I will try to make this as short as possible so here goes:
My friends dad works for a dodge/chrysler/whatever dealership as the head mechanic and is also a certified smog tech. They have a big family and a bunch of cars and obviously they smog them or I should say he smogs them at his work and always has in the past no problem. My friends sister has a completely stock 1987 crx that they needed to smog his dad took it to work today to take care of it.
This is where it gets crazy: He punches up the vin for the car in the computer and before he can even think about doing the test it came back with a message that said that the car could only be smogged at a smog/ref station but offered no explanation as to why. Normally if your car fails horribly then yeah, you have to do that but they never even got to do anything.

So his dad calls up the number to find out what is going on and they said that because the 80whatever to 91 crx's were so commonly modified illegally as far as motor swaps and whatver else assuming jdm motors (even sohc) that they are only allowing them to smog if they go in and get a full inspection! So that sucks for obvious reasons on top of fact that it costs nearly twice as much to have that done.
Just wanted to throw that out there, see if anyone has run into that before I'm not sure if this is a california thing, or a bay area only thing or what but its the most fucked up thing i have heard in a long time and if its all true its going to **** over a lot of people.

Discuss.

 

dude...something like that happened to me! i was pulled over for having an illegally modified intake (i.e no carb #) and since it was in san jose, the cop wouldnt give it to me as a fix it ticket! i had to go to the ref and get it smogged and it passed (sohc zc) the bitch was the ticket, 192 ****** $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

the ref only charge $30 plus $8 for the certificate. the inspection is free.

 

Had the same thing happen to me about a year ago here in LA with my 91 CRX Si. Car is completely stock, never failed smog, never even close to failing smog, and I get my registration that says smog check only station. I asked the guy there about it, and he said the same thing. Something to the effect of " most all of these cars (early CRX and Civics) still on the road are so modified and running illegally that the state is trying to get rid of them or atleast make it a little harder to get it smogged."

Just hope that your buddy that smogs your car happens to work at a smog only station....

 

*bump*
thought more people would actually care about something like this but I guess not.

 

im trying to get my smog licesene and no where in the book it says that, the reason they send cars to test only stations is because the dmv does that for random cars, some can ONLY go to test only while otheres can go anywhere, its to prevent ripping off at test and repair stations.


dmv sends almost half the "fleet' to test only stations, if ur car is in the HEP than that means its HIGH EMITTER PROFILE, which is a statsitcal graph of cars likely to fail the smog program, my friends civic 90 civic hatch was in the HEP and had to be smogged at a test only, HEP is simply a way to classify cars likely to fail the smog procedure.

 

DAMN, this just ruined my day. i got the letter in the mail that said smog only station but i just thought it was normal. so can i try to smog it at a repair station or do i have to go the ref? wow this sucks. a lot. .......crap

 

It means that you have to get it smogged at a TEST ONLY station.

So look for a station that is labeled "Test Only"