My next new car?

[HaRuMaN]

Didn't know that.  I've had friends come up from VA and go "holy CRAP wtf is with the salt on everything". 

I can see that if they came from the East Coast.  I grew up in Norfolk, hardly saw any snow.

[RetroACTIVE]

Here in MD they call it "salt"... but its not the stuff we had in NH which was just plain NaCl mixed with sand!  Here its kind of a funny black pebbly compound...supposed to last longer...

[knave]

When I mention an older car, I'm not talking about a Junker.  Buying any used car is a crapshoot since you don't know how well it was maintained.

In 1994 I bought an '88 Jeep Comanche small pickup.  I practically "stole" it from a used car auction.  I knew nothing about it other than it was 6 years old and had 115K miles on it. Turns out I was super lucky.  The truck is awesome (I still have it).

It didn't have any issues that I didn't directly cause for 10 years until I bought another car and it sat for 3 years.  I've since realised that I neglected it and felt guilty. I thought long and hard about putting any money into a truck that now was worth $500-$1000 and decided to go for it.  Most of it's issues were caused my my own inexperience.

I decided to keep it for many reasons but mostly because after 14 years I'm pretty nostalgic about it.  Now that I'm much more knowledgeable it's second life will likely outlast me. At 189,000 miles I swapped cores on the engine. It cost me $1000 and the new core is 4 years newer.  Runs great.  I trust it to be turn key reliable as long as I maintain it.

In CA, passing Smog could be a concern.  I find it a pain every 2 years to go through the hassle but I'd rather do that than do more damage to the environment. New cars get what like 5 years w/o having to pass emissions?

[paigeoliver]

Emissions laws are different from state to state and from one part of a state to another.

However one trend catching on is that of pre-96 cars being pre-emissions. That is when the fancier OBD-II crap went on all the cars that lets them just plug in and check the emissions. Pre-96 cars are uncommon enough now where it doesn't make a lot of financial sense to even bother testing that ever shrinking minority of pre-96 cars.

Of course the emissions laws are just a sham anyway, dropping the entire problem of particulate emissions on the family car is ludicrous, and they don't work because the laws vary wildly from one area to another meaning that failing cars often just MOVE from one place to another.

I do support initial installation of basic emissions control equipment, however the continual inspection of said equipment isn't the best idea and in many areas is basically just another anti-poor law.

[AtomSmasher]

In most of California vehicles from 1975 and older no longer have to be smogged, which was great news for me because the last time I smogged my 1974 truck it took knowing the guy that ran the smogging equipment and a 6-pack of beer to get him to look the other way on a few things.  I remember some of the smog equipment was actually held on with bailing wire just so that it kind of looked like it was installed 

[ChadTower]

In MA they supposedly have some of the strictest testing in the nation... they made garages buy these huge $80,000 automated diagnostic systems that do most of the testing for them and report it directly to the RMV.  Works with the computer in the car.  Cars 15 years old (last time I checked) could still be done manually and were exempt from emissions.  It is suppposed to be foolproof.

The modem pool it uses is unreliable at best.  Rather than fix that, they implemented a "if the modem pool doesn't work, you can do the tests manually, and send it in later another way.  My car hasn't been tested with the tester in years despite being a Civic in good repair.  The guy just looks at it, asks me if everything works properly, and slaps a sticker on it.

[whammoed]

They did emissions testing for a while in Florida while I lived there.  I always found it ironic because I encountered more cars in Florida spewing out obviously poor emissions than I did in Indiana where there was no testing.  They stopped doing the tests in Florida shortly after I moved there.  I seriously doubt there were any more polluting cars on the road than before.

[patrickl]

They did emissions testing for a while in Florida while I lived there.  I always found it ironic because I encountered more cars in Florida spewing out obviously poor emissions than I did in Indiana where there was no testing.

Maybe that's why they started testing in Florida?

[whammoed]

They did emissions testing for a while in Florida while I lived there.  I always found it ironic because I encountered more cars in Florida spewing out obviously poor emissions than I did in Indiana where there was no testing.

Maybe that's why they started testing in Florida?

Maybe, but emissions testing had already been going on before I moved there.  It is more likely because anything government related in Florida is retarded.    When I first moved there and tried to register my car I COULD NOT!  It was impossible.  Something in the way they deal with taxes and not being able to transfer them.  I ended up buying a new car.
Regardless, it didn't seem to make a bit of difference.

[RetroACTIVE]

Check Engine light on?  Instant failure, even if it passes the pipe test.  Luckily, though, they couldn't sell you anything at the same site.

State inspections were crooked, too.  Every place you went would tell you you needed new windshield wipers and they could do it for just $25 right now (I had a set that was a week old on my truck).  One guy told me I needed new brake pads RIGHT AWAY, etc.   But hey, we've all dealt with thieves like that.

Same thing here in Maryland... when I first moved here I bought an old beater extra car... didn't realize the retarded mess I was going to have to deal with...

The first garage wanted like $2K to get it passed inspection... then I brought it to a dealer... it was like 250 bucks... so its definitely a scam!

Also once you get it passed inspection... thats it... so there is no annual checking of breaks / tires etc... so you end up with a bunch of unsafe vehicles on the road ANYWAY!  In NH, there is annual inspections and its a pain but it never seemed fishy like this does. 

Also when I transfered into the state... since NH has no sales tax (stupid by the way)... I had to pay all the sales tax on the vehicle (that I bought in NH!) in order to get it registered in MD....yet another scam!

[FhM]

Hmm at the current exchange rate fuel over here is over $9 a gallon. What you think about that then! 

[ChadTower]

Try living in a place like Texas, then, where everything is 80 miles away from anything else.

[Samstag]

Try living in a place like Texas, then, where everything is 80 miles away from anything else.

Try living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  If there aren't already 4 grocery stores, 2 walmarts, 3 of each fast food joint, and one of each chain restaraunt all within 2 miles of your house, don't worry!  They'll finish building all that within the next couple of weeks.