Texas about to do away with auto inspections

[99Saturn]

When I lived in Western New York State, inspections every year. I think that price now is $35 or $40 and they ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING. I used to install a bad windshield wiper for them to ”find” as they have to find something. Another crazy rule is hat inspection had to be done indoors, not outdoors. Inspections just another way to screw the public.

$21 for a passenger vehicle in NY, $10 safety, $11 emissions IIRC.

IMHO all about the caliber and honesty of the location doing the inspection, there are plenty of shady shops out there and yeah, they have incentive to "find something" to make money and try to force you into the work since the shop that inspects the car is looking to make the repair. Like repairs in general, a reliable and trustworthy indy for inspections is often hard to find.

 

[Soft Cars]

I didn't know Texas had vehicle inspections. They don't have any salt roads do they?

 

[SC Maintenance]

There has never been any inspections in SC. While I do see the occasional unsafe beater, or a little overmodified vehicle, overall I don't see inspections doing much for the public good. Just another bureaucracy holding kangaroo Court over some poor person trying to make it to work every day.

There are a few the police really should pull over, they simply choose not to. The solution isn't a shake down of everyone else on the road.

And yes, every one of mine would pass any inspection they could come up with - except I no longer have CARB compliant cats. I guess I could swap them if needed.

 

[dnewton3]

Indiana used to have them back in the day. There were so many complaints about shoddy inspections and scams that IN did away with them years ago.

Yes; there are bad cars on the road. But the inspections really didn't make it that much better. Bubba would help his buddies out by passing poor cars, and then ding rich folks for all the violations they could find.

Hence, the inspections ended and the end result is no worse than before it ended.

 

[wag123]

I didn't know Texas had vehicle inspections. They don't have any salt roads to they?

Texas is a BIG state. Yes, there are roads that are salted here, in the panhandle for sure, plus there is salt air along the coast. They don't look at body rust, just structural/frame/suspension rust that makes a vehicle unsafe to be on the road. Mostly they check safety items... tires, brakes, parking brake, lights, horn, windshield wipers/washer, dark tint, etc.

 

[CDX825]

Wish they did safety inspections here instead of emission testing. I see so many death traps rolling down the road around here. People driving on bald tires or with busted out lights, broken suspensions, etc. About once a week probably I seen a vehicle that has clearly been in an accident with half the front end smashed rolling down the road.

 

[92saturnsl2]

My problem with "safety" inspections is this:

People in the know or in the grapevine will find a shady shop to pass them.

Rich folks drive new(er) cars, so the $20 a year means nothing to them.

The common folks from the city or suburbia will typically go to a chain outfit that will bend them over backwards for every dollar they can squeeze out of them.

When I lived in MO, I had an Autotire location refuse to pass my 5 year old Nissan truck safety inspection because the front CV joint was leaking grease. $300 and they could have me back on the road with the piece of paper I needed to get the truck registration renewed by the state. Pretty much extortion. I said no thanks, drove home, got under the truck-- what he stated was a boot leaking, was simply some transmission fluid that dripped down from my recent (few days ago) transmission fluid change. That soured me completely on safety inspections.

 

[Wylie6G72]

You're pretty much surrounded by safety hazards when you're on the road here as it is, I hate to imagine how much worse that situation will get when they're no longer required to have them looked at to get that magic sticker in the windshield. Lots of rickety lawn service & construction trucks and pretty nice cars and SUVs with completely bald tires on them. I had to get the Shadow inspected this Spring before I could license it in Texas, and I went to a little hole-in-the-wall tire shop nearest my office near downtown Dallas. He walked around the car, flipped the blinkers, and passed me. Effective. The car would have passed a real safety inspection, but that was entertaining to watch.

 

[hank2]

I'm amazed at the low inspection fees that some posted. In those few states that still have annual safety inspections. I would guess that the cheap ones are at state run inspection stations? Standard annual safety + emissions inspection cost in Pa. Is about $85. A lot of garages cut that down to $70-75. Up until about the mid 1980's we had safety inspections every 6 months. Anything aftermarket on exhaust, even a pipe diameter variance, flunked. Most used Pa. trade ins were bought by carloads of southern dealers. A Pa. inspection sticker, even expired, was worth a substantial mark up.

I was only in Fla. from '73 to '75, but at that time they had no safety inspections. It was a common sight to see cars without doors. Another deep south state sold license plates through the mail for $5 or $10.

 

[LDB]

Very stupid move but Texas is moving farther and farther into the stupid zone. Or more and more of the stupid zone is moving to Texas. Either way I do not like it one bit. Don't mess with Texas.

 

[4WD]

Very stupid move but Texas is moving farther and farther into the stupid zone. Or more and more of the stupid zone is moving to Texas. Either way I do not like it one bit. Don't mess with Texas.

You complain about it all the time … why live there ?

 

[LDB]

You complain about it all the time … why live there ?

I'm a Texan. Texas is home. Nowhere else is better and most is worse. But I don't appreciate what is being done to ruin Texas.

 

[BigCahuna]

In new jersey, inspections for cars and light trucks are every 2 years, and that's for emissions only. It's a plug your car into a code reader only thing. They did away with motorcycle inspections years ago altogether.,,

 

[Nayov]

No inspections of any kind here IF you drive a so-called antique auto (25 years +) which is what I do. Love it.
Oh and the irony of the lot of you wishing for more government "intervention" on this web site is delicious.

 

[camrydriver111]

Without rust you no longer need to worry about worn tires, brakes, suspension, working lights, etc.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Can someone point me to any sort of study or statistic that indicates what percentage of accidents are caused by improperly maintained vehicles - because my guess is its pretty much zero.

 

[John105]

We've heard about all kinds of fatalities as a result of commercial vehicles lacking valid safety inspections, is there any such correlation with passenger vehicles and such things? People seem to be outraged when 40 people are seriously injured by a bus accident or a tractor trailer or dump truck etc. Sometimes I wonder why the same people might be ok when it's a passenger car.

 

[John105]

Can someone point me to any sort of study or statistic that indicates what percentage of accidents are caused by improperly maintained vehicles - because my guess is its pretty much zero.

this is a simple google search, it's neither statistically valid nor reliable. But your statement sure is odd. With human nature factured in, "pretty much zero."

The notion of reincarnation is something we covered in business law when I was a grad student. A taxicab has a serious accident or incurs a massive liability, they simply go out of business as each member of the fleet is incorporated.

https://beasleyfirm.com/blog/unsafe...ders-are-injured-or-killed-in-a-bus-accident/

 

[michaelluscher]

That's unfortunate
I have my issues with the NYS inspection, but it forces people to take remedial care of a car
If you spend 5 minutes in a parking lot, you'll know people cannot be trusted to maintain a vehicle to a roadworthy standard
For $37 a year inspection, plus $137 registration for 2 years
I'll take that any day of the week over the ad valorem tax system other states use
I like UK MOT setup, and the way NJ used to do it with state run centers, removing the bias and incentive to sell work

With everything I went through to learn pre trip inspection for my CDL, I wouldn't oppose some basic vehicle safety/maintenance principles being included in new driver training/road testing

I'm tired of yelling at Hyundai/Kia owners that I nearly rear end at a red light, because none of the brake lights work

Wipers that don't wipe, washers that don't wash, lights that don't light

Structural subframe rust

 

[SC Maintenance]

this is a simple google search, it's neither statistically valid nor reliable. But your statement sure is odd. With human nature factured in, "pretty much zero."

The notion of reincarnation is something we covered in business law when I was a grad student. A taxicab has a serious accident or incurs a massive liability, they simply go out of business as each member of the fleet is incorporated.

https://beasleyfirm.com/blog/unsafe...ders-are-injured-or-killed-in-a-bus-accident/

I did a google search. Best I can find is the NHTSA says 94 - 96% of all accidents are caused by some type of human error. The other 4 to 6% are cause by everything else - which includes the weather in that category. So Again, if someone has an actual statistic then I am interested.

Statistical virtual zero and being able to find some example are different. Houses have been hit by meteors, but the odds of your house being hit are virtually zero. Should I demand a meteor shield?