Questions, Got ticketed today for loud exhaust and no cats - referee cert requiered,

[99cobra09]

I took it to a regular inspection to a police station twice, ticked was signed off and only paid $25. I didn't have to go a chp/ ref station. Obviously if it's super loud they wont sign it off because they don't have a decibel meter, but if it something that is obviously not loud they will sign it off.

 

[01yellercobra]

Depends on the ticket. I had to take mine to a referee station. It wasn't a fix it ticket.

 

[DisposableHero]

I got one three years ago in my srt8
didn't change anything and paid the fine . it was around $700

Same here

 

[roy_1031]

make sure to have cats on. cali also has decibel limit on exhaust noise, might want to have that done and checked so you have proof of falling under the limit. cat back usually does not cause a ref issue. just be warned most people say pay the fine, that's nice until you get a federal violation fine, 25k for removing catalytic converters. my cars are modded reason for me leaving cali.

That's the only reason you left? So you can have your car modded?

 

[rattlesnake3:16]

So what happens if you get one of these tickets and just trade in the car??

 

[oChristiano]

You'd go to court and show proof you don't own the car anymore and pay the fine. Some people "sell" their cars to get out of this. Most pay the fine the first time and I think you can only pay off the first 2 and after must be stock or sold.

 

[rattlesnake3:16]

You'd go to court and show proof you don't own the car anymore and pay the fine. Some people "sell" their cars to get out of this. Most pay the fine the first time and I think you can only pay off the first 2 and after must be stock or sold.

But is it true once u get caught by the ref u have to keep going? Or is it a one time deal? I figured if I get caught I'd turn it back to stock and trade it in and get a hellcat

 

[01yellercobra]

But is it true once u get caught by the ref u have to keep going? Or is it a one time deal? I figured if I get caught I'd turn it back to stock and trade it in and get a hellcat

I only went to the referee station once. All the other times were normal smog shops.

 

[rattlesnake3:16]

I only went to the referee station once. All the other times were normal smog shops.

Good to know

 

[Bluegoat06]

Update, I got everything corrected, but it was a freaking nightmare. It's going to be long.

So, during my research, everybody said to go to the traffic clerk and pay off the fine, most posts relating to this are at least 2-3 years old.

First of all, I couldn't do this because the court didn't have my case on file, the cop has to submit the ticket to the court, and the ticket has to be processed by the court computer system. This takes at least 2-3 weeks (at least in the OC court) for this $hit to be available in their system.

I had to schedule the appointment with the referee, i did this the same day i got ticketed, but kept going to the court clerk every week to find out if they had received the ticket. Because I had the white sticker in the back of the ticket, that said I couldn't drive my car until the appointment with the referee, I was doing this with a freaking rental, $430 for 2 weeks. Referee availability: 2 weeks after i called to schedule the appointment, and this was the sooner they could do it.

In the meantime, I installed the factory catted legs, but left my custom H pipe and Dynomax resonators, everything I read didn't give any indications this items were going to be a real issue, so I took my chances with them, also got the mufflers the car came equipped with (I bought the car used, and I always thought the mufflers were actually loud for a stock car), installed, this mufflers ended up being a pair of mufflers for a 06-09 Mustang GT, and you'll be read why i'm mentioning this later on.

After 2 weeks, i returned the rental, and drove the stang to the referee, 1st attempt was a complete waste of time, this was going to cost me $116, which because of the infractions, they had to measure how many decibels the mufflers were shooting out at 4860rpm (don't ask me how they came out with that number), and the smog check is done without measuring exhaust gases with a probe, they will just hook their $hit to the ODBC port, and as long as there are no codes, and the emission readiness monitors are good, you'll pass. i think they will allow 2 of them to be failed, but in my case, i had 3 fackups in the report...

To make the story semi short, the person doing the inspection checked everything inside the engine bay (don't know exactly what he was looking for) and underneath the car, hooking up different devices in the odbc port, several times, for at least one hour, he found the 02 readiness test showing incomplete, also i had an old odbc scanner than can tell me things like Coolant temp, fuel trims, etc, etc, that at the time was connected to the ODBC port, and he did put in the report i was tampering with the odbc port because of that device (the device doesn't write anything in the calibration, go figures), plus the facking mufflers where screaming at 96 db, max allowed per law is 95 db.

Came to find out the mufflers i had were not the ones i was supposed to have per my model year. Referee didn't complaint about my custom H pipe, or Dynomax resonators, which the guy referenced to them as glasspacks. He said because of those glasspacks, my mufflers were more likely being louder than normal, this wasn't the case in my car, the problem was the older style muffler is smaller than the ones we run in our stangs from the factory, the smaller the muffler case, the louder the muffler is going to be, not counting the extra 100+ HP we have compared to the older stang to muffle down .., for the tampering issue, the referee don't want to see anything hooked up to the odbc port, if you have anything connected before seeing the referee, unplug it., the 02 monitors were not ready because after disconnecting the battery, flashing the calibration etc, the emission monitors go to incomplete, pending a driving cycle, the driving cycle can be anything from 45-300 miles, with a bunch of steps in between if you need to do it yourself, i just drove the thing for 3 weeks, but checked everything was good within the 1st week or so, just because i wanted to make sure the car was ready for that next time.

At this point my concern was how many more weeks of car rental i was going to have to pay, i asked the person at the referee for solutions, like a different sticker that said something like pending emission monitors, and he said i needed to go to the court to find that out, drove to the court, the people at the clerk told me it was a decision only made by a judge, but the judge wouldn't see me if the papers didn't say the car was approved to be driven, lol, i asked a couple of police officers in the court, and they told me i had to drive the car to get the monitors ready. so, i made another appointment with the referee, and had to wait another 3 weeks from that point.

At this time, the court now had my papers, and i asked how much money would i have to pay to bail myself out, they said there was nothing for me to pay without seeing the judge first, i inquired several times, and they checked with 2 different people, the system wasn't showing anything that could have allowed them to give me a number for me to pay off, i wish they had let me know, but, at this point i could only wish i went to lawyer school..

Drove home, and found some brand new mufflers from a 2013 GT, (take off mufflers complete for $200), and had those installed.


After this I drove to work during those 3 weeks, under the advise that i needed to drive the car to get the monitors ready. took my chances here as nobody could tell me exactly what to do.

3 weeks went by, took the car to the referee and passed with flying colors. with the factory mufflers, the custom H pipe, and Dynomax resonators, the mufflers shooted out 90-91 db's at 4860rpm, no codes, and emissions monitors ready, price for the certifications from the referee: $116, you only pay if you pass, first time didn't cost me anything.

A week later after i got the certs ready i went to see the judge to fix the "non fixable" violation, this ended up costing me $515, mfackers, why they couldn't tell me this crap at the time i asked??, i could have saved the grieve with the damn referee...

In any case, I've put my Magnapacks mufflers back, and I've no intentions of messing with the cats for a big, big while. I could have bought LT headers with the money i spent fixing this fack up, live to learn, i knew one day i was going to get caught with no cats, it's unfortunate, but now i know better, i need to save money to slap a carb legal supercharger into this beast

 

[Zemedici]

what a huge ****ing headache.

Sometimes I'm glad I work/live out in the country. Good ol' sheriffs out here love my car. I don't catch shit for how loud my car is, ever. O/R X pipe with stock manifolds and bassani CB w/ deltaflows. My car screams. And I'm always romping on it.

Glad you got it sorted out, though.

 

[DisposableHero]

Geez man.

But why didn't you just drive the car. If it wasn't in the system for you to pay, you can't get in trouble if you get pulled over again since it's not in the system?

Like I said earlier. I just went to the clerk and paid it. Done

 

[Bluegoat06]

Tell me about it, 4-5 years ago, i had an 06 GTO, cammed, with a very healthy lope, full exhaust with LT's and cutouts, which for the most part were opened most of the times... lol, loved living in Ohio, and there were cars louder than mine, we used to go the car meetings and brag about power, noise, timeslips, etc, etc. cops never gave us crap for how loud our cars were as long as you were driving like normal people.

 

[Bluegoat06]

Geez man.

But why didn't you just drive the car. If it wasn't in the system for you to pay, you can't get in trouble if you get pulled over again since it's not in the system?

Like I said earlier. I just went to the clerk and paid it. Done

Now i know better, but at the time, the cop scared the crap out of me because of the white sticker he slapped in the back of the yellow ticket, and he said if they caught me driving the car after the fact, they could impound it, and i could face jail time.

 

[BoostedByV]

So $550 and it all goes away?

 

[Bluegoat06]

I couldn't it make go away without seeing the judge, and to see the judge I had to get the certifications from the state referee, meaning I had to install the stock cats legs, and factory mufflers in my case, so the referee could validate the car passed smog and certify noise levels were CA compliant.
$116 for the referee certs, $515 ordered to pay form the court to cover the non fixable violation.