On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 wrote:

> On 6 Jan 2005 18:09:19 -0800, wrote:
>
> >thanks for the suggestion. 1 week and $260 later my car passed the smog
>
> $260 is pretty cheap compared to some of the horror stories I heard
> from failed car owners. In NJ, it seemed like the state was making
> money from failing cars.

When I was interning as an investigative reporter for the NBC-TV news
affiliate in Denver, we ran a story about a lady who was the original
owner of her 1981 Cadillac. It passed the tailpipe test with lots of room
to spare, but was denied an emission sticker because the "Check Engine"
light didn't come on when the ignition was first turned to "on". That was
because the car had no such light, and never had. She produced ample
documentation from the factory service manual clearly demonstrating there
was no such light on the car, and even a letter from GM's regulatory
compliance department stating the same. But Envirotest's infallible
database claimed the car had such a light, so the state wouldn't budge. In
the end, she wound up having to spend several hundred dollars to have a
Cadillac dealership disassemble the dashboard and physically prove the
nonexistence of any "check engine" light or space for such a light, under
the supervision of a Colorado state agent. All in order to get a smog
sticker for the low-original-miles, one-owner car that passed the tailpipe
test with room to spare.

DS