On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 10:54:38 AM UTC-4, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 03:56:17 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, July 8, 2017 at 12:45:08 AM UTC-4, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
micky wrote:
I'm only acquainted with car inspection in Pa.and Md. but on TV I saw a
woman who bougght a used car, found out that the heater core was
leaking, and didn't take it for inspection until after she fixed the
heater.

Is there any state where that would cause a car to fail inspection?

Not enough information.
However, ANY leaks that were noticeable in any vehicle system would fail
the Texas inspection. Texas does not take the car apart for inspections
like in other states though. Nothing is removed.

NJ, MV inspection doesn't care about leaks, it's emissions compliance only. I don't see how any state inspection would spot a leaking heater core, unless it's pouring out. In warm weather, the coolant flow is off, there would be no leaking. The state was MA, why don't you google for what they check at inspection?

When did NJ kill off their auto safety inspections?

Boy, that whole inspection thing is a classic cluster f* subject here. Originally, going back at least through the 60s,they tested ball joints, brakes test for stopping power, headlight aiming, horn, lights, all glass, tire tread, etc. But no emissions. Then I guess in 80s they started including emissions. By the time of Christie Whitman the federal EPA insisted that NJ had to do a more extensive emissions test that included running the car on a dyno, measuring the tailpipe emissions. This was mid 90s. It was going to cost the state several hundred million to totally overhaul the state inspection stations to comply and install the new equipment that didn't even exist.

Instead of fighting this classic EPA extremism, Whitman put up little fight and caved in. They awarded the contract to an out of state company. It wound up over budget, late and when they finally installed it, it didn't work right, inspection times went through the roof, there were cars lined up for half a mile waiting hours. People were failing taking their cars to be fixed and finding out nothing was wrong. It took a few years to get it to work right. At that point that still tested everything, plus the epa dyno test.

Then, just a few years later EPA decides using the OBD data from the car is all that's required! So, NJ then tore out all that hundreds of millions in east that never did a damn bit of good and junked it. This was mid 2000's.. By around 2010 they decided to scrap all the other tests, except for emissions via OBD. Also, if you have an older car, pretty OBDII I think, you don't have to ever go again. I have a classic Mercedes and that's one nice thing, no more inspection at all.

That example is a classic of how the EPA can be extreme, out of control and really screw a lot of people and waste billions. They knew what Detroit was doing, that it wouldn't be too long before you could just use OBD, but they didn't care. Or were in bed with those that benefitted.