Hello guys! just wondering if you could help me out. sooo I finally got my 92 FD from Japan and I'm trying to register here in Cali. I've already started the process. i've got temp permit from DMV. all i gotta do is do the smog. i went to a smog check place and they turned me around. they said I need the "referee" do the emission test for me. so i called them they said they need a "letter of compliance" from mazda dealership. mazda dealership doesn't know what that is. i called "referee" they said they have an agency for that. they redirected me to them and ended up redirecting me to "grey work laboratory" located in santa ana, CA. BTW they first told me to ask "grey work lab" to see if they work on FDs. because if not, I CANT REGISTER MY CAR HERE IN CALI! obviously they work on FDs. Lab told me they'll do Modification, (forgot what the other one is), certification, and (there's another one)....and I'll be good to go. soooo i asked them how much we're talking. they told me 6-7 thousand dollars for everything. WTF! my car is bone stock FD. haven't done anymods except the muffler. that's it. what do you guys think? have anybody encountered this problem with their FDs?

 

Go to another Emissions place..surely this one isn't the only place you can go to.

 

I don't know about you guy's FD but here in CA, FDs that came from out of state or out of the country are considered "gray market" vehicles. I've read some articles and blogs about their grey market cars when they tried to register them here in CA. after passing the smog, dmv sent them an email saying that they can't complete the registration until the meet the CARB requirements... so after passing the smog and all that there still more to it. I've just read it after I posted this thread since i'm trying to do some research and all.

 

Long story short, you need to either register it at your out of state address, with your out of state driver's license and hope that you don't get pulled over, or sell the car to someone out of state. Or go back in time and get stationed in Japan. You're going to be spending in excess of $10k, and that's assuming the people that you need to appeal to are cooperative; it can cost significantly more. California does not have the 25 year moratorium that the other 49 states have.

Long story: For you register a car in California, you need DOT and CARB approval. While the chassis may be the same as the US one, they may or may not conform to US safety standards. This includes things like safety glass for wind shields, bumper reinforcements, etc. So for you to get the car federally legal, you need to get it up to US DOT standards. The letter from Mazda that you mentioned is a certified letter from Mazda stating that the chassis for the US car is exactly the same as the Japanese car, and they swear that the Japanese car is up to US safety standards. Mazda doesn't want to get involved with that, so don't waste your time on that avenue.

Next, you need to get it up to CARB's standards, which is where you go deal with the state referees. They'll take pictures, inspect the car, and find reasons not to give you approval. If they can't find reasons, they'll post the pictures on the "referee" forums, where every ref in the state will critique your car and find reasons for you to fail. They'll make you go get smog equipment put on to the car, which will involve a lot of swapping of parts with USDM FD's or fabrication work, on and on and on. Oh yea, it's about a month long wait to get an appointment with a ref, and every time you see the ref, they'll bounce you and you have to wait another 30 days. Plan on 2-3 ref visits, and that's even assuming you deal with the same ref every time.

Of course, all of this is assuming you have the shop connections or technical knowhow to do all of this on the inexpensive side. You can contact places like RB Motoring to see if they'll help you, at which point, add 10-20% profit margin on everything.

So, after a year or more, thousands of dollars in work and rage, you'll have a RHD US spec RX7, legal in CA. Personally, I'd just buy a shack in the middle of the deserts of Arizona for $10-20k, not pay state income tax, and get an Arizona license and registration at the same time. Added bonus, you can buy all the guns you want in AZ. If you ever get pulled over in the car, driving in CA, you can say that you commute regularly between CA and AZ for work, and pray the cop doesn't decide to impound your car anyways and crush it.

 

so much do you think i could sell this for? it's a 1992 bone stock FD with no more than 5000 miles on it.

 

Way too many variables to answer that question reliably. Was it legally imported? Does it have a Bill of Lading? Does the importer have his license?

I don't remember all the required paperwork to legally register the car, which is important as to who you market to. If you have all the legitimate paperwork (and you can verify this by registering it out of state), then the car actually has resale value as a car. If it indeed has 5000 miles (not 50k? 5k?), then you can get quite a bit, possibly in the 25k+ range. But there are a lot of x-factors involved there that make it really difficult to give a solid answer for you. If you can't legally register it out of state, you're talking about parting it out (maybe 15k if you REALLY hustle), or as a track car (7-10k? I dunno)

You have a lot of homework to do, in terms of registering the car legitimately, and I doubt you want to take the advice of some armchair experts like the guys you'll find here.

My advice: find a friend or family member that lives out of state, and give them every single piece of paperwork you have, and have them try to register it there. That'll involve a lot of trips to their DMV to get the necessary paperwork in order (I doubt AAA can help you here TBH), and get it registered out of CA. From there, you have more options. Again, this is just my advice to you, please do prove me wrong, and then tell me how to do it so I can bring a car over too

 

This is a hard process, not for the timid or cash challenged. Back in 1982 I bought a 1972 BMW Tii that was a German gray market ca and I was living in the Bay Area. SMOG testing was already a thing back then, and DOT had their say in how it was to be made compliant with California use. I don't recall all the details, but I do remember making the car street legal in California would have involved spending 2.5 times what I spent on the car, and shipping. I Registered the car in Nevada instead and hoped for the best in terms of being pulled over and being able to convince a CHiP that I commuted regularly from Tahoe to the Bay Area. Long story short, I never had to deliver the explanation because the only time I got pulled over driving it the officer looked at it, saw the Nevada tags and said... "Oh, you registered this in Nevada to avoid the smog... smart move". The car was still not entirely legal for use due to federal DOT stuff, but I somehow managed to get it registered in spite of that.