What's on your (PHOTO) Friday Menu?

"Get the car smogged"? I have no idea what that means.

You guys don't smog cars in MA? We gotta do it here every other year, I think after the first 5 yrs. I haven't done mine yet simply because it?s electric.

Is it the same as emissions? Making sure your car is in good condition and not creating smog?

I think that's it. I looked it up and it says

The Smog Check Program is a vehicle inspection and maintenance program designed to improve the air we breathe. The program identifies vehicles with excess emissions so they can be properly repaired or retired.

It's the same here; you are good to go for the first 5 years of a car's life then test every other year after. I am not sure if they do it everywhere but I know a lot of the western states have the requirement in the bigger cities/counties. Here it's for all our metro counties but not our rural ones. When I was a kid, before emissions, Denver had "the brown cloud" due to the pollution and how the inversions held it up against the foothills. We still see it occasionally but 9,000,000 times better now.

I think in CA it's all over, rural or not.
I just paid for DS's registration but it's pending on his smog. He was whining that he had just done it last year. Sorry buddy, when you have an old car you gotta do it every year.

Ah. We have to have cars inspected yearly. They do a safety check -- brakes, headlights, tail lights, wipers, etc. And do an emissions test, as they call it here. Every car, even brand new.

They used to put an actual probe in the tailpipe and check. Now they just plug their computer into your car's computer, and use the car's internal sensors to make sure it's running clean.

Older cars are exempt from emissions tests -- they don't have a computer to plug into. It seems odd that the cars most likely to pollute don't have to be tested. But there also aren't many of them on the road. I think the cutoff might be 1995 and before, if I recall.

Smogging a car sounds funny. Smog as a verb.

Same policy in NY.

I wish CA did the annual safety inspections but maybe they are more weather related? It a good idea everywhere as far as I'm concerned.

Me either. Never heard of a car smog.