98formyws6

I've decided to buy a daily driver off my buddy Travis. Its a 1990 Mazda 323 and he wants $500. My only problem is I need to get it smogged for registration but it wont pass because of a leak in the piping. The cheapest place I found to do it was $200 (for piping, cats, and muffler). I was wondering if any of you knew a cheaper muffler shop in southern ca (northern orange county to be exact) or a smog place that could 'help' me out I would greatly appreciate it. the car itself aint a gross poluter or nothing just the leaky pipe and im going to Santa Ana JC next semester and dont want to bring the formula there. thanks a lot sorry for the long post

Fuels94TA

The only thing that should be fix is the cat. A muffler, or holes in the pipe should have nothing to do with smoging. Now if there is a hole before the cat then yes have it replace. Also $200 bucks for a full exhaust system is very good.

jchevy

you can go to autozone and buy some special hi temp tape made for exhaust. Just wrap it around and the hole is gone.

Wild1

To sell the car it must be smog checked first. That isn't the buyers responsibility.

Yes, the tape is a patch and may pass smog. Where is the leak? Which pipe are you talking about?

Air Injection?
Exhaust?
EGR?
I can go on and on... take a pic and send it to me via email. I'll see what I can do.

If there is any exhaust leak before the O2 you will have problems. Tape is a patch but may wear off after a few weeks. Then your O2 readings will be off because it will detect air and tell the PCM to enrich the mixture. Then it will wash the oil off your cylinder walls and your oil will smell like fuel. Not good...

drewstealth

They recently changed the law about it haveing to be smogged checked first. If the buyer accepts the fact that it will still have to be smogged then they accept responsibility for that. So the seller wouldn't be responsible if it didn't pass. But they buyer has to be aware of this though.

Wild1

Thanks Drew, I wasn't aware of that info. How did you find out about that change?

drewstealth

Because when i bought my Camaro i had to get it smogged. But i couldn't get the damn "SES" light to go away. So i coudn't smog it, i had to pay a lot of money to try and figure out what was causing my misfire. I was gonna go back and try to have the people pay me back some of the money i had to pay to get it to be able to pass. Before i did that i called somebody(i think the DMV, but i can't really remember for sure) and they told me if i accept the fact that it has to be smogged still then i accept full responsibility of the smogging process. That is how i found out. Finally after about 1 month and new wires, plugs, opti, 2 visits to dealer to get the car scanned(big mistake, they were no help), an obd2 scanner so i didn't have to pay the stupid dealer anymore. I found the problem(one of my new wires burnt up) and i was done with it.

Wild1

It is never the easy way to find out... especially with the DMV.