It was a whole thing. Story time!
We were on our way back from the Wednesday Night Drags at Sonoma Speedway, friend was driving his Integra GS-R into which he had transplanted a later JDM B18 Type R motor (B18C? I can't keep Honda motor things straight) and transaxle that we pulled out of a JDM half cut he bought off the internet. I just turned wrenches on big bolts and got dirty, he did all the electrical wizardry so I don't have details on most of it. Then he added cams. Many VTAK-y0 braps were had. Car was proper fast in a straight line, I wish I could remember what times he was running. It had a "CARB legal for the chassis" AEM intake and I think DC Sport header. Car also had a gutted OE Honda cat with straight pipe welded inside, and typical Honda fart can exhaust. Car was lowered and we had put a pair of whatever was steetable and sticky at the time on the front, but the front rims were obviously different from the rears. The car wasn't gutted or anything and we weren't doing anything idiotic, which is what makes the whole thing that much stupider. We also weren't 21 with a chip on our shoulder either, I want to say we were both in our very early 30s at the time. It was his first car that he has had since high school and he had been driving it like that for years. Not sure what he was running for an ECU (other than it being stock Honda) but the chassis was a '95 and the car always blew clean with the OE cat in place.

We left the drag strip after they closed at I want to say 10, then went to Denny's or something for food, then headed south for home. We got pulled over in Union City on surface streets at about midnight-thirty right after we stopped for gas. The officer was incredibly aggressive and had a real bad attitude and we quickly realized he was trying to pop us for street racing based on his line of questioning. We thought he was joking at first because we hadn't even gunned it pulling out of the gas station but it became clear that the dude was just looking to **** on someone. My friend and the cop had a personality conflict, in that my buddy had one and the cop didn't, and that led to an authority conflict where the cop was clearly enjoying his and my buddy had none. We told him that yes, we had been drag racing, at the track, in Sonoma. We showed him the time slips and pics we had taken but the cop was having none of it. The cop then claimed car was stolen and we were street racing and things started to go down hill from there. We ended up sitting on the curb in handcuffs while they tried to figure out if the car was stolen (it wasn't) but part of this process was them popping the hood and getting the number off the block and lo and behold it didn't match the chassis VIN, and the cop was instantly fully erect. He declared that the motor had been stolen (obviously it wasn't) and fed us through the warrant system to see if we were wanted fugitives (we weren't) threatened with a citation for bald tires (they weren't) and eventually, after about 2 hours on the curb in the middle of the night, issued a citation for street racing (which we weren't doing) and thanks to the "zero tolerance" on street racing that was popular at the time he called dispatch and hooked up the vehicle and sent it to impound, then let us go. We had to call a friend to get a ride back to Monterey County. While it was in impound in the bay area someone decoded the numbers on the engine tag and realized it was a JDM (y0) motor and then **** went super sideways. The only thing that saved the car was the cop not showing up to the hearing involving the street racing charge. After that it was just a mess of regulatory bullshit.

Somewhat ironically, we had discussed many years previous having those numbers milled off and then re-stamping it with his original GS-R block numbers but we felt that was "too illegal" and decided not to do it. The engine was obviously not legal in this vehicle but unless you REALLY knew Honda things there was almost no way to tell because OE Honda things look like OE Honda things because they are OE Honda things. We kept everything as OE as possible and aftermarket stuff was all proper legal to the chassis and tagged as appropriate. I'm still of the opinion the street racing thing was a fishing expedition so they could impound the car and look for other stuff, and for better or worse, it worked.

Apparent moral of the story: Always grind the VIN numbers off the block and don't buy gas in the ghetto if you have a loud exhaust.

 

That makes more sense. It's ridiculously unjust that it happened, but the street racing angle clears things up.

Personally I just do the back-to-stock dance every 2 years and have accepted the risk of being cited if pulled over. I certainly hope it doesn't happen, and I do what I can to keep the car from sticking out (quiet exhaust, don't speed, etc). But sometimes you're just unlucky and run into a random BAR smog checkpoint, or a cop who has it out for you. Ideally I would pay the fine and get it resolved, but if things were to go really sideways honestly I would just part out and buy an ND.

 

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about those. Hahaha!

https://www.bar.ca.gov/consumer/road...n_program.aspx



Don't worry, they are COMPLETELY RANDOM

 

So I'd be ok with a very obvious, none factory turbo, setup because the car is out of state? ( my DL would be same state as the car of course)

 

Yes. Absolutely.

So long as your car is registered in another state, you are not in violation of CA emissions law by driving a vehicle which would be illegal for a CA-registered car under CA emissions regulations. Note that if you are in fact a resident of CA, you are in violation of a different law for maintaining an out-of-state registration.

But if you are in fact a resident of another state, and your vehicle is registered in that same state, then no CA laws are broken by your temporarily operating that vehicle in CA.

 

So... is the Montana LLC scheme technically legal or illegal? LLC is considered a resident of Montana, LLC owns the vehicle.

 

I've never read anything which leads me to believe that it specifically violates CARB regulations, however there do seem to be three pitfalls:

1: It may or may not be a violation of CA state tax code (because of Use Tax), and has the potential, at the very least, to lead to your developing a close and lasting relationship with an auditor from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

2: Unless you specifically divulge to your insurance company that despite having registered the vehicle in Montana, it is principally kept and operated in California, then any liability-related claim arising from that vehicle is likely to result in a denial, based on a fraud having been essentially committed. And if you DO disclose that to your insurer, they'll very likely refuse to insure the vehicle in the first place.

3: Cops know about this. When you get pulled over, this will arouse more than the usual amount of interest on the part of the CHP officer.

 

You just gotta make it convincing. Take up chewing tobacco, wear a cowboy hat, smear horse feces inside your car and yell "YEEEE-HAWWW!!!" a lot when you get pulled over. Basically untraceable at that point.

 

That's lame.

 

Hehe.

Been doing a little reading on this. Apparently, this is quite popular with retired RV-fulltimers, who also tend disproportionately to claim their official domicile in Texas or Florida, due to the lack of income tax there. Lots of stories out there about folks who got pulled over in another state, while driving a Montana-registered RV, while towing a Texas-registered car, presented a Texas driver licence, and ultimately wound up being charged with such wonderful crimes as felony tax-evasion and fraud.


Also, I found these two amusing tidbits on the emissions.org website, on the page about Montana DMV:and
Uhm... Yeah, there are benefits to maintaining your vehicle. Seems like this isn't the kind of thing people need to be told. Or maybe I just don't know much about Montanans.

And, yeah, Montana residents can also voluntarily get monthly proctological exams done if they wish, however most opt not to. Or maybe they do. I don't know much about Montanans.

 

The Montana work around seems like a poor one, didn't even dig into it very far when moving from TX to CA before moving along. At most it might work for a track car that you just want to be able to "legally" drive around to test changes, street tune, etc. DD no way I'd rely on it.

 

It should be noted that another workaround used to be common in CA.

Specifically, not all counties in California have an emissions-test requirement. Mostly armpit desert towns in the eastern-central part of the state, where there aren't that many people (or cars) to begin with. So folks would jump through all sorts of hoops to get their vehicle registered in one of those counties, after which they never had to get a smog test again.

Obviously, law-enforcement wised up to this quickly.

Simply registering the car in a non-smog county doesn't actually make modifying it legal. Those are state, not county laws. It's merely that, for most people, it's the smog inspection process itself which causes problems, due to the visual portion of the inspection.

So, here you are, driving along in your 250hp sleeper and not drawing any attention to yourself, when you get pulled over for a busted taillight, or failing to yield to the Mexican families running across I-5. SoCal people know which sign I'm talking about

"Hmmm. Your registration is from Oakhurst, and yet here we are in San Diego."

And that's how you get sent to a Referee station.

 

Isn't that the one by the *****?

 

Apparently, so do people from Istanbul, oddly.

 

The more I think about this, the more impressed I am by it.

Like, how the hell are you not merely familiar with that one specific sign, which is located on the side of a highway about 11,000 km from you, but also the particular term used by locals to refer to the architecturally-unique nuclear power plant which is a few miles south of it?

I mean, I know you went to school in the US, but god damn, that is some seriously specific and obscure knowledge.

 

Use tax only seems to apply when purchasing an item while living in California.
https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm

Incorporate Morello Tuning LLC in South Carolina, have some stickers made up. Tell CHP we tow this vehicle to events around the country (true) and keep it registered where our headquarters is (also true, friend's house in SC). Literally can't go **** up.

(Also, this is not my DD, not even the second vehicle. If I can't figure something I'll just register non-op and tow it to the race track)

 

??

This is the very first paragraph of the page you linked to:

California's sales tax generally applies to the sale of merchandise, including vehicles, in the state. California's use tax applies to the use, storage, or other consumption of those same kinds of items in the state.



I just noticed your location. Good memories there.

 

Greenville really is a great town.

I wouldn't pay a use or sales tax bringing my other vehicles into the state, because I already own them. Registration and/or property tax, sure, but I'd still be (theoretically) paying those taxes in SC for this vehicle anyway.

Side note - I did pay California sales tax on this vehicle when I bought it anyway, back in 2010.

 

California requires a person to pay the full amount of sales tax based on estimated value of any vehicle which is purchased in another state and then brought into CA within one year of purchase. In the context of the Montana question, this is relevant.

California also requires all persons to pay a registration fee when bringing a "nonresident vehicle" into CA from out of state, regardless of how long the vehicle has been owned. Again, The Montana scheme avoids this, which CA considers to be fraud.

 

CA sucks. Don't move to CA. I wanna move out of CA but have too much going on and too many people I care about here.