Smogging your car or truck in California?

If you are not from California and don't know about this just remember that it may cost you 2000 or 3000 dollars or more to install smog devices on your car if you are moving to California If the car wasn't built to California standards regarding smog in the first place.

However, this isn't the problem I'm dealing with right now. My problem is about chips installed in vehicles to monitor what kind of exhaust you are blowing out your tailpipe and blowby in your engines.

So, when the summer was going on and I was gone for 3 weeks an important thing didn't get dealt with(smogging my RV). Now, my RV is something we have had for 10 years already but mostly (except for power outages or walking the dogs) it isn't used much anymore. I start up the gas powered generator during power outages (usually in January or February of whatever year it is when 100 mile per hour winds come off the ocean and blow down big pine and sometimes redwood trees all over our area which also brings down the power lines too.

Anyway, I didn't get the smog device checked and also this summer or spring I had to change the battery because it finally went dead from age and not being used enough (even though the Australian deep cycle batteries are still okay and good that run everything electrical but the headlights and engine).

So, when I took it in to smog it they told me, "Did your battery go out and did you replace it recently?" Of course my answer was yes. But, this turned out to be a problem because this likely caused the data they need to check your device to disappear when there was no electricity. So they said drive about 70 miles or so, so I did. Still didn't work right. Then they said, "Drive it up a long grade in 2nd gear." So I did. Then they said take it to the car mechanic's shop next door and they may be able to help you. So I did. He told me to start it up tomorrow when it was cold and let it idle for about 5 minutes to get a good reading. Then he said to drive it under 60 miles and hour this time (at around 55 or it wouldn't work). Then he showed me the readings and said, "This can't be 5 and a 2. It has to be a 6 and a 1 before we can pass your car. But there simply isn't enough information on your chip yet to do that. So, drive it tomorrow. But, I only had one day to drive it through a non-operational permit because it is no longer legally licensed. So, my wife got another pass for one day to drive it and hopefully there is enough information on the chip to pass tomorrow IF they will try reading it  again tomorrow!

So, if you live in California being forewarned is forearmed regarding this kind of stuff now that they put chips in all new cars at least the last 10 or 20 years or so.