I understand the CARB EO nonsense after seeing it from the inside. It's actually a fairly logical way to enforce fairly strict emissions standards consistently. You would NOT want to pay for those tests on every single modified car - they're a whole lot stricter than the tailpipe test you get at a local smog station and cost tens of thousands of dollars - so you get a sticker that says a car just like yours has been through the same test and passed.
Not to say that the bureaucracy isn't challenging at times. But the concept makes sense.
I like parts of CA. I couldn't survive in the LA area but there are some great roads outside the city once you manage to get free of the snarl.
aircooled wrote:
Kenny_McCormic wrote:
...If CA was split up to leave the southwest quarter to whatever they want to do to themselves only. I'd pack my E36 M3 up and move to northern California immediately.
They already have that... it's called Oregon. 
Oregon is a bit too wet for me.
Kenny_McCormic wrote:
aircooled wrote:
Kenny_McCormic wrote:
...If CA was split up to leave the southwest quarter to whatever they want to do to themselves only. I'd pack my E36 M3 up and move to northern California immediately.
They already have that... it's called Oregon.
Oregon is a bit too wet for me.
Thats what I thought. That I wouldn't last six months in that wetness. Twenty some years later, I am still here, and have gotten used to the rain. It's a small price to pay for perfect summer w/o tens of millions of peole stuck in terminal gridlock.
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It's a bit of a mute point for most people anyway. Where you find a job, where your family is generally have FAR more to do with where you live then if you think an area is a reincarnation of Stalinist Russia.
BTW - Oregon is similar to CA if the fact that there is a variety of climates. I am pretty sure the Eastern part is rather dry.
Aircooled: I left an established business in LA, as well as sold my race car, tow rig and Camaro to get out. Had no job and not many contacts when I made that move. But if it meant that I could raise my at the time new son in a safer small town environment, its what I felt needed to be done.
And the topper is that after a year here, business was good enough that my wife was able to quit work and raise the kid herself rather than daycare.
Yes, there is good money to be made in SoCal, but the cost of living makes it worse than a wash, at least in my case.
Edit: sorry for taking what could be a great thread so far off topic. they really need to come up with some sort of message board topic GPS system for such an occasion.
Kenny_McCormic wrote:
aircooled wrote:
Kenny_McCormic wrote:
...If CA was split up to leave the southwest quarter to whatever they want to do to themselves only. I'd pack my E36 M3 up and move to northern California immediately.
They already have that... it's called Oregon.
Oregon is a bit too wet for me.
Depends on the side of the state. This is what it looks like out by me. Not very wet.
PHeller
PowerDork
8/12/14 8:36 a.m.
Ashland, Oregon looks pretty rad.
Medford looks cool too.
I've got some family friends who just moved to Escondido, California. They like it, and can't believe they live in California after hearing for years about how bad it was.
If you live/work in downtown San Diego, CA, I think you could survive.
Keith Tanner wrote:
I understand the CARB EO nonsense after seeing it from the inside. It's actually a fairly logical way to enforce fairly strict emissions standards consistently. You would NOT want to pay for those tests on every single modified car - they're a whole lot stricter than the tailpipe test you get at a local smog station and cost tens of thousands of dollars - so you get a sticker that says a car just like yours has been through the same test and passed.
Not to say that the bureaucracy isn't challenging at times. But the concept makes sense.
I like parts of CA. I couldn't survive in the LA area but there are some great roads outside the city once you manage to get free of the snarl.
Keith,
I'll back off my comments of CARB just being a bribe to the state but I'd genuinely like to know what it's like to get the EO issued from someone who's done it. There are all sorts of horror stories about the process, but I don't recall ever hearing first hand what it is like. When I look at the parts available in other states I can't help but be jealous. The jealously is compounded by the fact I've only lived here for a few years but I finally have the money to start seriously pursuing the hobby only to have my hands tied when I look for parts for cars that I would like to modify.
I understand what they were trying to do and I can't argue pollution is a good thing but from the outside it appears that CARB is trying to get blood from a stone when it comes to such a small segment of the market.
Back on topic: Mitchell, there are some awesome shorter drives that can be looped together into a mild daytrip if you are so inclined...
All of the Valley-to-Coast canyon roads between highway 1 and 101 are great. Topanga Canyon, Decker Canyon and Malibu Canyon all have some stunning spots, and can easily be linked together via the two highways on either end.Been a long time, but I think you can also bypass the 101 and just use Mulhulland Drive to get from one to the next, but I am unsure just how much of that road goes through nowadays.
The0retical wrote:
Keith Tanner wrote:
I understand the CARB EO nonsense after seeing it from the inside. It's actually a fairly logical way to enforce fairly strict emissions standards consistently. You would NOT want to pay for those tests on every single modified car - they're a whole lot stricter than the tailpipe test you get at a local smog station and cost tens of thousands of dollars - so you get a sticker that says a car just like yours has been through the same test and passed.
Not to say that the bureaucracy isn't challenging at times. But the concept makes sense.
I like parts of CA. I couldn't survive in the LA area but there are some great roads outside the city once you manage to get free of the snarl.
Keith,
I'll back off my comments of CARB just being a bribe to the state but I'd genuinely like to know what it's like to get the EO issued from someone who's done it. There are all sorts of horror stories about the process, but I don't recall ever hearing first hand what it is like. When I look at the parts available in other states I can't help but be jealous. The jealously is compounded by the fact I've only lived here for a few years but I finally have the money to start seriously pursuing the hobby only to have my hands tied when I look for parts for cars that I would like to modify.
I understand what they were trying to do and I can't argue pollution is a good thing but from the outside it appears that CARB is trying to get blood from a stone when it comes to such a small segment of the market.
It's a pain to do. The tests for new cars are so strict that you can fail with a brand new stock vehicle. Yup, guess why Mazda did an emissions recall in 2001? And I suspect we're bumping into that again right now with a 2013. We've got numbers that match stock for warmup, and we're failing. We're learning all sorts of interesting things, though, such as the fact that the vehicle does a midnight evaporative check when it's parked in your garage.
The ARB will make you test your worst-case vehicle. If you're trying to pass a turbo kit that covers 10 years of cars and runs 6-12 psi, they'll make you test the newest car (to the newest standards) at 12 psi. Depending on what you're doing, you will probably have to leave the car in a sealed chamber overnight to check for evaporative emissions, do a cold start with everything cold-soaked, a dyno test including high speed running in boost and an idle test. All this with the car breathing specially mixed "air" so that a bad smog day locally won't mess up your numbers. Think about what that all costs.
It's still a bureaucracy. We once got a supercharger for 1999-04 Miatas past all the tests except the high speed one required for 2004 and later cars. So we asked if we could get an EO for 1999-03. A year later (no exaggeration), we got a no. Meanwhile, a competitor did the exact same thing and had an EO in six weeks. Our rep got so busy that he'd just take his phone off the hook for the week midway through Monday, so you need to be one of the insiders with his cell number to get anything done. It can be head-bangingly frustrating. It's also really difficult if you're not local.
Like I said, I understand the why. And if I sold parts for Mustangs or Hondas, it would be a normal part of development. But for niche vehicles, it's really hard to make a business case for the expense.
I realize that I have very specific circumstances that somehow both make living in LA work and more comfortable financially in my last job/residence in FL.
Yes, my rent in LA is significantly higher than my larger place in ORL, but my salary more than made up for the increase. The upside is that my commute time was reduced from 40 minutes in FL to 15 minutes in LA. While there are so many great roads nearby, I like being able to walk and take the metro to bars and restaurants all over the city.
The life of a 20-something.
