
>>I found about this when I moved from Colorado to CA in '90, bringing
>>THREE cars with me. :-O Soon I'll be allowed to do it again for
>>the V6anagon, which I imported from Missouri.
>>
>>The good news is, you don't have to add CA smog equipment to your non-
>>CA car once you pay the fine. Law here simply says that the car must have
>>all its original-type smog equipment for the time and place it was first
>>sold as new. Smog inspection stations here, have lists of both CA and
>>non-CA equipment. Keep a copy of your present registration, so later you
>>can prove to them that yours is a non-CA car (if there aren't already
>>stickers in the engine compartment saying so).
>
>This isn't true, actually. When I moved here (in 1990), I was not required
>to pay any fee for my 1987 Golf. It may only be true for cars that emit
>excessive pollutants. (If this is the case, GOOD! Polluters should be
>fined.)
Hmmm, this isn't what I was told, here in SoCal. I quizzed several different
groups (DMV, Smog referees, AAA) when I found I was facing nearly a thousand
dollars in fines for bringing in cars that met all standards, and even
polluted less than the CA requirements for cars 10 years newer than mine.
No choice, no way out, I had to ante up, but believe me I tried to find
reasons not to.
Well, yes, I *did* have other choices: Turn around and leave California,
or sell my cars to another unknowing sucker. Even this wouldn't really be
legal-- the seller has to provide the smog certificate.
Hey, Ron, drop me a line with the name of the office that let you in without
a fine-- have I got a car for them! It's emissions are about 50% of the CA
requirements, now that I've got the carb adjusted-- engine and carb are
both nearly new, it's newly tuned, etc. But the muffler is basically plugged
directly into the engine's exhaust manifold. Cat? Air pump? Whazzat?
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Steve Maher smaher@gi.com '80 V6anagon w/Chevy 2800
'66 Mustang Coupevertible, for sale
Check out the cars at http://www.lookup.com/homepages/76242/home.html
*** I'm a Native American, born in Illinois. Or does ancestry
make a difference after all? ***
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