CA smog nazis at it again:remote sensing

[johnc]

In the past the sniffers were pretty visible. If I recall correctly they were a 6 to 8" diameter white tube about 18" long mounted perpendicular to the road and about a foot off the ground and about a foot from the curb. There was a white van parked close to the sensor and a bunch of wires running out to the sensor itself.

 

It got your attention when going up the on ramp. I think a well tossed water balloon could take the thing out...

[Pop N Wood]

If you read this article

 

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-249.html

 

it makes me think we should ENCOURAGE remote sensing. From what they say, 50% of the auto emissions come from just 10% of the cars on the road. The article maintains that if remote sensing could just tag the gross polluters, that the ineffective bianual inspections could be eliminated.

 

Says the test are pretty coarse. Jon's comment about FI guys not having to worry would seem to apply.

 

Also the test itself looks rather delicate. Something as simple as coasting past the sensor will prevent an accurate reading.

 

And I think a 12 guage would be MUCH more effective than a water balloon.

[JMortensen]

it makes me think we should ENCOURAGE remote sensing. From what they say, 50% of the auto emissions come from just 10% of the cars on the road. The article maintains that if remote sensing could just tag the gross polluters, that the ineffective bianual inspections could be eliminated.

Could be eliminated, but NEVER would be. This is the gov't we're talking about...

 

They were doing this some years back with a trailer setup that they'd park on the side of the freeway. My friend has a 510 with 44 Mikunis and they came by the onramp he used when leaving work pretty regularly. It is a steep uphill onramp and not very long either and they'd test as people got on the freeway. Whenever he saw the trailer he would gun it and then put it in neutral and coast by the trailer at 60mph. Never got nabbed. The way that system worked was that the trailer would signal some cops who were parked about 1/4 mile up the road, then they'd pull you over and cite you. This was back in the mid 90's in Moorpark, CA.

[Pop N Wood]

Yes, hard to imagine a government bureaucracy giving up any part of their empire. But if you read that article they talk about how the continuing high levels of smog are being used to try and force California into essentially centralized smog testing. In other words another DMV like enterprise that runs all of the smog testing station. It goes on to say how ineffective and expensive this type of testing is. If the remote sensing could actually work to nab the gross polluters, it might avoid further inconveniencing the remaining 80% of the drivers who only produce 10% of the smog.

 

So what would your rather have. Remote sensing that most likely won’t trigger on a well kept FI vehicle, or a state run testing agency staffed by equal opportunity hires? The privately owned stations may not be staffed by a bunch of Einsteins, but at least with some level of free market influence they might be open decent hours or at convenient locations.

 

But the way things usually work California will probably end up with remote sensing and state run testing. Still, I think people should put a little more effort into understanding the issue before they start machine gunning out letters. Another thing to consider is that infrared sensors can be easily fooled. The article talks about a few of them.

 

Thread seems rather political, does it not?

[randy 77zt]

after installing megasquirt on my 77 maybe i should put 1 of those random technologies 3" cats back under the heat shield and forget about a muffler.with some good tuning it should be fine.going to have to get 1 of those license plate covers that makes it hard to take a picture of if the plate is read off center.if you get snagged by a remote sensor you will probably get sent to a referee station .since the law states that even though your car doesnt need a smog test it is still supposed to have all the original equipment on it good luck if you have a chevy in there.if i ever get any heat from smog nazi's my car will be sold out of state.

[DavD3]

I was wondering how they would deal with kit cars.There are quite a few Cobra kit cars in SC and Porsche Spyder. Under what category they will evaluate them???

[TomoHawk]

Kit cars are usually built by people who have the ability to use an engine that's working well, or they put together an engine from good or new parts so that the engine could be considered 'new.' I mean the engine isn't usually a cheap smoker that barely runs, but something that's powerful, implying it's efficient & tuned decently. That kind of engine, even without all the smog equipment, may have some exhaust smoke, but will probably pass an emmissions test.

 

I'd think that these offending smokers are the egines in cars that are poorly kept by people who don't care about the car, or the environment. Maybe they can't afford to keep the engine working properly, so the gubmint is offering some help to get it off the streets in favor of something better,which is where this new idea is from.

[rudypoochris]

Agreed but California smog isn't exactly easy to pass from what i hear. My girlfriends dad has an 84 suzuki samurai that can't pass smog, and my 1992 ford explorer failed, the first time, then we had a new cat installed. Also my brothers 1991 mustang failed the first time, and it isn't even modified. All of those cars don't seem like junkers to me and they all run fine, but on a dyno pull with the sniffer they just arent up to snuff aparently. Just seems like the smog laws are itching to put us all in new cars, which is nice, but lets not forget the old.

[Owen]

I said this in another post but my '91 300ZX TT pased WAY under average numbers, turned out there was a hole in the bottom of the cat. If you have an idiot conducting the smog test, he won't think twice about the low numbers.

 

So if you're driving in a group of 10 cars down the road, how do they know it's your car that's polluting? It'd take some pretty good aiming of the laser, and a person to decide which car to shoot. Now that's discrimination!

 

Sounds like exhaust dumps which can be controlled from within the car are in my future....

 

Owen