When a California resident purchases a car, truck, motorcycle, or any other vehicle with emissions from outside of the state, the vehicle’s emissions systems may not have been checked according to California’s standards. The Department of Motor Vehicles requires all vehicles purchased out-of-state to have a pass a smog check before the vehicle can be registered in California.
You also might have recently moved to California, meaning your vehicle is not yet registered in the state. These vehicles also require smog tests to make sure your emissions systems are running with emissions below California’s legal requirements.
This process can be a pain. You have already had a stressful time with the move or the car purchasing process. Taking the steps to register your car should not give you more to worry about. It should instead be a quick, painless process that gets you accurate results. Tri-City Smog is Temecula and Menifee’s test only STAR station! We take both appointments and walk-ins, so feel free to come on by and get your out of state check done easily and quickly, so you can properly register your car in California.
You may be wondering about the requirements for vehicles that have already passed an inspection in a different state within the past two years. These vehicles still require a California smog inspection because of the rigorous emission checks in this part of the country. Many parts of California are considered high-emissions areas, meaning the emissions in these areas are already so high that efforts must be made to reduce the number of pollutants in the air.
Limiting the amount of emissions is the best way to ensure that those areas do not get too smoggy. That is why all vehicles coming into California require an inspection to make sure your car is not emitting more than it should.
The short answer is any station that has the equipment to test vehicles can perform out of state smog checks. Both STAR certified testing locations and other stations can get the information you need to get your vehicle registered. You have a lot of different options you can weigh to figure out what station would work best for your current needs.
STAR certified stations are guaranteed the ability to test your vehicle, but you can need to choose between a test-only station and a station that does both. The difference between the two is self-explanatory: test-and-repair stations can both examine and fix your emissions systems, where test-only stations can only inspect your vehicle.
You may think that test-and-repair stations are the best options because they are a one stop shop, but that is not the case. Stations that do both will sometimes purposefully fail your vehicle so that you pay them more money for these supposed repairs. However, because test-only stations cannot perform repairs, the information you get from them will be completely accurate.
Tri-City Smog is happy to help you with any out of state smog checks you need. Our team prides ourselves on our quick and accurate results. Many stations will keep you waiting for a while, but our average testing time is 15 minutes. This makes the test quick, easy, and stress-free. We send the results directly to your DMV as well, so you do not have to worry about any confusion or stress over getting the documentation in the right place.
If your out of state vehicle needs an inspection, come to Tri-City smog so you can get this annoying step in the journey over with as fast as possible!