Tom & Ray advised a guy to take his Echo or his girlfriend’s car from the East Coast to California. They thought that if it ran over the mountains on three cylinders it might be ok. Problem with California is the smog laws. You have a grace period to bring the car up to California standards after which they condemn the car. The upgrade on a older Echo would cost far more than the car is worth. My advice would be to sell both cars at home and buy a California car when you get there. Neither of the cars they have are going to pencil out.
It think this Calif. situation has been resolved years ago.My sister and her family moved to CA. about 7 years ago they did have to bring their vehicle up to CA.standards (from AZ)but then some law interpetations said CA.could not have different regs. I called her (she’s is a realator HA,HA) and she asked around the office and none of the people think the smog situation is still in effect,you would think she would hear from her clients about this.Now you do have a time limit on paying sales tax.We all know CA tried to add CO2 to one of the gases tested for and this is was rejected as it is up to the Feds to set emissions.But maybe so
So I did some “googling” and the Feds say that states must either meet the Fed EPA standards or the CA “LEV” standard the state can choose,what wasn’t clear is if this is for new vehicles or if you are bringing in a old vehicle,I don’t think it is the same situation where we had 49 states and then CA as five other states have chose to use the more stringent CA “LEV” standard.I will look around some more
It seems the “LEV” standard is for new cars,resident cars 6 years old or newer no test,nonresident cars all tested,now I need to find the standards and compare how tough they are to here in AZ,I don’t think older cars must meet the “LEV” standards but you have to work with this stuff daily to know.
Lots of stuff on the Web about the CA and EPA fight over CO2 testing,the Feds say nothing special in CA. that should allow them to test for this gas.
If all the equipment is operating on the Echo and the car doesn’t have a mechanical issue causing smoking (you can be reported for your car smoking) then I don’t think it should be so tough to get the Echo to pass CA,eveything must be working and no CEL issues.Not much “tuning” to be done (the Feds took all that away)
I would agree with that recommedation. Califiornia is almost like another country. When moving from California, I would also sell my vehicle and buy a new one at my destination. Properly tuning up a California care is beyond the skill of many mechanics.
Rather than guessing I would contact the authorities.
This should do it:
You can register your cars in California if they have more than, I think, 8,000 miles on them. You can bring a car in, you can move in with your car. As long as it has the mileage on it, it’s OK. They smog test the car based on the standards for that car, not some absolute standard. This is a non-issue. Check dmv.ca.gov
If your car is running normally, there isn’t a problem with California. No modifications are necessary. Life is great there; leave the worries elsewhere.
I own a 22 year old BMW 3-series. I recently had it smogged in CA. Some of its emissions were almost 90% under the allowed value.
I also last year bought an 88 Plymouth Voyager for 450$ that had not had a tune up in years. It passed (barely, but it did).
I don’t know where CA gets the reputation for having these strict pollution laws. From this experience I’d say that if your car does not pass the CA smog test it probably has some serious issues in the first place. Running only on 3 cylinders would be one of them.