Farfire70

I keep hearing people say that there are $1500 fines and you car is taken away and all that if you don't have cats or other things. I want to know how many people have been caught and how? Obviously you have to know someone if you start removing emissions equipment. To keep this technical, what did you get caught for and what was the solution?

92RSFivePointSlow

"I bought it that way"

Burn EM!

Got pulled over for being to loud. The cop said he heard me 6 blocks away............ I Had just the cat on and that was it. Solution was to finish the rest of the exhaust. It was gona be arround $600 but he just followed me home and made me park it.

Farfire70

92RS, you get caught or fined with it?

acid Burn

last year i got pulled over in my winter ride, a pos 88 berretta GT. running the exhaust right from the exhaust manifold. i told the cop that the part were "on back-order."

92RSFivePointSlow

farfire, here in Jersey, the DMV doesn't have authority to impose any legal action, so if they notice it while you're going through inspection they'll just try to spook you. My situation was a little different. Me and a buddy of mine were "test" driving his car after just putting headers on. Open headers, the rest of the exhaust was still in the trunk. A detective pulled us over, so he hadn't clocked us, just heard us. He tried to tell us we were racing because the car was so loud. That would be 4 points and an impound. We showed him the parts in the trunk and he even had us open the hood. He didn't say anything about us not having cats. The ticket ended up being "excessive noise, $70". 10 minutes later on the way home we were pulled over again but presented the ticket and the guy let us go.

Farfire70

There seems to always be a loophole around getting a fine. Typically, what can cops do if they pull you over? i would think it be odd for a cop to start asking you to open your hood and then get down and look under the car. Then again there are those out there who will do anything to give you a ticket jsut becuase you drive a third gen.

camarokev400

to be honest i really dont think too many cops know what to look for..... I work at a Chevy dealership and we service state highway patrol cars all the time and those cops dont know the first thing when it comes to cars. We dont really have to worry about that stuff around here though becasue we have no emmissions laws or anything like that.

92RSFivePointSlow

Cops "can" give you a ticket, impound your car, take your license, etc. But they're not mechanics, and they didn't get a badge and a gun to be crawling under cars because some kid is questioning their intelligence. If you get pulled over because your car is too loud, you've been targeted by someone who needed a BS reason to make a roadside investigation. If you don't have anything in plain sight that you shouldn't have, he's already been proven wrong, and he probably won't give you a ticket for anything if you show some respect.
All I've ever seen in my experience is when they do those spot checks on highways, they scrape off your inspection sticker and fine you for a non-moving violation, and give you 30 days to get inspected.

flrtin1

I will ask a question here and hopefully not start anything, I have asked this before and no one has answered it. When they do road side checks, is it only for vehicles from your state or do they do out of state vehicles also and if they do out of state vehicles how do they enforce the inspections if the state the car is from does not have inspections (ok two questions )

This may sound like a dumb question but they have never had any type of emission testing or inspections where I live so I am not familiar with it at all and my car would be a little obvious in the states that do

In Illinois the police, state and local cannot enforce any laws like tint, obstruction, front plate or anything like that on out of state cars

vic_V8

Its actually FEDERAL LAW, its just the states have to enforce it

92MaroRS

in iowa they will give you a "Fix-It-Ticket" which means nothing if you are from out of state. if your in state you dont have to fix it but if you get caught breaking it again you get a larger fine.

F-Bodeee

do you service the camaro Highway patrol cars? wuts so special about them except the LS1's? They are naturally asparated right?

acid Burn

on alot of things, like cats, its federal law that you must have them. but for other things like front licence plates or emissions there is a section in the constition saying that states must respect the laws of other states. so if you are driving in a state where somthing is illegal, but in your state of residence it is not. they cant do anything about it.

Farfire70

I've heard, but am not positive, that you legally can not remove any part of emission whether it's required where you live or not. I think it has something to do with selling the car. Supposedly if you sell a car without emission you can get in some deep Anyone else know anything about this?

flrtin1

Ok, I did a little research today on the Illinois emissions laws first there are only 10 counties in Illinois that have it. Second they can't do roadblocks. Third if you get stopped in the counties that do checks but you don’t live there and you fail they can’t do anything about it. Below are direct quotes I took off of the state vehicle code web site today. It still would be nice to know how other states handle this


"Under no circumstances shall on‑road testing include any sort of roadblock or roadside pullover or cause any type of traffic delay."

"In no case shall the Agency send a notice of an on‑road exceedance to the owner of a vehicle that was found to exceed the on‑road emission standards established for the model year and type of vehicle if the vehicle is registered outside of the affected counties. "
(Source: P.A. 92‑668, eff. 1‑1‑03.)

I understand that emissions are a federal regulation, not law and how individual states interpret and enforce that regulation varies widely as you can see between this post and the next one it is just good information on how each state handles it.

Farfire70

I was looking around and found this. It's for PA law and I'm guessing it includes emission equipment.

(b) Other violations.--It is unlawful for any person to do any of the following:

1. Willfully or intentionally remove (other than for purposes of repair and replacement) or render inoperative, in whole or in part, any item of vehicle equipment which was required to be installed at the time of manufacture or thereafter upon any vehicle, by any law, rule, regulation or requirement of any officer or agency of the United States or of the Commonwealth, if it is intended that the vehicle be operated upon the highways of this Commonwealth unless the removal or alteration is specifically permitted by this title or by regulations promulgated by the department.
2. Operate, or cause or permit another person to operate, on any highway in this Commonwealth any vehicle or combination which is not equipped as required under this part or under department regulations or which is otherwise in an unsafe condition or in violation of department regulations.
3. Do any act forbidden by this part or fail to perform any act required under this part.

87LS

In good old Michigan they do nothing.

My dad has been pulled over in his 66 vette with side pipes for "exsessive noise"

All it is here is a slap on the wrist and you walk away free and clear

You guys should register your cars here, a bunch of my buddy's do that, to avoid the noise and cat BS of other states

ksrammstein

It depends where in Michigan though...Kalamazoo is not as populated and "big city like" my cousin lives in Livonia, a suberb or detroit and he is always getting in trouble for something...Too loud, covering licence with mesh etc....but at least they are cool with driving fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But he drives a crapy toyota with a gay fart pipe....He got in less trouble with his Dodge Avenger, guess the cops like it more? Too bad Dodge put a POS mitsubishi engine in it and at 60k it died....Just like clockwork

flrtin1

Some more research from the EPA clean air act vehicle section Here .From what I read (by all means read it yourself) is that it is a violation for any individual or business to remove any emission control devices including cats ($2500 for individual, $25,000 for a business) or sell a car that has had anything removed. With that being said it is not a violation to buy, own or operate a car with emissions removed (again just a violation for the person that actually does it) now if you live in a state or area that does not or never has had emissions testing common sense is that if you own a 15 to 20 year old car that has had the emissions removed it would be next to imposable to prove who or when they were removed so just owning and operating it that way is not a violation. For those of you that live in states or areas that have testing you are pretty much stuck because your state is enforcing its own laws made off of these regulations. Please read the reference your self and see what you think

92RSFivePointSlow

I'm a criminal justice major so it's natural for me to look for loopholes, so lets think about this scenario- the cat. converter is clogged/broken, and not functioning, so you replace it with a pipe. Since the emissions equipment deteriorated and cease to exist, it would be a valid argument in court that the defendant who put the pipe in it's place did not remove emissions equipment. A comparison would be to Army-Navy stores that sell those old disabled WWI rifles as novelty items. The definition of a "weapon" is it's entirety of pieces as well as it's intended function. If vital pieces are removed and it's functionality is rendered useless, it is no longer a weapon, and can be owned and sold by anyone.

This wasn't advice to anyone, but just a situation to think about. There's a term called CYA- Cover Your ***. With that being said, it sure is a good thing "I bought it that way".:lala:

flrtin1

I wasn't going to go into this, but yesterday on the EPA site I found a 2003 attachment about aftermarket cats and basically it said if they are not EPA certified (and very few are) and you have a car that either has bad ones or none at all, if you put the non certified ones on you are in violation of the EPA regulations, even if you didn’t have one to begin with....go figure

83ho86tpi

A person could act like they dont know the first thing about cars, in other words if it is brought up, a person could pretend they dont know what a cat converter is, or even how to put air in your tires, you get the point. You could also say you dont know whats going on, "it was like that when I bought it". If you sell it write out a bill of sale you both keep a copy of with "as is" and / or "may need work to be driven" or whatever. This way the buyer acknowledges that they know it will have some type of problems and may need some work. This sould be enough to C. Y. A.
I lived in a state that required yearly inspections to keep the car licensed and have lived in a state that does not inspect at all. If you are in a inspection state you will probably need all the emissions parts in case they want to look for them. As long as it visualy looks ok and it passes the tailpipe sniffer you will be ok. It would not matter if your smog pump didnt work right, as long as it looks hooked up and has the drive belt on it. It would not matter if you had a hollowed out cat as long as it looked solid from the outside. I have never been pulled over for noise because I have no exhaust leaks. Without exhaust leaks our cars are no louder than a **** burner with those mufflers that sound like a bumblebee farting.

83ho86tpi

Wow, i guess you can say farting but you cant say the word that is for the food that people eat in china, you know snap crackle pop "----" krispies.

hot86z-28

if ur worried about getting pulled over for no cats, just take ur old cat, cut off the bottom. go buy some jb weld. and weld it around your pip and nobody will be the wiser. or just weld the top and bottom onto the pipe and who's gonna know. but i've never been pulled over by cops for my exhaust, both my IROC and RS are/were loud and i've had looks but never been pulled over for it.

twistedtransam

i was bust 2 years ago with an illegal exhaust. i have 3 in. all the way back to 3 3/4 inch tips and a flowmaster. the cop that stopped me gave me a tcket and tried to have my car towed. but i demanded he bring out the sniffer and do the sniffer test and he refused said he didn't have too. but here in illinois you have a right to have it check on site or when u go to court.

flrtin1

what county was that in

2slowcamaro

I ra open headers all of last summer and the cop that pulled me over just thought that I had lost mu muffler. The idiot. He stoped me for excessive speed of corse. My speedo is broke and dont know how to fix it.

formula350sd

iTrader: (2)

ive been rolling my ******* race car (no muffler) since last summer and havent had a problem with the cops (knock wood) and my friends seven duce impala has headers and straight pipe and the only problem hees had is a cop givin him sass mouth when he wasent even driving

SSC

Nothing special internaly, most are LT1's. Only thing special some are equiped with N20 but not all of them. Most cop cars are 6 bangers nowdays no need for tax payers dumping out tax money for gas guzzling V8's. I really gota go to the fNord yard and nab a police interceptor badge off a crown vic.


Back to topic, had full exhust no mufflers a cop pulled up one day and said "damn your car sounds good, race much?" Only at the track sir

ksrammstein

You must have cool cops up in the ozone...

Z28GEN3

I live in Arizona and I can tell ya that most of the LS1's and who ever has a 97 or newer car or truck dont even have cats on when they go to the testing facilities its way too simple to program it out of the computer or use O2 sims. and theres alot of the 3rdgeners out here who remove the cats after testing (cats for smog test only), yes they do visual inspections with a mirror but that doesnt mean the idiots know where the cats are on all vehicles. I have 4 cats on my 98 F150 which ill be ditching soon.

To my knowledge its federal law that states you must have them on the car at all times and if by removing them and your caught you could face 10 yrs in a Federal prison for each cat missing. its stupid; if the car is tuned properly you shouldnt need a cat. its not like the Catalytic Converter Police are out in numbers and you could always say "I bought the car that way and it passed smog". you could just get a large cat and gut it and shove a straight pipe threw it and weld it together.

Most shops here wont touch an automobile without cats too much at stake, though some 1970's era vehicles dont have them and some do. so its really quite stupid.
I believe that most of citys in Az dont have any ordinaces for how loud it can be, Except one or two have sound ordinaces mostly for the rappin carp music AKA NOISE. this would be the retirement areas.

HeBen

Ok here is one idea for cheating the system. Just have your cat removed and replace it with an electric cutout, then cut your gutted cat housing open so you can weld it over the cutout. I'm not sure if it would work because it may be tuff to find a good angle for the cutout to flow through the opening in the cat housing while still being invisible from underneath the car. Hmm... what do you guys think? If you had headers then you could look and sound completely legal from all angles but at the flip of a switch you could be running open headers. Does it sound like a good solution?

GuitarJunki17

iTrader: (1)

I got pulled over the very first night I got my IROC. There was a crack in the Y-pipe, which made the car rediculously loud. So from a light, I got on it a tad, not much, still within the realm of being legal, but being that it was so loud, the uneducated would think you were "racing" (case in point, the cop behind me in an unmarked car).

He pulls me over, walks up and says "next time you pull away from a light like that, make sure I am not behind you...have a nice night". No license, no registration, no license plate check, guess this guy was in a rush to get somewhere? Hell if I care though, I got off easy =)

gray89vert

iTrader: (3)

i never got pulled over yet, i ran stock manifolds and y pipe and cat which was reasonably loud but i went past some cops like that and they didn't even look twice. i also ran open headers for a while well i still am but the cars not being driven but we just got lucky that time

deth_1970

i had a 78 camaro, with an agressice cam, headers, with mufflers bolted to the collectors, the exhaust ended under the front seats, at the time I lived in Phoenix Az, only time I would get pulled over was when I would blow a hole in a muffler, I had alot of cops look under the car, and never once ask about the missing cat, or ask for me to pop the hood,
and I will say that car was a rolling EPA violation, only thing of emmisons bs left on it was the now unused vapor canister,
i did have to register it out in Buckeye Az, a rural farming area, and i only got one ticket for excessive noise, the others were speeding

Guro 305

Man I love living in Florida where we don't have any emission laws and when we did, the cops could care less!!!!! As far as I know, only licensed car dealers in Florida have to have you sign a form saying that you bought the car with a catalytic converter.

Cars bought through other means don't. Only five counties in Florida had emission laws anyway up until 1999. Some cities and towns have noise ordinances and stuff but no emission laws here. Emission testing is a racket anyway because in Miami-Dade Co., you could either goto the DMV to have your emission inspection done or you could goto a "certified" emissions testing facility (ie. your buddy's shop) right across the street in which a few extra dollars got you the sticker you were looking for!!! When we had emissions inspections, I used to love those "certified" places!

Once they started popping up in Broward and Palm Beach Co., the emissions inspections stopped.

Sassy8722

We don't have inspections anymore in SC or emissions tests or anything of that nature. I have no cat. but I am not worried about it.

irocbarry

i got pulled over with my exhaust ending right after the cat, it was loud

the only thing that he didnt give me a warning for was the exhaust niose

hectre13

iTrader: (4)

i know that it is illegal to remove your cats, but how does that apply when you do an engine swap? i mean, you cant really keep the stock exhaust from like a six cylinder, so does that put you in violation? that would almost be like it being against the law to swap your motor out. i dunno just a thought.

Irocman86

my friend hollowed out his cat and stuck a pipe threw it and bolted it all back up and made it look like one was there but it was there only with a pipe threw it

safemode

iTrader: (1)

i've been driving around without anything after the cat for almost half a year (something i'm fixing this week) and I've never had a cop give me a second look, even when they are pulling me over for not turning my headlights on early enough at dusk (yes, NJ cops have nothing to do). Apparently, my CAT is so clogged up, that even without a muffler, the car sounds as quiet as any other car.

I'm puttng a new exhaust in from the engine back to fix that, but i'll be going the fully legal route. The cops around here are *******s and I dont need to spend half an hour being stopped before work to get a warning about my exhaust being loud. I'll leave that to my brother and his rice mobile (numerous tickets for just that).

rx7speed

that isn't much of an excuse

just like telling the cop "but sure honestly I bought that stolen cd player it's not my fault"

they can still take your **** and if they want might even push it as posession of stolen property

rx7speed

with my rx7 within months of owning it I replaed the stock thermal reactor and 3 cats instead with a 2" primary into a dual 2 1/2 header to straight through presilencer out to the stock catback.
since then the stock cat back rusted out I'm sure partly due to the header and the presilencer stripped the bolts which was replaced by a staright pipe and the cat back replaed with straight through mufflers. so more or less there isn't much to muffle my car anymore.
haven't had problems yet thank god with my very illegal exhaust both noise wise and emissions wise.

hell even had a shop install the header

dab2pds

i had an 81 z28 with 3" purple hornies header mufflers hooked up to the headers. my brother heard me pull off the interstate(110mph) from 5 MILES away(thats what he said). that car was LOUD! never got a second look from a cop. ms is always listed on everything as the worst state, but i love it that we dont have any emission requirements. i dont think ive ever had a car with a cat on it. the ones that did immediately got cut off for new bigger pipes.

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

I've been pretty dang lucky so far. My car can be heard from a mile away, or damn near that, when I'm on the throttle. The cop shop is right close to me and I still do practice launches out in front of my shop, none have bothered to stop by. They go after the imports more since they're the ones doing the street racing all over town and being really stupid.

Guro 305

You also forgot to mention that lots of cops appreciate decent cars and our cars sound good. Ricers sound like crap. That's why it's called a fartpipe!!!!!

rx7speed

I've actually heard a few imported cars that sounded fairly nice. while at the same time I have heard more then a few domestics sound like ****

Drac0nic

Must like that chain saw sound. I'm a fan of "quiet" exhausts personally, I can't stand trucks with no mufflers and dual pipes etc. etc. Or the dumb kids who punch holes in their mufflers to make them louder; if your muffler had a hole in it when I was a kid that was because you were too POOR to buy another one. That being said when I swap in my 305 I'll probably end up with something a bit less on the muffler side, just because I may be in a hard spot cash wise. I'm gonna try to get something on there as quick as possible. ED:I havn't run a cat in who knows how long, never had an issue with it; I'm in a non inspection part of ill-annoys

EvilCartman

iTrader: (1)

Funny you should say that, one of them was asking who's car they could hear sometimes 'cause it sounded good Then the dreded, how do you smog it? errm uhh I uhh, yeah...