So four years ago I bought my 2000 XJR, one day driving to work the temp needle suddenly spiked. I pulled off the highway as quickly as I safely could and got to the side of the road with steam billowing over my hood. I towed it home and did a compression test and figured out it had dropped three valves. After pulling off the heads the car and getting an estimate of $2500 to rebuild them my car just sat in the garage for a few years while I decided if I thought it was worth it to rebuild the motor. Eventually I decided to do it. After putting everything back together and working out some kinks thanks to a lot of help from these forums I eventually got the car running again. But I still haven't been able to register my car because I can't pass smog. I'm not failing because of too high emissions coming out the tail pipe, I can't even take the smog test because I can't get the readiness monitors to pass. I've been trying all the various suggested drive cycles and driving more than 1000 miles and nothing is working. And I have no CEL or DTCs to point me in the direction of where to look to find a problem.
At this point including the purchase of the car I think I've easily put in $8k, far more than the car is worth, and while I have a running car I still don't have a car I can drive to work because I can't register it. So out of curiosity today I took the car to CarMax to see what they would offer me. I know they don't offer top dollar for a car but it seemed like easier than trying to sell a car that can't be registered, or selling as a part car touting the freshly rebuilt heads.
They came back with an offer of $2000, and I think I might just take it and cut my losses, I'm tired of throwing good money after bad with this car. It sucks because after all the work and money getting it to this point I feel like I am so close, I just can't get the registration worked out, but even that is beginning to feel like a hurdle I can't get over.

 

I hate to see you give it away . I understand your frustration. Sounds like you're almost there.

 

Yeah I'm frustrated too, but then again this car has had plenty of frustration to offer, but I've run out of things to try nothing to diagnose, no idea what to do to get it registered.

 

I'm interested to understand how this works in the US because it sounds very different from our system. Here in the UK, we must have the equivalent test (emissions is part of our annual MoT testing for vehicles over three years old) in place to be able to drive a vehicle on the public roads. The only exception is travel to and from a testing station for a pre-booked appointment.

Is there some dispensation that allows driving on the road preparing for the smog test (such as covering drive cycles)? I'm also confused about the terms "smog test" and "registration". Is "registration" a separate requirement that happens after the "smog test" either as a local tax or simply to put the vehicle in your name?

As XJR RONN says, you must be close if there's no codes.

Graham

 

If all is lost, why don’t you try posting your car in the for sale section of the forums first just to give another enthusiast a chance at keeping it going? I know your in Cali and it can’t be registered until the emissions has passed, but you might get a little more money out of it. Just food for thought.

 

I was thinking same thing. Advertise on forums.
If you were closer I might give you a few bucks more just to keep it in the JF family .

 

Its not the best example of a Jag, the clear coat is peeling and the paint fading and it ended up getting a dent in the rear quarter panel. If I were to sell it here I would basically be selling a new pair of heads with the rest of the car attached, not sure how much that would be worth and if it would be worth the time it takes to find the buyer who wants it.

 

It varies state to state, but registration is what you need to renew every year in order to keep your license plates up to date and valid. Where I live in California you also have to do a smog test every two years. What this test entails varies depending on what model year it is, but when you have a smog check due you cannot complete your vehicle registration until you have passed smog. If you car is out of registration you can obtain a one day moving permit to allow you to drive the car, this is designed to allow you to move the car from one storage location to another or to move the car to a repair shop. I've been using these one day permits to do my drive cycles.

 

We have different rules in different states, but nothing like the UK. In general, there's three or four interactions with the government for a personal vehicle:

1) Title transfer - which is your documentation of ownership. You can have a title to an unregistered vehicle. Maybe its off the road, but you still must have title because of the next two things.
2) Taxes - Most states collect taxes at the time of a title transfer. Usually its a sales tax as a percentage of the vehicle price. Because between individuals would often cheat and report a lower price than actually paid or claim it was a "gift", some states will make you pay sales tax on the "book value". Some states have additional transaction fees and in some places, you may even get an annual bill for "personal property tax".
3) Registration - is basically the annual fee for driving it on the public roads and covers the issuance of the license number plate. Each state has wildly fluctuating registration fees for an ordinary sedan, from from $50 to $1,000 and may be based on the weight of the vehicle, the value or a flat fee or any number of things. There's also different rates and restrictions for trucks and antique cars. In some states, you get a registration sticker to paste in your windshield and other states, its a sticker or tab that attaches to the license number plate itself. As to driving without registration, you are just taking your chances, but the police generally have more urgent things to do than to look for a tiny little month and year on a tiny little sticker and the fines aren't huge. If our OP were to explain, they'd probably even let him go with a warning.
4) Inspection - Again, each state is different, from no inspection at all in some states like Oklahoma to California's communist dictatorial tree-huggers. I don't know that any state has quite the level of safety inspection like the UK tho. Here in Texas, safety inspection is simply that the lights work, the windshield wipers sweep across the screen and that the brakes minimally slow the car. You can be driving a death trap that would explode into a cloud of iron oxide dust upon impact here in Texas and still pass inspection so long as it isn't contributing more than its fair share to air pollution. (I guess we don't care about the people, but we damned sure like our air.) Again, there's different air pollution tests and standards in different states. California decades ago petitioned the US government to even let them specify their own even higher emissions standards for new cars sold in California so they are the strictest. In some states, you get an "inspection sticker" that you paste on your windshield next to the registration sticker. In other states, there's no sticker, rather you just have to pass the inspection prior to getting your annual registration sticker. That's where most people get tripped up is when a car can no longer pass the "smog test".


But not knowing the specifics of the California law, I'll offer an option that my family used here in Texas once. My nephew had an Isuzu Rodeo that kept registering a fault code. Every Isuzu dealer in the metro area tried to diagnose it and couldn't. We finally got a letter from Isuzu stating that the problem was unrepairable, but that it did not affect the performance of the vehicle or adversely impact emissions. Every year from then we had to go with the letter in hand to a special inspection station where the inspector was authorized to sign off despite the stored fault code (they won't let the teenager working at the local station circumvent the computer like that). So at least in Texas, there are some "exceptions" that you can get in the event that repairs are impractical. I don't know how Commifornia handles it, but it was onerous enough in Texas. Not long after, the Isuzu suffered a collision and we were sort of relieved when insurance declared it a total loss.

 

As with any vehicle out there, if it has years and miles on it, they’re all going to accrue dents and sun damage. There’s just no way around it unless you live in a sparsely populated area and you only drive at night. If I lived close to Cali and if it weren’t for the fact that I had just bought my third X308 03’ Super V8, I’d offer to buy it just because someone else had loved it but needs more love. I’m up to 6 cars now and I just need to stop this madness.

 

I just listed it here, we'll see what happens:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/market/235520

 

We just sold off two vehicles here in MD. We went to Carmax first and got offer letters valid for 5 days I think.

We then went to a place just up from the Carmax location where they had a sign up that said something like "we buy cars".

Went in and showed them the offer letters, this was on two seperate occasions, and they offered $500 more than Carmax on both vehicles.

We sold one to this company but took the other back to the dealer where we were purchasing a 2020 used truck and they offered more than the "we buy cars" place with no hesitation whatosoever. This after they offered way less than Carmax originally.

 

THANKS - now I understand.

Graham

 

Graham,

The taxes and testing requirements vary a little from state to state but overall are similar. In Scooby's case he is located in California.

"Registration' is the equivalent of your "Road Tax", an annual amount levied upon a vehicle to "register" it as being legal to operate on the public highways. That amount is based on a percentage of the value of the vehicle.

Here in California there is no Ministry of Transportation test (MOT), automobiles are not subject to a mechanically roadworthyness test, but they are subject to a bi-annual (every two years) "Smog Test" where the vehicle must pass certain emissions requirements. One of the base requirements of the Smog Test is that the vehicle must not have a current "check engine light" or similar error code held within the vehicle's ECU. In Scooby's case his vehicle has had an error code or codes, and for some reason the vehicle can not, or has not, been able to complete a test cycle and show an "all clear" result. Without this "all clear" and a clean on-board diagnostic (OBD) reading, the vehicle is not eligible to take the Smog test, and without the Smog test, Scooby cannot register the vehicle, and therefore cannot legally drive the vehicle of the public highways.

 

Where California leads, the UK is sure to follow.

This year a new regulation was introduced where any dash warning lights or messages ON results in an MoT test fail. Presently the tester is not permitted to interrogate the ECU but I can see that happening in future.

Graham

 

I bought a Truck in California years ago to bring back to the Midwest. They had just switched to paperless electronic titles.
. I drove the truck back to Ohio on my dealer plates.
California refused to issue me a title of ownership ( not registration, but actual title) even though the transfer was all legit , paid for, signed off on by bank and seller. Seems they demanded a California certied emissions test from a California test station to process the title, (again NOT registration actual proof of ownership ). Even though the truck was to be registered out of state.
. I already paid for truck and California bank signed off Lein but California would not validate the sale nor transfer ownership without expensive unreasonable testing for vehicle on other side of country. They literally told me to trailer it 2000 miles back and " see if it Passes California standards just to transfer back to Ohio. If it failed then what!!

. Problem was I was 2000 miles away with truck already in Ohio. A total legal/ paperwork nightmare for a truck no longer even in California. I ultimately had to buy a parts truck from salvage yard and comingle enough parts to legally retitle in Ohio as the parts truck. The lack of uniformity from State to state is mind boggling.
. My dad lived in Indiana and used to title his new cars with me in Ohio because yearly registration in Indiana was based on valuation so a new car could be a few thousand EVERY year just to renew plates.
In Ohio we have flat fees based on weight class.
. Must more fair and reasonable.

I digress , apologies

 

I have another car, a heavily modified WRX that I've had to non op here in California. The car is stroked from a 2.0L to a 2.1L has larger cam, oversized valves, bigger turbo, larger injectors stuff like tha. I used to have no problem getting it to pass smog, just put on the original exhaust with the cats to pass the visual check, it's an 2004 for the rest of the test is just an obdii test, which the car would pass, because the ECU was retuned to work with all these new parts. This summer when I went to get me smog done again I couldn't even take the test, as soon as the guy at the smog check place entered in my information it poped up on his screen that I've been flagged to see the state referee. Apparently the state now has a database from the manufacturers of what the data coming off an ECU should look like. I guess at my last smog test two years ago (which I passed) they noticed some anomalies between my car and others of my model year. I can't finished renewing my registration until I complete the smog check, and I can't take the smog check until I get signed off by the state ref. I've too much done to be able to go back to stock so I've been forced to register that car as non-op too.

 

because
they don't like the way your " data" looks. It's the emission police version of profiling. Like being pulled over not for breaking any traffic laws or driving erratic, but rather because you just look " suspicious " .

. Let's all just turn our Jags and other cool cars that allow us individual expression and just surrender to the autonomous driving box with seats. Then they can just tax us by how many breaths we take and penalize heavy breathers.

A rant for your amuzement. Lol

 

Well it's not really as simply as that. Part of what the tune is doing, as well as making the added or modified parts work is making it not throw codes for the emissions control devices that I've removed from the car. Basically I modified the car in a way that makes it illegal to operate on the road in California, and they detected in the data signs of those modifications.

 

No I totally understand I am just ranting off for amuzement. My warped humor!

Bottom line I feel bad for you . Sounds like you're in a rock and a hard place. Hopefully you will get some resolution.