On my first quick read I thought you wrote your nephew was soon to be your
niece. I thought, "hmmm, he's handling that pretty well." And why not?

I moved to CA with an 83.5 Westy that was not a CA certified vehcile at
manufacture. There is a contingent that believes all Vanagon were 50 state
certified. But in 83 at least there were 49 state certified Vanagons and a CA
certified vehicle. I've seen the sticker. It's the truth.

The short of it is I was able to register the vehicle in CA no problem. As
in recent posts, the DMV conducts a visual check to make sure you have the
correct engine in the rig and that all the pollution equipment is installed and
properly hooked up.

I pretty sure the smog levels the bus has to meet are the same whether it's
49 state of 50 state certified. I suppose it changes by model year, but my bus
 has always passed for the past 5 years however the stats are set.

On the older vehicles in CA you are sometimes required to go a  "test-only"
smog station. Apparently older vehicles are picked at random for  this Test
Only status. Every time I come up for smog--once every two years--I  get the Test
Only registration. It's the only thing I've ever won.

Test Only stations do no repiars and no diagnostics. They merely do the  smog
test. If you don't pass you're on your own. The idea I suppose is there's  no
room for graft at a test only station. (?) (The subtext is graft runs rampant
 at regular service stations that do repiars and smog tests.)

A few years back CA used to charge new residents $300 to register a car  that
was not CA certified at the time of manufacture. This was found
unconstitutional or at least illegal and CA had to refund the money. As a result  there is
no "import tax" when coming from another state.

Best,
Jeff
83.5 Westy
LA,CA

In a message dated 12/8/2005 2:03:05 PM Pacific Standard Time,
felder@KNOLOGY.NET writes:

I have a  nephew (and soon-to-be niece) finishing grad school at
Columbia. They will  soon be moving to the