who's good with the law? - Lateral-g Forums

clay69camaro · #1 08-20-2009, 09:30 PM

So i bought a newer car on march of this year. i bought it from a local used car dealer. the car is highly modified, and when i was buying it i made sure to ask if it passes smog, they of course said yes and showed me a certificate and i was sold. well a few months down the road and mr police man doesn't like my car too much and pulls me over. he has me pop the hood and says the intake blow off valve blah blah is all illegal without the proper CARB stickers. he sends me to the california state referee station where i fail miserably. and the car is no longer allowed to be driven on the street and i have no car to get to school because the camaro is in pieces.
so who should i try to take to small claims court? the dealership who may have paid the smog shop off but i'll never be able to prove it. or the smog shop who has a history of violations when it comes to properly inspecting a car?
by the way the car is a 2005 subaru sti, if you've never been in an awd car test drive one they are a blast, the law man doesn't approve of them very much though because of young high school kids and the rice rocket scene.

JamesJ · #2 08-20-2009, 09:45 PM

You would be better off just getting one with CARB certificate... Or an OEM one and then use it for the tests.

clay69camaro · #3 08-21-2009, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesJ

You would be better off just getting one with CARB certificate... Or an OEM one and then use it for the tests.

the car has front mount intercooler, cold air intake, blow off valve, turbo, up pipe, down pipe, computer, meth injection, the list is long. lots more than just one thing to swap, the subaru dealership quoted me $10,000 parts and labor. if it were a few things i would probably just sell the aftermarket stuff and get the oem parts.

camaro2nv · #4 08-20-2009, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clay69camaro

So i bought a newer car on march of this year. i bought it from a local used car dealer. the car is highly modified, and when i was buying it i made sure to ask if it passes smog, they of course said yes and showed me a certificate and i was sold. well a few months down the road and mr police man doesn't like my car too much and pulls me over. he has me pop the hood and says the intake blow off valve blah blah is all illegal without the proper CARB stickers. he sends me to the california state referee station where i fail miserably. and the car is no longer allowed to be driven on the street and i have no car to get to school because the camaro is in pieces.
so who should i try to take to small claims court? the dealership who may have paid the smog shop off but i'll never be able to prove it. or the smog shop who has a history of violations when it comes to properly inspecting a car?
by the way the car is a 2005 subaru sti, if you've never been in an awd car test drive one they are a blast, the law man doesn't approve of them very much though because of young high school kids and the rice rocket scene.

In Cali you cant sell a car without a smog check. Take the dealer to court.

clay69camaro · #5 08-20-2009, 11:54 PM

Yah the dealer had it smogged at a shop that just passes it through, they have a few red flags from the BAR from doing this type of stuff in the past, it wasn't even visually inspected i bet. because it has after market parts out the wazoo.
so is it the dealers faultfor taking it there, or the smog shops for being shady to a used car dealer?

zbugger · #6 08-21-2009, 12:00 AM

What kind of car is it, and what mods are done to it? The dealer can lose their license for selling cars like that, and the smog shop they take their cars to will DEFINITELY lose certification. Probably have to shut down as well.

awr68 · #7 08-21-2009, 01:05 AM

You are right, those STI's are a blast!! Best of luck getting it back on the street!

70rs · #8 08-21-2009, 01:48 AM

Good choice in a commuter car! They are a riot to hammer on!

I'd take the smog shop and the dealer down. They both screwed you by passing it and selling it. Good luck.

Blown353 · #9 08-21-2009, 02:54 PM

The dealer hosed you for sure... and there would be some legal recourse here if you call the bureau of automotive repair and tell them your story. They will likely pursue both the dealer and the smog shop and levy fines and/or take away their smog cert license but you won't get a dime out of it unless you take the dealer to court. The state is in business to ensure compliance of the businesses, not to compensate you for the dealer and shop's screwup.

However, you as the buyer should have done some research and verified that all the stuff was CARB legal. Sounds like you suspected it wasn't but because they waved a smog cert at you it was OK.

If you do take them to court it will be a difficult thing to prove. The dealer has a valid smog cert showing the car passed, you have a car with lots of mods that doesn't pass. You now have to convince the judge that the car was purchased as-is and you didn't add all the mods after the fact. It will be a tough thing to prove unless you have pictures of the car at the dealership while still in their possession. Now if the BAR nails the smog shop for illegal smogs you can pull that out in court to cast some doubt on the legality of the smog cert issued for your vehicle-- but it will still be difficult to prove without a doubt.

Unfortunately now that you've been sent to the referee the only way to get the car registered again will be to get the ref to sign it back off. This means exactly what it sounds like-- you either need to put all the stock parts back on or make sure you have CARB stickers for all your parts.

You're going to have to smog the car every 2 years anyways and it will need to pass-- now would be the time to scrounge all the stock or CARB parts needed to do so. Stock intercoolers are cheap, stock blowoffs are cheap (and on the MAF'd STI a recirc BOV is much better than a dump to atmosphere), stock downpipes are cheap. Whatever catback is on the car now should pass as long as it passed the decibel limit test which the ref might do. You could leave the FMIC bolted on and just remove the tubing to and from it. The Ref might not like that but it would be 100% legal. Put the stock tune back in the ECU and bring it back in. Plenty of subaru forums out there to look at to search for stock take-off parts. If you have a "friend" in the smog business you could get it funny-smogged but after a visit to the ref your VIN# is probably flagged in the DMV system for "test only" stations from here on out.

If you buy used off the forums, a stock IC, stock DP/cats, stock BOV, and stock intake should run you substantially less than $1000 (probably around $500) and it's all easy stuff to swap out.

Your story is exactly why I made my STI sneaky. I used a Borla twin-tip (more OEM looking) exhaust that was painted black and it was their quiet system, the catless downpipe was hi temp coated black and I also made a fake cat heatshield over it, Cobb accessport, etc. I also bought a wingless trunk from a guy off iclub.com and swapped that on so it wouldn't raise as many eyebrows from the cops. The car wasn't smog legal at all but it would pass a roadside visual with no issue and that's the important thing. If you can pass a visual they can give you a fix-it ticket for emissions because all the equipment appears to be there but isn't working properly, but if you fail a visual test they can impound the car on the spot if they want for removal of emissions equipment.

clay69camaro · #10 08-21-2009, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blown353

The dealer hosed you for sure... and there would be some legal recourse here if you call the bureau of automotive repair and tell them your story. They will likely pursue both the dealer and the smog shop and levy fines and/or take away their smog cert license but you won't get a dime out of it unless you take the dealer to court. The state is in business to ensure compliance of the businesses, not to compensate you for the dealer and shop's screwup.

However, you as the buyer should have done some research and verified that all the stuff was CARB legal. Sounds like you suspected it wasn't but because they waved a smog cert at you it was OK.

If you do take them to court it will be a difficult thing to prove. The dealer has a valid smog cert showing the car passed, you have a car with lots of mods that doesn't pass. You now have to convince the judge that the car was purchased as-is and you didn't add all the mods after the fact. It will be a tough thing to prove unless you have pictures of the car at the dealership while still in their possession. Now if the BAR nails the smog shop for illegal smogs you can pull that out in court to cast some doubt on the legality of the smog cert issued for your vehicle-- but it will still be difficult to prove without a doubt.

Unfortunately now that you've been sent to the referee the only way to get the car registered again will be to get the ref to sign it back off. This means exactly what it sounds like-- you either need to put all the stock parts back on or make sure you have CARB stickers for all your parts.

You're going to have to smog the car every 2 years anyways and it will need to pass-- now would be the time to scrounge all the stock or CARB parts needed to do so. Stock intercoolers are cheap, stock blowoffs are cheap (and on the MAF'd STI a recirc BOV is much better than a dump to atmosphere), stock downpipes are cheap. Whatever catback is on the car now should pass as long as it passed the decibel limit test which the ref might do. You could leave the FMIC bolted on and just remove the tubing to and from it. The Ref might not like that but it would be 100% legal. Put the stock tune back in the ECU and bring it back in. Plenty of subaru forums out there to look at to search for stock take-off parts. If you have a "friend" in the smog business you could get it funny-smogged but after a visit to the ref your VIN# is probably flagged in the DMV system for "test only" stations from here on out.

If you buy used off the forums, a stock IC, stock DP/cats, stock BOV, and stock intake should run you substantially less than $1000 (probably around $500) and it's all easy stuff to swap out.

Your story is exactly why I made my STI sneaky. I used a Borla twin-tip (more OEM looking) exhaust that was painted black and it was their quiet system, the catless downpipe was hi temp coated black and I also made a fake cat heatshield over it, Cobb accessport, etc. I also bought a wingless trunk from a guy off iclub.com and swapped that on so it wouldn't raise as many eyebrows from the cops. The car wasn't smog legal at all but it would pass a roadside visual with no issue and that's the important thing. If you can pass a visual they can give you a fix-it ticket for emissions because all the equipment appears to be there but isn't working properly, but if you fail a visual test they can impound the car on the spot if they want for removal of emissions equipment.

Alright so where do I start haha. If I take the dealer to court it is going to basically be impossible to prove I didn't install all the stuff that's on there now. I have pictures of the car a few weeks after I bought it and bank statements to prove I didn't have that kind of cash just lying around but I'm sure they could counter that and say I had cash stuffed in my piggy bank.

As for getting CARB stickers I have called a few of the companies and they say all their parts are not for use on CA vehicles

except the company that made the exhaust they never got back to me. So I can't get CARB stickers because there aren't any.

When I get this car back to it's stock form I'll be doing the sneaky approach for sure. that's how I've done all my cars in the past. right now it's almost impossible to find my meth kit and lines. I like how you did the dp it's pretty much what I'm going to do to my u/pipe so that gets passed without losing any flow.

Right now my gf and I are doing internet searches on the dealership and the smog shop. were finding all sorts of odd things about the dealership. they are accredited by the BBB but you can't find them unless you do a search by address, and even that brings up a few other company names. and local dealers won't say who but a dealer in their general location changed their name because their rating on the BBB was an F and now with the new name they are an A- once again.

I'll get back with more details. Also I have the BAR and DMV investigations forms all printed out and ready to be filled in. I'm not gonna get burned by the law for buying what I thought was a sweet deal.