[Cobrabill]

Tonight after the Z-Club meeting a couple approached me and another club member asking about selling a specific Z-Car.

We talked at length about sales possibilites, etc.... but when the discussion got in detail it was brought out in passing the car had 'failed smog because he couldn't clean off and read some numbers underneath'.

Now, I had heard a lot of stuff, but this was a new one. I had to know more. Luckily the person had a printout of the Smog Test.

Now the killer (and a Nyah Nyah to those who told me 'they never heard of that before'): The car, out the tail pipe passed. It's CO was nil,HC was Nil, and the NOx was up there in PPM, but still well within the limits for the year vehicle.

So the car was clean.

But the SMOG test was a FAIL!

Why, you ask? In the section "Ignition Timing" it said "FAIL"... Hand written on the sheet was 'clean off timing marks and bring back for free retest'

Apparently, even though the vehicle passed clean out the tailpipe, BECAUSE THE "TECHNICIAN" WHO CHECKED THE TIMING COULD NOT SEE THE NUMBERS, OR FIND THE TIMING NOTCH IN THE PULLEY HE FAILED IT ON THE VISUAL CRITERIA!

And now the part that P.O.'d me: The owner was more interested in what they could get for the car, because if they could only get, say $850 for the car, then THEY WOULD GIVE IT TO THE STATE FOR THE CRUSHER PROGRAM BECAUSE THEY WILL PAY $1000 FOR THE CAR!

Basically, if they couldn't sell it to a private party, they were going to use the 'registered and failed smog test' to turn it in to the crusher program.

Purely financial, of course. I was a little more than irked, but kept composed and stayed polite. But the car was nice, most importantly IT WAS CLEAN OUT THE TAILPIPE!

This car is being considered for CRUSHING simply because of a 'fail' on a BUREAUCRATIC PORTION OF THE TEST!

As I have said ALL ALONG: THE SMOG TEST IS NOT ABOUT CLEAN AIR! IT'S ABOUT SOCIAL ENGINEERING AND CONTROLLING PEOIPLE'S FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT.

Any idiot with half a brain could clean this car's timing marks off, take it in for a retest, and have a car well worth the $850 they paid for it, and no more precious natural resources would have been expended to manufacture a 'new' vehicle for them... But as it sits, that scenario will not occur. This car will likely not sell for more than $1000, and because of that fact, they will likely turn it in to the crusher for their 30 pieces of silver.

The mentality that the state cultivates (see the previous post about the Mustang saved fro mteh crusher!) just is so wrong!

So f-ing wrong! Clean air, my a$$! This car IS CLEAN. But it fails because some monkey isn't diligent enough to find the timing marks during his 15 minute flat-rate smog check. Beat the rate, and no---they won't fudge the timing marks and pass it, with the STING operations they got going, most SMOG techs are so afraid for their licenses/livelyhoood they won't do it...even if COMMON SENSE says the car is CLEAN.

Bullsh*t Sacramento meddling.