You are talking about cars that are about 20 years old! Yeah... test those... but most of the cars are newer than 10 years old I bet. Again.. I am all for clean air but it just seems if that was the goal... you focus less on what you generally know is not a problem (newer unmodified cars) I know a few may slip through. If you took all the money paid to DMV... used that for smarter sytem to prevent and mitigate air polution I bet you'd come out better.
It's not the cost, it's the time. I can pump my own gas and pay for it in much less time than having to wait for someone. Furthermore, the workers improperly top off the tank and then let drops of gas spill on the side of the car as they pull out the pump. I'm a DIYer. I hate having my gas pumped.
I think the DMV and DEQ are actually TOO good. I don't want to pay for all that overhead. Have fewer employees, fewer offices and have us wait longer.
It takes work to do things better... and most of the people we elect don't really seem to be interested in doing actual work... just complaining that the problem was created by someone else blah blah blah. Now... the biggest advantage private companies have over government is that there is a profit incentive in being efficient... but then of course there is also profit incentive in cutting corners. =) Which reminds me of this quote from the movie Creator: Mrs Pruitt: [to Dr Wolper] Dr Novak called. He said that your proposed address to the Medical Congress on "The Profit Incentive in Misdiagnosis" is really not very funny at all.
That is against the law now in Oregon and I haven't seen them do it. Actually some of them are so afraid of the fines thet when the pump accidentally clicks off after a few gallons they won't restart it.
I've seen them do it quite often, but even if the law now exists it's government overreach. The government still knows better than we do. If someone wants to top off their tank, that's their right to be stupid. I don't do it to allow for vapor expansion. It still doesn't solve the problem of gas staining the outside of your car or the time to wait. Why not have a choice? If stations want to have all or some pumps with full-serve, let them. If others want self-serve let them have the choice. I feel the same way about smoking in bars. There's no need for the government to be involved.
Actually it's because of the methyl tertiary butyl ether or MTBE in gasoline is the reason that overfilling and spillage is bad.
Click and Clack got me to stop topping off because they explained there is a separate vessel within the tank that accounts for fluid expansion, and that topping off fills that part, too. I know nothing about cars, so I outsource it to The Car Guys (besides, they make me laugh).
Even with newer cars - a failure of the converter will not stop your car. To the best of my knowledge, for brand new cars you do not need to pass DEQ for 4 years (it was 2 years before) - my wife's car is from 2008 and I did not have to get it through DEQ yet, I suspect I will have when it gets closer to 2012 - and only after that you get the DEQ checks when the components that cause the problem are more likely to fail. So, honestly, I am still not following you. The cars need to be checked even if they have "computers" (OBD2 which is the current computer standard mandated in the USA began in 1996).
