Currently, or previously as the case may be, vehicles were tested annually at a fee of between $10 and $15 (depending on testing station). Vehicles that did not pass their test were required to be serviced and re-tested in order to maintain their registration. I say this with some certainty, but am unable to say for sure as I can find no information about this on the
emissiontest.org website, and of all the vehicles that I have ever owned, none have ever failed the test. Apparently, maintaining vehicles in good working order appears to do wonders for ensuring that they run with some degree of cleanliness. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for other drivers here in the greater Boise area. I’m sure that many of you have been stuck behind the old clunker blowing blue smoke out the tailpipe, or the weekend warrior’s version of a monster truck that belches smokes constantly. Choking on fumes in traffic, it was always at least a small (ok, very small) consolation to know that hopefully those vehicles would fail their emissions test and get some service at SOME point. Well, with the new regs on the books, that may not be the case, at least not quite.

From 1984 to present, all vehicles manufactured on or after 1965 were to be tested annually. The new law states that all new vehicles for the first four years will be exempt along with hybrids and cars older than 1981. All vehicles that do require testing (built between ‘81 & 2006) will be tested every other year. Call me crazy, but if you’re going to exempt cars from testing, doesn’t it make more sense to exempt vehicles early in their lives when they’re the most likely to be running well with minimal maintenance? The first 5, 10, 15, or even 20 years make more sense to my keen unscientific mind for a pool of vehicles to be exempted. But everything built before 1981??

Taken from the Ada County Air Quality Board’s own website:

Over half of all vehicular pollution comes from only 10% of the vehicles. By identifying the dirtiest vehicles and getting them fixed the emissions testing program has been able to reduce vehicular pollution by about 18%.

Only time will tell if this shift in testing younger vehicles, every other year will have a negative impact on the air quality. But call me crazy, it doesn’t seem like a brilliant idea to this driver. The other kicker in parting… unless you drive an older vehicle, you won’t even save any money. Annual testing can be had for $10/year, bi-annual testing will be capped at $20 and as testing stations will now no longer test 15 years worth of vehicles and those that are tested only come by every other year, I would expect that it will be much harder to find sweet deals on pricing.