State safety inspection is a scam when it is conducted by shops that do that work. I brought my Bronco into 3 shops and was told it had 3 completely separate sets of problem, totally unrelated to each other. One shop said I have headlight mounting problem and refused to pass me even after I fixed it myself. Another shop didn't even mention the headlight but indicated a exhaust leak problem while the car was off and in enclosed service bay. A third shop never mentioned exhaust leak or headlight problem even though I told them that the previous 2 shops failed me for it. But this 3rd shop failed me for ball joints and rear differential seal leak. Then I had to have a friend take it to another shop and it passed without any problem.
I am disputing the charges from the 3rd shop which refused to give me a fail inspection sticker since they would be forced by law to type up the reason it fail. They charge me $143.80 for a $16.50 inspection because they claimed they had to pull my rear differential out to check for the leak. But they verbally indicated that they had to do a transmission fluid drain and fill when I questioned them why transmission fluid was used instead of gear oil 75W90 for my rear differential. Their next problem is that my Bronco does not have a drain plug for the transmission and it takes 6 quarts of fluid instead of 4 quarts as they claim on the bill of sale. Basically, no work was done, which I hope is the case, and they just want free work.
As mentioned on this forum when this occurred 2-3 weeks ago, anyone can find something not perfect with a 17 years old Bronco with close to 200k miles but when shops only suggested the problems that they happen to specialized in, then there is a clear present of conflict of interest.
I prefer to have no state inspection and give polices the power to give out fix-it tickets, which they give out now anyway. However, do not make people show up in court to prove they fixed it and let it all be taken care of at a clerk office by providing a proof that work was done via receipt of work or parts within 72 hrs. The way it is set up now in Virginia, it is a scam. And many states don't require it and each county in many of the same states has different rules and guideline and the shops have their own guideline. If you go into a shop with less than 90% tire, chances are they would try to make you buy tires when performing state inspection or at least make you get an alignment which is a 100 dollars labor that you can't prove whether or not they actually did the work. It is a scam and a waste of human resource. It cost me a lot of time and money for something that is only going to be on the road for less than 2000 miles a year. On top of that, cars over 25 years old don't need state inspection. So that force people to either buy new, close to new, or very old cars. It is a scam.
