New Inspections in Mass?

This is going to suck.  I have class on Tuesday and Wednesday next week and I will know a lot more after that. 

It seems odd that they would change the rules making cars outside the emissions check cutoff suddenly require them.

Out of curiosity are the MA rules for emissions codified or subject to agency rule making like the EPA or CARB? 

I live in MA and have been dealing with the terrible inspection system for years. From what I understand, the rules were always there. It's just the forced enforcement of the rules that's changing. 

Back when I bought my 1979 Trans Am in 2002, it needed an exhaust system right away. By the time I bought the car, it was emissions-exempt and only had to pass a safety and visual inspection. The catalytic converter on the car was long gone, and the system on there was a true dual system someone had installed many years before. I brought it to a reputable local shop, and they told me flat out that they wouldn't do any pipe over 2.25" and they had to install cats due to state law. Then, they told me that the universal aftermarket cats I was forced to purchase were only certified for vehicles with engines up to 305ci. 

I wasn't happy with that, so brought it to another shop, and they did the 2.5" pipe I wanted, but they still had to install the cats. Again, emissions-exempt car, but had to have them because it came with them. When they clogged up years later, they got replaced with straight pipes. Guess I'll have to buy a pair of cats again, but that's the least of its problems.

I swapped the engine in this car years ago. It had an Olds 403, and now it has a Pontiac 400. Your typical inspector isn't going to know the difference, nevermind looking at the casting numbers to see if it came from a car from the same year. That I'm not too worried about. For guys that have LS swaps in cars were they don't belong, this WILL be a problem. And that sucks. 

This new inspection system, just like 99% of the other state projects they roll out here, is going to be half-baked and terminally flawed. Hopefully it's so bad that they discontinue it soon, just like the last time. 

Cats are a federal thing.  Doesn't matter if the state smog exempts the car, you still need to have the cats in place.  Now whether you decide to run them or not is your decision, I'm just saying that they always needed to have been there, no matter what the Mass law was.

LS swapped cars need to have all the LS emissions stuff on them.  Some of the stuff can be "wink, wink, nod, nod", but the big things need to be there.  So 2 cats, 4 O2 sensors, etc, etc...

I thought VA was pretty enthusiast-unfriendly when I moved here from MA. Doesn't look like I'll be moving back to MA in this lifetime.

If it's as bad as is being hyped there's always the moderately sketchy method of registering the car to a LLC in Montana. 

I'm curious how motorcycle inspection will change.

i just chopped the hell out of mine and have a ton of mods planned...

Time to start registering cars in other states... preferably ones with no emissions or safety inspections. I know it's technically not legal, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

If this change forces Harley owners to put mufflers back on their bikes it might not be so bad.

I wonder how an aftermarket carb replacement fuel injection system would be viewed? If the universal Holleys and Edelbrocks have to go and the injection systems are a no go too who is going to be able to find and tune the right quadrajet, thermoquad, or terrible 80's computer controlled carb?

The0retical said:

It seems odd that they would change the rules making cars outside the emissions check cutoff suddenly require them.

Out of curiosity are the MA rules for emissions codified or subject to agency rule making like the EPA or CARB? 

we can hope for a big outcry from the classic, hotrod, and modified crowd.

oldopelguy said:

If this change forces Harley owners to put mufflers back on their bikes it might not be so bad.

I wonder how an aftermarket carb replacement fuel injection system would be viewed? If the universal Holleys and Edelbrocks have to go and the injection systems are a no go too who is going to be able to find and tune the right quadrajet, thermoquad, or terrible 80's computer controlled carb?

One could also argue that a newer carburetor or fuel injection system would actually be better for emissions and fuel efficiency than the original stuff.

Help SEMA! 

Texas is the only state I've lived in so far that has an annual safety inspection. And I hate it.

I don't hate the process and I've not had an issue passing. I don't even really mind the concept of safety inspections.

I hate that it, in my opinion, absolutely decimates the cool old junk car market that I like to play in. Here it just doesn't exist.

I have a theory that once an old car fails to pass inspection the owners send them to the scrapyard as it's not worth it to get them to pass nor are they worth anything to sell. 

When I was looking for a beater I searched for weeks and couldn't find anything that I was even slightly excited about. I looked on the Knoxville CL and found fifteen cars on the first page that I would have loved to have. 

If we move again, and I have a choice about where we go, I will not be moving to an inspection state.

I think that this may be a bit overblown. I am betting that the hype is about the new completely documented inspection. I have been told that as an inspector I can take a camera and show a person back at a desk and let them make a call about somthing. Confrontational people are a real problem. The new system takes the argument to the system and out of my hands. This would be a good thing.

mad_machine said:They even singled out cold air intakes (Which have no effect on emissions) as being not in compliance.

You might think that, until you've had to unbugger a MAF transfer table that was thrown all out of whack thanks to the different geometry.

The latest one I tuned was almost 50% lean and 20% rich in spots.  Think that doesn't affect emissions?  Bear in mind that ignition timing is also controlled by measured airmass/cycle, so if the MAF is thrown out of calibration it is not just fuel that is out of whack.

The more I tune "lightly" modified cars' OE computers, the more I want to drive a car that is 100% stock unless I have the ability to tune it. 

In reply to Knurled :

Hearing things like that makes me love tuning my POS much more.  It's all just based on TPS and MAP, no MAF sensor.  So it's easy to work / think through it as if you have a laptop hooked up to a carb. 

Well class is done and the short of it is no change in the rules.  It is all about enforcement. They are saying that the failure of the current enforcement system resulted in fifty percent higher failures of mass inspected vehicles (over the road trucks) as compared to all the other states back around 2010. This crept up to a 100 percent increase in 2015. Add in the death of a fire fighter that was directly linked to a improper inspection and a couple other deaths of kids and elderly and major corruption and arrests for fraud at the RMV and the threat by the Feds to cut off funding. All this lead the governor to put a new registrar in place and she is bringing down the hammer on bad inspectors. You miss things or don't follow the rules and you are out.  There are currently about 1800 stations in ma with inspection stations. There are 1500 on the waiting list. So they are going to remove those that are not doing it right.  

As as for the emission Regulations nothing has changed. It is all about how the inspection is performed and that there is now going to be a record of every inspection made. You miss something and it causes a death you are going to jail. I think the real motivation is $$$$. I will follow up on that aspect in a later post. 

Nick (Bo) Comstock said:

Texas is the only state I've lived in so far that has an annual safety inspection. And I hate it.

 

NJ used to have them, then our governor privatized the DMV and it suddenly got "too expensive" to do safety checks. Now all they do is emissions. With all the cars running around with non-working brake lights and SUVs with white sidewalls, I wish we had safety inspections again

As for $$$$.  First and foremost I suspect that there have been some BIG payouts due to personal injury and death's that the state is having to pay. I suspect that they were found negligent.  You know those settlements with undisclosed settlements?  They add up fast.  The other one that they are REALLY big on is the inspection of licence plates. This was hammered home multiple times.  The reason for it that was given was it is how funds are generated in to tole system and they are calming that they are missing out on 15 Million in revenue every year due to plates that the readers can not read.  

Something else related to the plates is that it is also a matter of national security.  There are many three letter and four letter agency's that monitor the travel of every car around the state and the country and they do this with plate readers.  Mass has been abysmal in enforcing damaged or unreadable tags.  Of course the feds know this due to the statistics that they gather on non readable tags and they have come down hard on MA threatening no more federal monies for roads bridges etc.  This is a HUGE pile of cash that the state would lose out on and I think is a big part why they are doing this.   

On a side bar I knew that big brother was watching but I now know that they are REALLY REALLY watching.  Way more than I realized.  Probably way more than some people would be comfortable with.  

Ever get the feeling that the STATE would rather just tattoo a big number on the top of our heads and require that we keep that area shaved at all times. 

Is this the bar code that has started appearing on new plates/stickers?

Sounds like current pa laws.

Luckily for MA, another tempest in a tea pot, or is that just another load of tea in Boston Harbor. Massachusetts has a long history of civil disobedience in the past coupled with rolling right over and exposing it's belly to any and all in the present. Where did we go SO very wrong? I blame it all on Pelosi.

With all the corruption at the top of the RMV you really think that there was any real enforcement in the trenches?  They were dumb Mass deserves this.  

Yes I am renewing my licence so I have the option to do inspections in the future but we will see.  I am not sure that I want to. There are going to be some seriously pissed off people.  The licence plate regs are going to annoy a bunch of people.  The fun part is that the dealers are putting the surrounds on the plates for there advertising that obscure the plate type and then passing them.  I can see many dealerships getting stung for this big time. Or we are going to have some really pissed off people in there year one inspection when they fail.  Now you can not "help" the owner you have to fail the car (you are on camera now) if it is in the bay and the plate surround thing is in the car it fails period.

Mind you this has always been the law but now the enforcement is to the letter of the law so people are going to get really unhappy really fast.