Guide to Emissions Testing in Florida

When I first saw this subject, I figured that I couldn’t write on it, because there are no emissions testing stations in Florida,…. anymore. But then I decided to do some research on the news stories surrounding the disbanding of the emissions testing in our state.

First, I will report on that research,then I will relate our own experience with the emissions inspections.

In July 2000, Florida canceled the auto emissions requirement for all vehicles throughout the state. The anti-smog program lasted nine years and had been a political issue for many Floridians. Several counties’ air tested clean enough to make the tests unnecessary.
http://www.dmv.org/fl-florida/smog-check.php

Florida started emissions testing in 1991 in six Florida counties which failed EPA standards: Pinellas, Hillsborough,Miami-Dade, Broward, Duval and Palm Beach counties. The tests were part of an effort by the EPA to bring these counties within federal standards.

Florida’s emission tests checked to see if cars were so poorly tuned that they put out too much carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons.

Usually the car owners just needed to get their engine tuned in order to pass.

For some people, the end of auto emissions testing in the Tampa Bay area meant the end to an annoying annual trip that charged motorists $10 to test the fumes from their cars’ tailpipes.

http://www.sptimes.com/News/051100/State/In_need_of_pollution_.shtml

The governor(Bush) said that the move would save Florida motorists $52 million, in a year. Only six counties in Florida had emission testing.”‘The vehicle inspection program is not an efficient tool for reducing pollution and is an unnecessary burden to motorists,’ Bush said.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2000/06/12/daily15.html

The $10-a-year tailpipe tests were not popular, and so the Legislature voted to end them. Gov. Jeb Bush agreed, declaring the tests “an unnecessary burden to motorists.”

Florida was one of 37 states with mandatory emissions tests.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/55893994.html

Thirty-two states and Washington, D.C., test emissions statewide or in big cities with pollution problems. Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Upstate New York, North Carolina and Vermont test only 1996 and newer cars.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-17-emissions_N.htm

We live in Hillsborough County, which has four neighboring counties that had no inspections. And you wonder what my point may be. Any of our neighbors and others whom we have known, who have family or an alternate address in a neighboring county, registered their vehicles in that county and thereby avoided the auto inspections, which did not cost $10, at least, in our area.

For the first inspection we had to pay $22-$25 and everyone almost ALWAYS failed that one. Then we had to take our car to an authorized station, many who would solicit outside the inspection stations for our business. They would charge us from $25-$50 to adjust the tune on our car, and issue us a required certificate. Even then we couldn’t guarantee passing.

Then we found out what a scam it, possibly, was and did the work ourselves before the initial inspection, avoiding the need for the certificate and extra cost. We found out that when our vehicles were properly tuned, we always failed the test. But if we set the tune so rich that the car could barely operate, it would pass the test. No joke! So that is what we did every year, until the emissions tests were canceled.

The inspections in our area appeared to be a farce;1- because we were an inspected island surrounded by a whole lot of uninspected counties, where anyone who could, did take their vehicles to be registered, outside the county. 2-The entire inspection process in East Tampa Bay appeared to be a shake-down operation for money. It did not seem to, actually, do anyone any good.

If this state should consider re-instituting the inspections, then they need to include the entire state in the inspections,they need to more closely regulate the inspection stations and the authorized repair stations,
eliminating the apparent crony-ism and make the fees more reasonable and equally equitable for everyone.

Since our current Governor has decided to sign on to the very restrictive California emissions initiative, this would be, especially, necessary.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/12/flordia-sees-the-light-adopts-californias-emission-standards/

Sources:

http://www.dmv.org/fl-florida/smog-check.php

http://www.sptimes.com/News/051100/State/In_need_of_pollution_.shtml

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/access/55893994.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-17-emissions_N.htm

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2000/06/12/daily15.html

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/12/flordia-sees-the-light-adopts-californias-emission-standards/