One and a Half Finished, One and a Half To Go

The first "One" is my Colorado Driver License. Went in last Friday with all my paperwork, and was out with my temporary CDL in under an hour. The snow we had Friday morning definitely made for fewer people at the office.

The first "and a Half" is getting the Jeep registered here. It flew through the smog test with flying colors, and the VIN verification was done at the same time. I'll fill out the paperwork for my "SCL" (Special Call Letters) personalized plates, and go to the Larimer County office in Old Town to turn all that in tomorrow. Yes, I'll get "paper plates" to use until the regular plates get here, but I don't mind.

The "Air Care Colorado" place I went to was well-run, the staff was friendly and helpful, and the shop and waiting areas were spotless. $45 out-the-door, and it took about 40 minutes.

Remains to be seen how things go at the County office, but my sweet little wife was in and out of there in under an hour, and under $100.

That leaves the Supra, which had a real bad habit of passing smog when it felt like it. The last time I smogged it, it passed by ONE part-per-million on HC according to the report from The Last Kommiefornia Smog Test. I was going over the smog test reports from when the car started requiring a smog test (1990; The original owner kept everything!), and you can see through the years how Kommiefornia had progressively tightened the limits up; i.e., what was a "legal" amount of smog in 1985 when the car was built was slowly made "illegal" over the last 20 years. It's getting to the point where older cars (and not just mine) can't pass the emissions test because the limits have gotten stricter than what the car was required to pass when new.

This is cause for uncountable Internet Forum discussions where a class-action lawsuit was mentioned. I'm sure it'll be like the majority of Internet Forum comments, and nothing will be done, but it's well-known in the auto hobby community that Kommiefornia has been pulling this crap for years, and they get away with it.

I spent some time talking to one of the Techs at the emissions testing place, and she said that Colorado smog limits aren't as tight as Kommiefornia, and that while she couldn't guarantee anything, if it was just squeaking by the limits in Kommiefornia, it might very well fly through the test here due to the different gasoline and the altitude.

If it does, then YAY, RAHRAHRAH, WHOOPEE! If it doesn't, I'll swap out the catalytic converter, and then I'm sure it will. The last place that smogged it was owned and operated by an older guy who knew older Japanese cars very well. He looked at all the smog records for when it failed (I have all the test reports courtesy of the original owner), and how it failed, and said he thought the converter was end-of-life. Since I'm no longer under the control of Brown The Magnificent in Kommiefornia, and am not required to buy a "CARB Compliant" catalytic converter, many more options open up. A new, HIGH PERFORMANCE converter for the car is around $120~$175, vs double that "Back There" for one that was legal, and had the laser-etched "E.O. Number" on it. The car already has a custom 2-1/2" "Cat Back" exhaust with a Walker DynoMax "Turbo" muffler, so a new high-flow converter would be icing on the cake.