Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Emissions & Safety Inspection Nightmare!!!!

So as most of you that know me, Ben, I can be a big procrastinator. I had the whole month of November to get my car inspected and of course waited till the last minute. Well, the last minute tured out to be December 1st. So i wake up early because the Big O Tires right down the street from us opens at 7:30AM. Well, they only do the inspection, not the emissions. So I drive to the next one down the road. They took it right in and in less than 15 minuted they came back with my car. My Jeep has always passed both inspections in the 10+ years either I or my family has owned the car. But someone always has to burst your bubble and he told me that I failed my safety inspection and that I had 15 days to fix them. CRAP!!!!! So I call KoriAnn and ask her if I can take her car to work. So I drop her off and had to make her walk home, which I felt bad about but it was a nice day so I felt a little bit better.
So I make a few phone calls, one to my good friend Josh who I've known basically my whole life and asked him what I could do.
The first thing that ticked me off was that he said my park light doesn't work. The turn signal does but not the park light. Greatfully i knew that the ground in the light housing corroded so that was prettu much an easy fix. It took me 2 hours to find the right part because Napa didn't have one in stock after they found which one it was. But they only had one. Luckily they were GM light sockets so I went to Auto Zone and found an after market one. I installed them and they park lights work but couldn't get the turn signal to work. I called a guy in my ward and my Varsity Team Coach is very good with fixing cars and Rick asked me if I turned the key. Why I didn't do that in the first place I don't know but it worked so that got fixed.
In 2004 I lifted my Jeep. I knew i was going to be illegal because your tires are not supposed to extend beyond your fenders or you have to put fender extenders on. Well, I asked Josh what I could do and said I saw some people put plastic landscape edging on to act as fender extenders. He said that should work so here is the finished product. It took me about 2 hours to put these on.






But not only that, because my tires are too big and my fenders don't cover 50% of my tire, I had to modify my mud flaps. So, thankgoodnes I work for a HVAC company. We had some scap diamond plate in the shop and Dan cut me out a couple of pieces and I just screwed them on.





The next thing was that my battery hold down was broken. One of the bolts broke because of all the corrosion. So i went to Walmart and got some zip ties and zip tied it on. After I fixed all these in one night, I had to drive it to work so I left work a little early because I had to referee a high school basketball game at Ben Lomond High. The Big O was right down the street so I took it there first. He said I liked what you did to the fenders and mud flaps. Checked the lights and looked at my battery. He saw the zip ties and said those could break and still wouldn't pass me. I asked what could I do and he said to get a new bolt. But I remembered my wifes car has a nylon strap holding the batter in and he said thats fine. I had about 20 minutes before my game so I stopped at Lowes to find a chead nylon strap. They don't sell them individually, only in pairs. I buy them and ref my game. I came home quickly changed to get my temple recommend signed at 7:30PM and put both straps on so I wouldn't have any more excuses.
So this morning I wake up and am at Big O at 7:20AM. The guy saw me and opened the door and I popped my hood and he said that will work. Prints me my safety document and I am at the DMV at 7:30. Thank goodness for the extended hours. They are now open from 7AM to 6PM and no one was there when I got there. I paid my taxes, put on my sticker and was at work by 8AM.
So, with all this said and done, i spend $60 to fix all the problems and 2 night fixing them, which i am greatful for my friends helping me and knowing I was capable fixing them. If not, It would have cost me about $1,000 to get the parts and have a mechanic do them. So thanks for all the help and hopefully I won't have to do anything else next year.

1 comment:

Gaylene said...

Well Ben,
You lucked out. Mine didn't pass inspection last month either. Yours was $60.00 mine was $350.00 and still at the shop.
I wish it had been $60.00