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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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Fuck Cars
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In Leno's defense, smog checks for older cars can be absolute nonsense in CA.
I have an older car caught up in that nonsense. The header pipes cracked and replacement parts didn't exist so I had a shop build some. They did amazing work and function perfectly; it's just pipe about a foot long.
Anyway, the smog test shop sees that and fails visual inspection. That super sucks. There are no CARB exempt headers, and OEM is't available. I spent $$$ to put the old, leaking pipes back on, and send it back to the shop. Visual passes, smog passes. Next stop to the mechanic to swap headers back again.
At the moment there is a lot more to smog testing an older car than a tube up the tailpipe and actual emission data which is the whole point of having this program in the first place.
Leno likes cars, keeps his in great condition, and may simply need replacement parts manufactured that no longer exist.
Edit: that said, I hoped the Leno law would fail. I looked up registration for my older car as a "classic". Yikes that's pricy! And has all kinds of strings attached like special registration and have to be garaged. This would be devastating to the classic car community.
After reading your edit I looked at the bill summary and yea, I don't care that it got killed. It only seems to help large collectors, not the person with one or two cars.
It would be nice if the 1975 smog exemption rule could roll each year.
Or unpopular opinion: Fuck classic smogmobiles. If you want to go show it off put it on a trailer pulled by an EV. Why create pollution for fun?
Better yet convert it to an EV.
Actually that is becoming more popular. I just saw one last month that gutted a V8 engine to hide an electric motor. Looks like an ICE from the outside. It was pretty neat!
It's the battery packs that hold these conversations back. Older car suspensions just weren't built for that kind of weight.
Yeah but for a classic car you only drive on weekends, it doesn't need to go 500 miles on a charge.
That’s the rub, many of these things are doing 1-2000 miles a year some less. Their emissions are peanuts compared to daily commuters. The same argument for small batteries is also the argument for letting them be in the first place (with strict mileage limits IMO).
Also EVs are heavy but the body and chassis are really light and often aluminum or composite. Old cars are often pretty heavy, but it’s because they’re made of thick steel with much thicker body panels (18 or even 16 gauges modern 22 gauge steel body panels). Adding batteries and keeping the weight balance even with small batteries is really tough).
Virtually every kind of "fun" creates pollution. Even going for a run you pollute. What about doing a road trip in a modern car is "better" than putting around town in an old one when both activities pollute a similar amount?
The real questions worth asking are:
Also worth noting is that EVs are hardly a panacea. Modern ICEs are "good enough" that a lot of the immediate health concerns now come from particulates from brake and tire dust, noise pollution (which EVs contribute to nearly as much as ICEs at speed), sedentarism, accidents, and hostile urban design. The real fight is in getting most passenger cars eliminated from cities altogether and rehabilitating suburbs to be livable without car dependency, not in bickering about powertrains.
There's no difference, both should be banned 👍.