they obviously felt that more cars failed the loaded test than the non loaded so enhanced areas are the higher population areas such as SF, san jose, sacramento and south bay LA areas.

vegas has a non enhanced smog but it is every year, non loaded. but we can do almost anything we want to the car, it just has to pass the sniffer test. the guy testing my TII barely even glanced at my double sized turbo, intercooler pipes and no way in hell was he going to bend over to see if i had a precat or even a main cat before plugging it in. even though there's a visual for certain things like EGR they rarely even look for it as i have it installed for "aesthetics" and is non functional, not like it even needs it anyways.

 

How do I tell if it's test only? I just brought it to the station and handed my car over to be tested.

 

It will simply say so on the renewal notice.

 

Im due for mine...

 

I come up again in March, next year. I've been "test-only" as far back as I can remember; had the car well past 20 years now.

I did a quick check back of what old smog certs I still have in my receipt book; I do see some lowering of the MAX numbers between older and newer certs, but there's something funny going on with the numbers; the most-recent test in 2010 seems to show the max numbers back up to where they were in 2001.

I need to dig through it in more detail, though, as I've moved counties three times across my ownership period.

It's still all PC BS at this point, though; any rational state would follow others in allowing older hobby-driven cars, or purchase of 'classic car' tags, to buy you an exemption from testing in return for staying under a defined annual mileage.

But we're not dealing with rational decision-making; we're dealing with ideologues.