do they have annual safety inspections on cars where you live?

...in Ohio. Years ago, we had emissions testing in the county where I live, but they got rid of it several years ago. (I believe that they still have it in the NE part of Ohio, around the Cleveland area.) But it’s a rip-off. I remember one time where I took a car in for inspection and they put the wrong VIN number in the computer. I told them about it but they said that the BMV would accept it. They didn’t and I headed back to the testing center. They wanted to charge me another fee to re-test the car. I told the manager that there was no way that I was paying another fee and if he thought that I was, he had another think a coming. I then read him the riot act and he decided that he should change the VIN number to the correct one. It was always a ploy to get your money. If you had a car that failed and you took it to an authorized facility, and if you spent $100.00, I believe, to get it repaired and they couldn’t fix it, then you would go back to the inspection facility and they would give you an exemption. They made a lot of people happy when they got rid of emissions testing.

we don't have safety inspections and some towns have emission testing if you have a friend living in another town and they will let you use their address as a mailing address you just pay for tabs, sounds a little shady but one town charges you because of your address the other doesn't that sounds a little shady also !

See https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/06/annual-auto-emissions-... for the details on possible elimination of the emissions portion, at least for the 8 years following purchase.

Yeah, Cuyahoga county still has it. Some computer program spit out statistics that Cleveland was above the polution index on a couple of days. No real monitor. What a joke. It is a carry-over farce on the public because some Fed ran a computer simulation statistical analysis of the air and chicken little cried "the sky is hazy, the sky is hazy". What do you expect from the city whose river caught on fire. And a Mayor's hair.

And that was the final cost. No other addons. This is Rochester NY. It should be the same everywhere but I can't say for sure. My vehicle is only 2 years old. Now, if there were repairs needed and it doesn't pass you get a 10 day sticker so you can have it repaired and then go back for another inspection/ sticker.

it should not be required fro cars that are less than 5 years old. It is just a way for the state to get more money, just as it does for the rising registration and licensing fees. NYS is alos requiring drivers to get new license plates. It is all a money-grabbing scheme.

The new plates was our Governor's way of grabbing money. The idea was that with the cashless tolls the old and unreadable plates won't be read and they will lose their money. My answer is for them to ticket those drivers where the plate can't be read and make them replace their plates (not everyone).

cashless tolling is how the PANYNJ is getting rid of the carpool discount of $6.50 and charging $12.50 or $15.00 instead. Imagine $6.50 to $15.00 depending on time of day.

I don't necessarily blame the shops as they need to keep the lights on. But again to illustrate, Toyota charging $76 and no place to even sit it's so crowded, BMW get a loaner car and leave for the day, $40. Isn't it good to be rich? (lol I'm joking but there are so many examples, my brother pays $1,000 per year to register his car in CT, if he lived in Greenwich it would be around $450 since the mill rate is lower)

I was a State Vehicle Inspector in the state of Virginia for 4 years at a Sunoco service station. Inspectors have to have been a vehicle mechanic for 5 years (don't know the requirement now). The station must have a designated "Inspection Bay" that MUST meet certain requirements, such as length, width, door height and be level and flat. Certain equipment is required such as an approved headlight aiming device.

Virginia is very fair in their inspection procedure and has guidelines for disputes. If you think that your vehicle should have passed, then you only need to call the state police and a trooper will be dispatched to the inspection station to mediate the dispute. I never had a visit from a trooper for a dispute as I would always explain the reason why the vehicle failed and showed the customer the problem. State troopers also made unannounced visits monthly to inspect the inspection station.

Brakes are the most serious violation. Virginia used to require that one front wheel be removed and the brakes visually inspected. Now you are required to remove one front wheel and one rear wheel - even if the vehicle has disc brakes and the pad thickness is visible with the wheel on. The reason for this is because you can't always see both pads and brake calipers are prone to having the hydraulic cylinders sticking and causing pads to wear unevenly. When the pads wear down and metal to metal contact occurs, then the brakes can "Grab" and cause the vehicle to swerve when applied.

One thing I observed was that there are some stations that seem to do a lot of one specific type of rejection. Places that specialized in exhaust systems, rejected a lot of mufflers and tailpipes. Brake shops would reject a lot of brakes. Tire dealers would reject a lot of tires, and so on. I am not saying that all the "Speciality" businesses were cheats, but they would look a lot closer at those items they specialized in.

Virginia comes down very hard on those that scam the public and has a special team that visits stations looking for fraud. Those that are caught always wind up in court on felony charges and banned from doing state inspections.

A few pointers:
Ask your friends and neighbors where to go and where not to go.

Before going for an inspection, do a walk around of your vehicle and check that all the lights work, including brake, signal and hazards. Virginia also requires that the High Beam indicator be working (blue light on dash).

Avoid "Specialty" shops unless you know that they are reputable. New car dealers generally are reliable, as the loss of their inspection license can be extremely expensive - they would have to take their "New" cars somewhere else before selling (very embarrassing also).

Remember that those that think they have been cheated usually make the loudest noise, while those that are satisfied with the inspection are usually way less vocal.

Ancient history: I left the Washington D.C. area in the early 90s. During the 70s and 80s Maryland had a serious safety checking regimen and Virginia’s was less so, but I can no longer remember the details. When driving around the beltway at night if you saw a car with a light out it was very likely from Virginia, not Maryland. This was long enough ago that I may remember this exactly backwards, but nevertheless I thought safety inspections were clearly effective.

Colorado has no safety inspections. I don’t live in the Denver metro area but they do have drive-by emission testing in their six county area. (Might be seven now??) When I’m in Denver I often see the emission control trucks sitting on entrance ramps to interstate roads taking samples as you drive by. Since some cars won’t have had time to warm up and are running with a richer fuel mix than normal, a single violation event isn’t a failure. I don’t know more details than that.

...in SW Ohio, we had 20 year olds, doing the inspections. Half of them couldn’t tell a carburetor from a spark plug, but they were certified vehicle emissions inspectors.

NC requires emissions testing in some of the more urban counties, but not where I live on the Outer Banks. The state DMV does require every vehicle to have an annual safety inspection. The state blocks annual license plate renewal if they haven't been notified online by a certified shop that you already passed the safety inspection within the previous 90 days. If your plates expire, you'll have a problem with your vehicle insurance. The cost is less than $14 and consists of "a licensed mechanic examin[ing] a vehicle's:

Headlights
Accessory lights
Directional signals
Foot brake
Parking brake
Steering
Windshield wipers
Tinted windows, if applicable"

"Tinted windows" means all your windows have to pass a certain amount of light, so police can see inside on a traffic stop. More than a few cars with aftermarket tinting and even some with heavy OEM tinting fail that one. As long as all your light bulbs work and your brakes, steering, and wiper motors aren't shot, it's otherwise pretty easy to pass NC's safety inspection overall.

I laughed when one year I went in and asked the shop if it was a problem if there was a crack in my windshield. "No, sir," the man said, "in fact, you don't even have to *have* a windshield. You just have to have wipers that go back and forth!"

have safety inspections, only when a vehicle changes hands.
We also used to have rip-off emissions testing, also eliminated.

Used to cost $ 35.00. A gasoline engine car would get hooked up to a computer and exhaust sensing system.

I drive a Diesel car, the Diesel exhaust would destroy the computer exhaust sensing system. So Diesels always passed unless really smoking all the time.

Safety inspections within reason should be required. Granted I pay $20 total which covers safety and emissions (post 1996 vehicles). I used to live in FL, no inspections means many cars being driven that should not be on the road. Inspections should never cost more than $20 in my opinion.

Here's my take on emission testing in Ohio. I live in a NE Ohio county (Lake) that still requires emission testing. It's an inconvenience but not that much. It's every other year and several years ago the state eliminated the fee. That's a good thing. As long as your car is in half-way decent condition it'll pass. The VIN is scanned from the sticker on the door and a tester is plugged into whatever it plugs into under the dash and that's about it. So it's a slight inconvenience every two years but it doesn't cost anything. Now, if your car fails the test... good luck.

Phil

...than it used to be. Back when we had it down south, they imputed the VIN manually. That led to mistakes. At the time, they also put your vehicle on rollers to simulate driving. I remember one incident where they put the vehicle on the rollers, put it in drive and hit the accelerator. Turns out, the vehicle was a four wheel drive model. The inspector was surprised when the vehicle jumped forward. He was so surprised that he didn’t hit the brakes and the vehicle went through the door and down an embankment into a creek. The owner was not happy and filed suit. (This was in a suburb of Cincinnati.) After that, they changed their procedures on four wheel drives and, if I remember correctly, they eliminated all-wheel drives completely from the simulated driving portion of the test. Also, I think it was $30.00 every two years for the test, but I could be wrong on that figure since it has been almost twenty years since we had testing down here.

with my 1998 Nissan they did put a probe in the tailpipe back in 2000 or so, not sure when it changed. Back then, you could pass with a service engine soon lamp on, as long as the output from the tailpipe was OK. Then, it changed where they plug in via OBDII, and you cannot have any MIL illuminated.

Still a lot of misconceptions. Because I replaced my wife's brake pedal position sensor and some folks said you need calibration and I don't have a GM computer, I pulled the battery (don't do this I had no alternative). Well, when the car reset, all the I/M categories were ready in about 80 miles, EXCEPT EVAP. It took 848 miles before that showed ready. I pulled the procedure/drive cycle online on how to put it into ready and it was ridiculous. And apparently a GM dealer would be able to use their computer and for $160 put it into ready. Idle 4 min from cold start, drive x mph for x min, accelerate with the gas pedal at an angle of x degrees, decel, drive on highway for x miles at x mph, just a joke.

In reality there is no valid reason to remove a battery except to replace it. Then what if you can't pass emissions now on a perfectly good car? But, PA regs say 1 category can be not ready. Even in CA, you "can" pass smog a check with EVAP not ready. Just that we learned in HS, stats should be reliable and valid and we should know what we are measuring. Sometimes as adults we forget.

With everything that's been going on with the EPA in the last few years, I think automobile emissions standards as we know them are potentially irrelevant. We've been following the CARB all this time and now standards may be lowered anyway...

Vehicle emission testing is required annually in the 13 metro Atlanta counties in Georgia. Non-urban localities (rural) don’t require annual emissions testing in Georgia.

However, senior exemptions (65 or older) are allowed if the vehicle is ten or more years old and the owner drives less than 5K miles/year. If one drives more than 5Kmiles/year a senior is treated the same as anyone else.

I have both a 2004 Nissan Titan and a 1994 Ford F-150 that are exempt since neither have exceeded the 5K miles/year limit since I turned 65 years of age or the truck’s age had passed ten years. I just got new annual tags for both vehicles last week with 50,868 miles (2004 Nissan Titan) and 115,830 (1994 Ford F-150).

In Pennsylvania, every car manufactured after 1974 is subject to emissions testing.

Emissions tests are required in 25 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, based on population and proximity to major metro areas like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Our 5000 mile clause:

Vehicles driven less than 5,000 miles in the previous 12 months as indicated by the mileage noted on their safety inspection certificate or by the mileage recorded on the vehicle inspection data base and which were owned by one individual for at least 1 year.

https://www.pacode.com/secure/data/067/chapter177/subchapBto...

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NY - Yes
Fl - No

North Carolina requires an inspection before license plate update

Texas requires annual vehicle safety inspections except for new vehicles which come with a two-year safety inspection period.

Insurance confirmation is required before the vehicle can be inspected - and inspection is required before you are able to renew your vehicle's registration, which is required on an annual basis. Once your vehicle passes inspection you are able to renew your vehicle registration online or in-person.

After you renew your vehicle registration (online or in-person) you will receive a window sticker (with Month and Year of expiration and a barcode identifying your specific VIN) that indicates your vehicle is (i) insured, has (ii) passed inspection and you have (iii) renewed your registration.

No license plate 'registration sticker' is used in Texas. And the multiple window stickers (Inspection & Registration) that were used in past years were replaced beginning in 2016 with a single window sticker that saved both the state of Texas and vehicle owners money. The use of only one sticker also made for a neater appearance of the windshield.

Pennsylvania used to require (safety) inspection twice a year. In 1982 they went to once a year.

In 1997 PA added emissions checks as well, but only in some parts of the state.

PA's system is open to corruption. All tests are done in private service stations (not state run). Folks could end up being told they needed something that in reality they didn't. Corruption isn't wide spread, but it does happen.

I lived in New Jersey for a short time in the 80's. For the required once a year inspection, (at that time), you went to a DMV run place, a long sort of garage, at various points thru they look at & check stuff. At the end you'd receive a window sticker showing you passed, or failed. If you failed, the sticker, shaped like a stop sign, was good for a month (IIRC) to get the needed repairs.

In PA if you fail the stickers are scraped off and you can't operate it until the repairs are made.

Manitoba (Canada 4 those that aren't aware - one more noise outta you kids and were head-den back to Winnipeg "The Simpson's")

CARS - only when the PO-PO (vehicle inspection unit) pulls you over because there's obvious violation - ie: bumper hanging on the ground, OR - when selling / buying a used car.

TRUCKS - or -(vehicles GVWR > 10K - yearly and it's expensive and through.

OOOPS

Depends on where you live by county. An "annual inspection" normally means emissions, not lights, tires, glass or any thing mechanical.

Utah quit vehicle inspections two years ago and now the UHP are saying there are more wrecks and problems with vehicles having bad tires, lights out. broken windshields. bad brakes.

Years ago we had to do an inspection in TN, but now none is required.

While all is fine and dandy, should a "$29.95" coupon for a state inspection, be $43 out the door with fees and taxes?

When, in the USA, did we start accepting 22% tax rates and then flat fees of up to 15% on top of that, and feel it is OK?

Anyway, just look at our climate, does it really matter whether or not a 2019 car gets tested for emissions, or, not? Or, a 2006 car? Especially given since at least 2004 or so, all cars sold in PA have Calif. emissions anyway? That is PA followed the regulations for CARB.

PA here too

In the UK, our vehicles have to have a MOT (Ministry of Transport) inspection three years from new and then annually. These tests have been getting harder and harder in the past few years and many cars now fail, mostly on emissions. Many of the old cars have been forced off the road with no chance of passing it. Strangely, really old cars i.e. 40 or 50 years of age, are exempt! No road tax either.

Virginia just raised the annual safety inspection from $16 to $20. Rejections get a reject sticker, and re-inspection is (supposed to be) free.

Biennial Emissions testing is about $35, and is required in some counties and independent cities, which don't meet federal air quality standards. All testing is in private stations, and discounting is allowed. Virginia doesn't use stickers for emissions; you just can't renew a registration.

Maryland has no recurring safety inspection. There is a detailed inspection required when registering a vehicle for the first time. Garages always seem to find expensive issues to fix on this inspection, and if you go to another garage you may find another list of completely different expensive issues. Maryland requires emissions testing in some counties.

For a while, in Missouri, they had state inspection stations. They finally went back to having various shops be certified. They connect to the cars computer and do a wheel on, visual check of breaks, tail lights, blinker, horn, etc. Fee is $12 for cars, $10 for motorcycles

If your vehicle is 1995 or older, there is no computer, so they just do the physical check.

It was onerous and inconvenient when they had the state inspection stations.

We maintain our vehicles, so if a shop tried to fail me on brakes, muffler, etc, I would take it somewhere else for any repairs. I might file a complaint with MODOT if the other shop found fraud. Having said that, I have a couple of places I trust that are nearby.

It is $7, but I don't see that it does any good

... they used to do emission inspections in the Detroit and Grand Rapids areas, but it was the probe-in-the-tailpipe test that cost $10. I took my car to a guy who only charged five bucks, and if your car wouldn't pass, he would make it pass. They stopped requiring emissions testing here probably twenty years ago.

--

it's the dog's fault

Yes and no.....
Yes if you live in Ada and Canyon County which is in the southern part of our state. The test is $11. Idaho only implements the test in areas that exceed 85% of the Federal Standard and it’s shown to come from vehicles as opposed to industry. Boise and Nampa are our state’s largest cities so that makes sense.
No for the rest of the State. I live in North Idaho, so no testing. Our air quality sucks in the summer but that only comes from forest fires mostly set by lightning.

I have to get an inspection on my Freightliner & Fifth wheel trailer every year. It is a joke ..... honk the horn, run the lights, check the wipers & VIN and your done.

It’s amazing that you need this done and show proof of insurance before you get your tags each year ..... But still have unsafe junkers on the street and people with no insurance

I knew a shop where everyone passed, the same car was hooked up all day (tailpipe) and minor adjustments were made so the fingerprint different for each car. He got caught. PA has since gone with a more comprehensive test, that as far as I know, can't be cheated.

Probably have to connect to the OBII port now, also.

No, that would be an interesting idea to have in my state of Maine.

Your area might be very nice, but I will stay down here in TN, i pay flat 29.00 for license on any car I drive and there are no tests of any kind. yup love Tn.

No state wide inspections. However, counties can require admission testing (like Bernalillo).

ChefDon, if someone wants to move into Bernalillo County they really have to take an "admissions" test? Or is it maybe an "emissions" test your county requires?

Phil

They don't want everyone to come and enjoy the area.

LoL, LOL, LOL

Did away with that a along time ago.

We have them in PA. My feeling is that it's a waste and money making racket for newer cars, particularly those which are 3 or less years old. Unless you are a highway warrior, you won't need to do much in those first few years. However, there have and always be idiots who drive their car around irresponsibly belching out pollution and smoke and removing catalytic converters etc. (and I'm not an environmentalist) and the emissions inspection helps prevent that. Then you have those who decide to live life on the edge to see how far they can go between oil changes, tires, or brakes - all things which their life AND MINE AND MY FAMILY depend on (mechanical inspection) so all in all I think it's a good thing. I've seen states that don't have an inspection and you've got some things rolling around that are almost a science marvel how they even get down the road.

PA does seem to have higher safety inspection fees than most if not all other states discussed here, so it does sound like a money-making racket there.

In many states, the cost is no more than $15 or $20, and at that rate, nobody's getting rich, as the cost of the inspection just covers the shop's time for a very cursory check, as long as unnecessary repairs aren't required. I like how Virginia has taken steps to keep unnecessary repairs required by inspection shops under control.

Really interesting how the cost of inspections and how thorough or strict the inspections are vary by state. In many states including mine (NC) it does seem like the safety inspection would only catch some of the most flagrantly unsafe vehicles on the road.

Not in TN

Some states, like PA apparently, do complete safety checks. Other states, like Ohio, do just emissions testing.

Phil