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Inspection Time

HealeyRick

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Massachusetts has an annual vehicle safety and emissions inspection. The Healeys are exempt emissions, but last year they changed the procedure so the inspector has to drive the car into the inspection bay and operate all the lights, directionals, horn, ebrake, etc then check the ball joints for wear. And it's all on video. What a goat rope with the Nasty Boy and Bugeye going in. All the controls are different and I have to do an off-camera tutorial for the inspector to get through the checks. The cars are so low, it's a struggle to get a floor jack underneath. The local inspector is great, but he just loved trying to take pictures of the chassis numbers in two different locations. Then I still had to do the two DDs. Still isn't to California levels, so I probably shouldn't complain. but I still get the shakes left over from high school when I could never tell whether my bugeye would make it through inspection. Fixing leaky mufflers with that fiberglass muffler wrap was bad enough, but stuffing steel wool down the mufflers to quiet the glass packs was worse. And why did the directionals and horn always work at home and stop when I hit the inspection station?
 
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John Turney

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That's surprising I know Cali is really tough on emissions testing. Is there a cutoff year for safety inspections or do they just not do them?
They don't do them. I think the only time a safety inspection is done is if one builds a kit car or their own design.

The Healey is, fortunately, exempt from emissions testing. IIRC, new cars start at 4 years, then go to every other year, but our newest car is a 2009.
 

AngliaGT

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And you have to smog anything 1976 & newer.
1975 & older are exempt (for now).
 

YakkoWarner

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Texas still does inspections (alhough there was a state legislature initiative to end it a couple years ago which the auto dealer lobbyists smacked down). Fortunately not as rigorous as what is described above. If I ever manage to reassemble the MGB it won't have to do an emissions check (25 years and older ages out of the emission check requirement), but I am sure it will be a great deal of fun trying to explain how it works to an inspection person who has never seen one before.

It was often a hassle when I lived in VA (your horn doesn't work - yes it does you're just pushing on the wrong thing...your brake lights don't work - yes they do just start the car first, etc...where is the parking brake warning light - it never had one...its not supposed to crank without pressing the clutch - yes it is, etc....). I actually had one inspector in Virginia measure the distance from the edge of the dashboard to the bottom edge of the windshield glass - apparently there was some state specification about how large that distance had to be. What did they expect me to do if it didn't meet their spec - move the windshield?
 

70herald

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Growing up in Michigan with no safety inspections, I remember seeing cars going down the road sideways. Obviously the result of serious frame damage. And cars with rusty parts falling off while driving.

Our local inspection checks for obvious physical damage or parts missing around the vehicle, lights, tires (very important in a hot dry climate) and of course the obvious stuff like brakes, suspension, alignment and emissions. "Big" vehicles like my van also are required to have a fire extinguisher, 1st aid kit and a few other things and they make sure they are all present. Usually about 5 -10 minutes for the actual inspection. Seems like a fairly reasonable trade off for getting the crazy junkers off of the road.
 

Boink

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No inspection in Oregon.
 

Grantura_MKI

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Out here they don’t care if the car can stop and turn, just as long as when it runs someone over it is within emission standards!
 

PAUL161

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Oklahoma has no inspections, if it moves under it's own power your good!:encouragement:
 

Bayless

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Oklahoma had inspections back in the '90s for just a few years. I think it might have been a federal mandated thing then.
 

Basil

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No safety inspections in NM either, but based on some of the absolute junk I see driving around, I wish they did have!
 

Bayless

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Hard to argue with that point.
 

Popeye

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I am all for inspections. But I just wish they give the inspectors some leeway in decisions... As Rick mentions, old cars won't work as well as new, and they are not driven in the same conditions (high traffic, snowy weather, etc.). In MA every inspection is filmed on camera - meaning one little error, or perhaps deviation to "code", and the inspector risks losing his/her job. I have sympathy for the inspectors being jerks; its is their livelihood at stake.

And don't get me started that we have inspectors who inspect the inspectors via 100% inspection - every inspection is filmed! (Is anyone impressed how many times I could get "inspect" in one sentence...) Something aircraft engine manufacturers do on critical parts, surely not needed for turn signal bulbs!

Off my soapbox now...
 
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HealeyRick

HealeyRick

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As Popeye said, instead of having Registry folks watching inspectors check tailights and license plate bulbs, they should have been focused on the almost 13,000 out of state violation notifications for Mass. drivers that they hadn't processed for seven years which led to a number of motorcyclists being killed in NH by a Mass driver who shouldn't have been on the road: https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/0...new-about-license-suspension-backlog-in-2015/ I considered building a Factory 5 Daytona Coupe, but the regulations here were so changeable I couldn't figure out what would pass or if I could even get it registered. Ironic, since Factory 5 is a Massachusetts company.
 
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