July 20, 2018
Dear Everyone:
Everyone knows what “smog”
is, right? Originally, the
term meant a combination of smoke and fog that reduced visibility and
could cause respiratory difficulties in some people.
A lot of us assume that smog was first reported in the
southern
California regions around
Los Angeles.
Actually, air
pollution was noted in the city of
London as early as
the 1200s, and was considered a factor of illness beginning in the
1600s. The “pea
soup fog” was thought to be caused by too many people burning
coal to
heat their homes and businesses.
Today, automobiles get
the lion’s
share of the blame. So,
back in the mid-1980s, the state of California initiated the “Smog
Check” requirement for cars.
These days, if your car is more than six years old, you have to
get it “smogified”
every other year.
This year, when the registration on my car came due, there was a
“smogify” requirement, but this time there was something new added:
“SMOG Certification Required at a STAR station…”
Well, OK. But what did the
“STAR” requirement mean?
It meant that taking the car in for the usual routine maintenance and
having it certified at the same time would not work.
The dealer could handle a routine certification, but not a “STAR”
one. “STAR” means the test
meets newer Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) standards.
The newer tests have different requirements.
Well, OK. But where do I
find one of these “STAR” stations?
Enter Google.
When you run a Search on Google, you can narrow the results to only
those physically near you.
That way, you don’t get a
“STAR” station that happens to be in
Huntington Beach.
So, I entered “STAR smog station:9458x” and clicked “Search”.
Once I scrolled past the paid ads, I found a station about 3-4
miles away from home. Of
course, actually finding it was a different story.
It turns out that it’s in one of those single-story
cinderblock-type buildings that house small auto repair shops, party
supply stores, and other small businesses that can’t afford their own
buildings.
Once I found it, I stopped in to make sure I had the right place and to
make an appointment. I had
already taken the car to the dealer for the routine
six-month-or-1500-mile checkup.
So, it should be all ready for a “quick” smog scan.
In fact, it took just under 30 minutes.
And only cost me $54.95.
I got a $5.00 discount for bringing in a couple jars of
peanut butter
for their Food Drive
barrel. The fact that I paid
$9.99 for the peanut butter is irrelevant.
A $5.00 discount is $5.00 saved, no matter how much it cost.
After that, I was able to go online and pay the registration fee, a tiny
fraction of which is tax-deductible.
I should get the new tags in a week or so.
And my car will be registered in plenty of time.
We had a neighbor a few years ago who kept his car in the carport
because the registration had expired.
He was notified that expired registration qualified his car as
“derelict”, to which he took umbrage as it was an expensive, high-end
luxury model. His biggest
complaint was that it cost him “too much” money to keep the car
maintained so that it would pass the smog test.
Hence, he couldn’t renew the registration.
Seriously? He bought a
luxury car (“previously-owned”, of course) for the
status it
afforded him. Except that he
couldn’t afford the status-symbol-car upkeep.
It reminds me of a family that lived next door to us in
Oregon.
The girls wanted a horse.
The father pointed out that it wasn’t the initial cost of the
horse that he object to, but the ongoing cost of boarding it somewhere.
Eventually, he did buy his daughters a horse.
As he reported to his golfing buddies:
“Boy, was I mad when I found out about it.”
Love, as always,
Pete
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