Details please on why ODBII readers can't be loaned. California always
amuses me.

Wes

In basic language, California requires that emissions repairs be
performed by persons who have met the state certifications for emissions
repairs.

The law was brought about because codes and freeze frame data were being
erased under the tool loan deal. The erased data made legitimate
attempts to repair the emissions failure much more difficult and,
motorists were having the codes and freeze frames erased and then going
in for their smog tests but because the codes had just been erased, the
OBD system monitors were not completed resulting in an automatic fail.

It's a good law actually, based upon some common sense from the
perspective of those who perform (and are scored on) these types of
repairs for a living and have to work within the BS of the California
IM program.

maybe it would be helpful to remember that Los Angeles has a lot of people
and a lot of cars, and a weather system that traps emissions - automotive
and other pollution was actually quite severe - it was literally killing
people - read articles about what it was like here before pollution controls
(the first being banning back yard incenerators in the late 50s) - there
were days when you literally could not see across the street due to
pollution - it was as bad as china (or mexico city, where birds would fal
dead out of the sky).

so it is very much NOT BS to try to make the place where we live livable -
even a rodent doesn't defecate in its own nest and we were doing worse.

As for the readers, there are a lot of barely educated people who think that
they can "fix" something - Oh, I cleared the code, the fault is fixed - of
course not only is it not fixed, but now the vehcile will fail test because
the cycle codes are not set - why does the tester check these cycle codes?
because idiots would "fix" their car by clearing the code (or removing the
MAF light bulb). testing showed, a few years ago, that about 5% of the cars
created 80 or 90 percent of the total automotive related pollution.

And, nothing prevents you from buyng a scanner in california, and a scanner,
at $14 from Harbor Freight, is so cheap that if you can't afford one, you
really can't afford to drive a car either.