Quote Originally Posted by Scrappah View Post
<snip> On the one hand the price of everything has gone up so you have to expect to pay more but the biggest problem as i see it is state government gone a bit too far with all of the new safety regulations. Take something as simple as a brake line for instance: If it's showing ANY rust the line has to be replaced because there's no way to accurately predict when it will fail. If one line is bad chances are that they're all bad and that's easily 600.00 $ at your local repair shop. It's great for the mechanics because they know they've got you by the nads. If you don't spend the money they take a swipe through your inspection sticker with a razor knife to invalidate it and you can't legally drive it off their property.

See .... what started out as a basically good idea ( a safety inspection ) went very wrong over time.

I probably spent a couple of years reaching out to the Governor's office, the State legislature, and the state bureau that writes the regulations without any success. In the end, everyone agreed that this thing had grown to a point where it was becoming a real problem but they couldn't agree on a solution so nothing got done. Once these laws are written it's nearly impossible to get them off the books.

The only solution is never to plant that seed because once it takes hold it will grow out of control.



Lucky you ..... you live in Florida !

I hear you. I grew up in NY and inspections were done at the local service station. You knew they were going to find something because the $3 we paid for an inspection (then) didn't even cover their time. If you were smart you would develop a relationship with a shop by having them do some work for you so they had an investment in you as a customer to protect. It was the only way to survive an inspection. And that was in the 70's.

When I first moved to FL there were inspections but they were done in state run inspection stations. They had no incentive to find a problem. In fact, their incentive was to get you out quickly so unless you had a hole in your muffler of bad lights, you were in easy street. They shut the whole thing down at the end of the 70's IIRC.