OK, straight scoop time from the folks at the State of California that
enforce all this smog crap on your registration.

Test only is a random check EXCEPT:

The percentage is based on the total registered vehicle population.  So if
you have 30 million testable vehicles and 1 percent get smog only [not
really it's a complex formula, part fed and part state] that means 300,000
test onlys.  BUT

You don't test vehicles in all counties, some are exempt [less and less as
time goes on]  You don't test new vehicles for 4 years.  You don't test
other motive power, electric, diesel, solar and whatever else.  So now
you're testing 300,000 vehicles [remember this is an estimate or WAG if you
please] out of a much smaller population and here's the important part
without ANY new vehicles in that population.  So the chances of your older
vehicle, vanagons by definition are older, getting nailed become quite good.
Much better than the lottery.

At least this is what my buddy at DMV who's in charge of all this crap tells
me when I whine at him.

Mike

On 10/16/04 5:52 AM, "BenT" <syncro@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Man, this is going to be ugly. Two of my Vanagons got tagged for the
> more intensive "test only station" smog checks this year. I thought
> these were issued at random? They got me twice in one year. I must be
> very LUCKY!!!
>
> Problem with this is one of the vehicles in question has a cleaner
> running inline-4 which has not been run through a referee. Darn,
> guess, I'm gonna have to get me a CARB sticker. I've been getting away
> from local smog shops by not mentioning it is a conversion. Most
> places take one look and assume the VW Fox engine in thre came from
> Wolfsburg.
>
> Looks like they are trying to legislate Vanagons out of existence.
>
> BenT
>
>