I have a 1991 Z28 1LE for sale, and some one from CA is looking at it right now. I have every piece of paper that ever came with the car (window sticker, build sheet, etc.). He asked a question I never even thought of(I live in FL), is the Camaro a 50 state car or did they have a CA emissions car? The paperwork does not say anything. The only thing I have is a factory sticker under the hood that states "this car conforms to U.S EPA standards for 1991 passenger cars". I have not removed any emissions equipment. Any one with any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Mike

 

Yes they were 50 state legal. I had no problem with mine when I got it from MI in '90.

 

It doesn't matter. If the car meets federal standards and has never had the emissions equipment removed and all is working, it is legal in Ca. The only cars that have to be California smog legal are new cars. I think it has to be at least 1 year old or have something like 2500 miles on it, and then it doesn't need to meet Ca smog if it meets fed smog.

 

No they were not all 50 state legal. If it has "conforms to US EPA emissions appliable to XXXX model year", then it's federal and must have the federal emissions it came with. If it states "comforms to California" or says "conforms to US EPA and California emissions appliable to XXXX model year", then it's CA and must have the emissions systems for California apliable to the year. You don't have to add anything it didn't come with, but what it did come with must be there. For the most part there were no noticeable differences. My car has 3 RPO codes concerning emissions. One for Cal emissions, one for Fed emissions, and one for Cal exempt emissions. The window sticker lists California emissions and a $300 add on. A federal car coming into California must be at least 3 years old or have more than 7500 miles on it.

 

this dude is right Chevy made a Camaro only for CA you can check on your engine code is abbreviated as CE, for example my engine code on my 84 is SXB: 305ci (MT,CE)

 

The 82-88 Camaros had 49 state and CA motors. Starting in 89, GM started to make only 50 state cars however they still charged for the CA emissions test which was one in every 100 cars.

BTW, when I brough my car in to CA, it had 4800 miles on it and was 6 months old. I got the car from my friend that worked at CPC (Camaro/Firebird division) and the car come from the proving grounds, sold to him by a dealer in MI and then I brought it from him. And yes I did have him order it thru the GM deal.

 

Does it say California on the emissions decal? And it would take the smog tech to say it's a Fed emission car with less than 7500 miles on it, to make it a non-compliance vehicle.

 

WOW this is some interesting info, "According to the state of California, Third Gens Cause Cancer"

 

My decal is Federal Emissions. I was given a CA one just in case. Still sitting on my desk.

 

Since a 1991 is over three years old, mileage is irelevant.

 

His post says he brought it in with 4800 miles and 6 months old, so this was done when it was new back in '91 or '92. I would go as far as to say on the smog test printout, under the emission type, the smog tech put in California, not Federal. That would have been the only way around it. It had to go through the BAR 90 system to get a cert. And I believe at that time, you were still issued a certificate of non-compliance and had to go to DMV to prove the mileage.

 

The car was built in 3-90 and I bought in 9-90. I took it to get it's smog cert then to DMV. I had NO problems with the Fed emissions decal or with DMV.

As I have said, by that time GM had announced that they were making all cars 50 state legal.

 

The subject of this post is not Glenn's car. The subject is a 1991 car in Florida being legal to bring to California now. It is old enough, that the only question is whether it meets federal smog standards. It is over three years old, so mileage is irrelevent. Whether it meets California standards is irrelevant, as long as it meets federal standards for both visual and observed exhaust output.

 

Sure, any car 3 years or older is legal to bring into California with a Federal emissions system. But what I am trying to show, is that Bluethunder's car, when it came into California with a Federal emissions sticker, was either overlooked or illegally smogged by the technician. It was not legal at that time as in the present. I'm just showing the people reading this thread that it's not the state, it's the owners of the cars and the smog techs causing the problem. A smog tech can put in any false information they want if it suits them. The only inputs from the car are tailpipe and tach (which the machine doesn't know if it's acutally the car's tailpipe or some other car - clean piping), and recently OBDII. Back then, it didn't matter how old the car was. The law changed to 3 years or older fairly recently, probably withing the last 5 to 8 years. I remember smogging a 60's mustang with less than 1000 miles on it and he had a big hassle with DMV trying to get a registration. Illegal smogs happen all the time because people feel they have to get around California's laws they feel are wrong. This is the reason the laws keep getting stricter. The state knows people are doing illegal things to their cars and also not maintaining them. So until people stop tampering with their cars and start repairing them when needed, the laws will keep tightening, and I'm sure for the smog techs this is just job security.

 

Actually the law banning cars from out of state for 3 years or 7500 miles or whatever were passed within 1 year after california had a different smog law than the rest of the country. I think it goes back to 1968 or 1969. When the smog laws first went on the books, it only took one day for people to start going to Nevada or Arizona to buy cars to avoid California smog rules. The only thing I'm not sure of is what they do for a person who buys a new car out of state and subsequently gets a job transfer to California. I know for a while they tried to charge them a fee to bring the cars in, but the supreme court ruled it unconstitutional and made the state refund the money.

 

I dont know what year it all took place but in 1969 I bought a 1966 SS396 in Michigan. To regester it in California even though I was in Michigan I had to take it to the Michigan State Police and get an Officer to sign a statment that all the smog equipment was in place and operational. He had absolutly no idea what he was looking at nor did he care.The point is California has been **** for years,nothing is going to change and you can sell the car and be done with it.The new owner will have to get it smogged when he gets it here and thats the end of it.

 

I believe it was 1973 that California began testing, certifying for emissions. It started with state testing, and when that didn't work, it went to independent shops for certification. Or maybe state testing started earlier and independent testing started in '73. It's been up to DMV to say wether or not the car would be registered. The owner had to make a good case as to why they had just bought a car and were now registering in California. I don't think the under 3 years came until later. Like I said before, I smogged a 1960's mustang in the 90's with less than a 1000 miles and he had a hard time registering it because it was a Federal emission car.

 

According to the DMV, there is no # of years limitation, its solely based on mileage. Refer to Health and Safety code section 43151.

There has been a limitation in place on bringing in 49 state cars since at least as early as 1978.

 

Scanned from the Smog Check Inspection Manual Revision 6. There have been numerous times I've had to make copies of pages from this manual because DMV doesn't know the smog laws, when the customer comes back and says "DMV says".....

I think the 3 year limitation started around '98 when the '73 and older were exempted.

 

Manuals dont matter, the laws are dictated by the code. Thats not code what you posted. In a courtroom, they'd throw that out and hold the code.

 

Are you a licenced smog technician? I've had my licence since '88. If it's in this manual, it's the law. I've even discussed this with referees on numerous ocassions coming across different scenarios. If the manual says so, that's what you do.

3340.16.5(a)10 the most currently available bureau test and repair manual

which would be the "Smog Check Inspection Manual, Burear Of Automotive Repair, Revision 6 August 2002"
that all smog stations must have and use to conduct inspections.

And note in the picture above, the analyzer will issue a certificate of non-compliance if a federal vehicle is under 3 years old and 7500 miles. If it's over 3 years and under 7500 miles it will issue a certificate of compliance. If it's under 3 years and over 7500 miles it will issue a certificate of compliance. It's programed into the machine. It can't be changed. The only thing you can change is telling the analyzer it's a Califorina car or it has more miles than it acutally has. And you can lie about the year of the car, too.

 

And in all that, where does it say that your testing procedure issues a registration for the vehicle? All you issue is the smog cert, the DMV, the people that dont know anything, issue the title and registration.

You want to know why? Its not in your manual. Its in the Health and Safety Code, section 43151. Go look it up, it will tell you why the DMV was a hassle.

 

The analyzer issues the cert, whether it's in compliance or not. That's all DMV looks for is the cert. I've made the mistake of entering the wrong vehicle information, but the correct licence and VIN#, and they still were able to register their car. DMV didn't look to see it had the wrong make, model, and engine size. When DMV starts getting that good, then maybe all these illegal smogs taking place will finally come to a halt. Why did bluethunders car get a cert of compliance? There's only one reason, false information entered in the smog machine. Or maybe, at that time, certs were still hand written, but still should not have been certified legal. Then we can talk about grey market vehicles that I've come across that have been tested and passed, and then they come to me. When I refer them to the referee, they get ...you could imagine. Some get by, some don't, that's when the experience of the smog tech shows through. What DMV does after that, it's not my problem.

 

Maybe because the tech was up-to-date with GM and KNEW GM started in in 90 to make 50 state engines only. With more states getting tougher smog laws, GM saw the light and said "Wow. We can save money by making one engine AND look good by cleaning up emissions".

 

For at least 10 years my insurance co has had a O in my vin instead of a Q.
The Dumb Motor Vehicle dept finally caught it 2 mos ago.

 

FWIW, when I bought my 2004 GMC Sierra Hybrid truck in Feb. 2005, I had to go thru a couple hoops to get it registered. The truck had 6,500 on the clock at the time of purchase from my local GMC dealer.

The truck is CA Emissions complient from GM (plus, these trucks were originally issued only for CA, NV, AZ, WA, OR and AK), but because mine was a GM fleet vehicle used in Michigan I had to have a smog referee certify my truck. I also had to take it in to a weigh station and have the weight certified.

All this because it was being registered in CA for the first time.

 

Weight certification was only because it is a truck. Registration on commercial vehicles is based on weight plus value, so it will never go as low as a car no matter how long you keep it.

 

The reason it had to go to the Referee station is because GM says it's a hybrid. The state says that regular stations are unable to test hybrids, but they are mainly talking about cars like the prius and insight that actually are propelled by electric motors. There's is no way to totally disengage the electric and force it to run on the gas motor so we can't check the emissions successfully.

But, since GM says it's a hybrid, which technically it is, it had to be inspected by a referee station instead of a regular smog station.

 

Great
Buy a hybrid and get to deal with rude/holier than thou State employees

 

I was surprised it had to be smogged at all. It was pretty much brand new and has "Meets CA Emissions" decals in the engine bay.

The smog check was mainly due to politics.

 

Without a doubt...

 

Isn't that what all smog checks are about?

 

The California smog check program has gone through a lot of changes. All due to 2 main reasons.

1. People do not maintain their cars. The state has proven this. Most people don't do anything to their cars until either they don't start, or run very poorly.

2. People just can't leave their cars alone.

Modifications, removal, and disconnected emission systems are done to cars. Look at all the sigs just on this site. All the illegal mods here and what are their reasons? We don't test here. They don't check thoroughly here. The tech looks the other way. My mod isn't affecting anything. I'll just go somewhere where they'll pass my car. Add up all the mods all over the country and you can see the problem. And most of the cars are their only car. We don't need race cars and race car drivers on public roads. Traffic is bad enough. And common courtesy, which was part of driving, is no longer used. There are too many drivers that only think of themselves and not others. Then there's the material needs. This just fuels the aftermarket companies drooling to get your money. Adds on TV that say they do this and do that, but because of the free market system, nothing can be done to stop it. If you can buy a part to modify your car and make it go faster, that means it's mass produced and a lot of people have them. And of course the government gets a lot of money, so why would THEY stop it?

And for the Michigan truck. It came from out of state. It has to have a smog check to comfirm it hasn't been tampered with. There are different vehicles that must be tested by the referee first, before just anyone can test it. It's in the BAR Smog Check Manual Revision 6, which is what the smog tech is supposed to go by when performing an inspection. When this manual is not followed, it's illegal.