Johnboy7701

Where in Virginia, if its Langley AFB in Norfolk you arent really close at all the DC, and I loved it there. Its right near the beach and they have some laws but nothing like dumb dumb CA....

So_Cali

I second that! LOL You have to be a Cali native or at least live here a good part of your life to really mean something like that! This is probably the best time of year that you would wanna be in Cali, the weather is PERFECT! Screw the laws and regulations for a few months and take a cruise in your stallion and enjoy the California breeze

Can you tell that I love my state?

psd1

Exactly, what is your HOR? Register your car there and screw CA and their assinine laws!Oh, and keep your registration $$ from them as well! Kalifornia...[:@]

CliffyDeuce

I was stationed in CA for 5 years. Some things to consider:

Like others have said, you can register in your HOR. At Beale AFB, they required us to get a local CA smog check before they'd give us base stickers/register the car on base. I don't think the other services/bases do this, but you might want to check.
If you do register your car in CA, you don't pay most of the $. Where it would be $300-500 for newer cars, with AD military, we only paid about $50/year. We had our vehicles split - those that we owned when we got there we left registered in TX, the new ones we bought we just registered in CA.
Also, it's quite possible to find really cool smog check points - look for a private shop that just does them on the side, preferrably in a small town. The one I used really worked with me to do everything to get my car to pass (not due to mods - at the time I was driving an car w/ 170,000 miles on it, and didn't want to sink a bunch of money trying to fix stuff). As long as you've still got the cats and don't have a crazy tune, I wouldn't think there should really be a problem, but I'll let those more knowledgeable on that stuff chime in.

Legion5

You're wrong on both of those. CAIs are illegal in California unless they have been certified to pass emissions tests, and only half the CAI makers go through the trouble. Think about it, if a CAI accidentally makes your car run rich (which it won't), it will produce more pollution. A tuned CAI, might produce more power, but because there is more overall fuel and air going to the engine to produce more power it might produce more emissions at certain RPMs (in my state emissions are measured at 1000 and 2000 rpm), more air means more fuel regardless of the fact you are more efficient when compared to stock care. Emissions measuring and parts certification does not care.



Also the dealer will not void your warranty if you instal a CAI, it just gives them "probable cause" to illegally knowingly deny warranty coverage under the fact that your abuse of the car caused a faliure and then they can charge you a non corporate-discounted labor rate. This rate is doubble to tripple that and is where dealers make a good amount of their proffit.

It's more complicated than that though, the federal illegality of denying warranty coverage for extranious reason like mods did not come into effect until 1975, you'll note the mucle car era where more mods to cars took place than all the years before 2000 combined occured in the late 1960s. There is your origin of this myth. The sema organization which was established in 1963 helped make the practice you describe illegal.. at a point where nobody cared any more, they latched the law onto a very small and easy to overlook section of a huge business reform bill that dealt with all products their warranties and a few other things...

Keep in mind if your abuse did cause the faliure that's a different thing.

Anyway, even after this small easy to overlook section became law and made the practice of denying warranty coverage for mods illegal, dealers still rampantly denied coverage for mods. Who's to say the lead paint that was painted on your CAI didn't get into your car's gas system and damage it's fuel pump? This combined with ignorance and the huge popularity of this myth when it actually worked to insult modders of a different generation creates the current situation. Some dealers will give you BS on how your part caused abuse to get you to pay their inflated labor rate, some dealers will give you BS on abuse because they don't want anger ford's financal department which wants them to be on the safe side. all of this is propgated by the myth of what happens when you take a car that is modded for warranty scervice, and it's not that clear cut actually. scervice managers I beleive often think denying warranty coverage for extranious mods is immoral and not illegal.

Furthermore if they think they can deny you warranty work, it's their word against yours and they are often surrounded by a layre of ignorance at that. Dealers have alot of power to make the myth "mods void warranties" very real and there are reasons why people still beleive this, but few dealers are very bad and the myth is propogated by illegal actions.

The only excetion to all of this is the BMW brand, which I beleive has the right to deny your car warranty coverage for large extranious mods. The good thing about them is that the REVERSE happens, instead of their departments denying warranty coverage illegally, they often grant it against corporate rules. The reason they can deny warranty coverage for extranious mods is complicated but other than this it's a not well enough enforced illegal practice.

marcuskeeler

WTH type of argument is that? LOL That's priceless.

I don't live near the sea because I don't like Submarines............ and so on and so forth [8D]

Seems to me that Virginia is the no-brainer choice from that list. Good summer weather, nice people, excellent scenic routes for cruising.

Local Yokel

What this guy said. I moved here a year ago from illinois. My stang is Vortech supercharged and the emissions test scared me more than the move itself. Basically if you buy a Mustang here you dont a test for 6 years but if your bringing any car into Cali from another state, it gets inspected before they will give you license plates. I went to the DMV and they popped the hood and made sure first thing that the car had California emissions on it. Luckily even though I bought it in Chicago, it had them! Then they checked the other stickers on the door and under the hood to make sure the engine matched the car i guess. Next i had to go get it smogged. First station i went too wouldnt test it due to having the blower. Said i would have to go to a special emissions place called a referee station and they would have to approve it. For the hell of it I stopped at another test facility. Guys popped the hood and asked if i bought it that way (with the blower), i said yes, and he tested it. It failed, bad. Great, so i go home and call the guy who tuned my car and he told me to put the original Vortech tune in the car since its 50 state legal. I did and the car ran like crap. Anything over 1/4 throttle would detonate. I limped it to the same station, told the guy the stealership reflashed the computer for me. He tested it and it passed! Limped it home, retuned it back, took off the stock catted exhaust and went back to my Pypes O/R H-pipe and went and got my plates .......

DeStonn

Exactly...there is always a roundabout way to get things done

danGT06

If you buy a new car in cali you don't have to get it checked for emission for 6 years... I can have my O/R pipe and intake on for another 4 years before I have to swap it out or find a good shop. As long as you aren't street racing with all the ricers you aren't going to get pulled over and checked for mods...

americaniron

It all depends on your home of record. You can keep your car registered in your home state, and be exempt from Cali emissions. It's all described in the soldiers and sailers relief act of 1940. Ask your personell office for a copy of it, or look it up on line. It's afederal law.