I live in Massachusetts and am moving to California for a job in a couple of months, and would like to bring my 2008 Prius which has an aftermarket Magnaflow catalytic converter I had installed last Fall. I didn't know I'd be moving to California, otherwise I might have spent more to have an OEM CC. There was about a $1500 dollar difference and I wasn't expecting to keep the car for more than a year or two more. The car passed the Massachusetts state inspection, but I believe from my research online that this catalytic converter, because it is not CARB (California Air Resources Board) approved, will prevent my Prius from passing the California Smog Check, and thus I won't be able to register it. Can anyone confirm this? My source of information is a CARB brochure/ pdf (I can't post link because I'm new to priuschat) where the relevant statement is: "Smog Check For Out-Of-State Vehicles: All gasoline-powered vehicles, new or used, being registered for the first time in California must pass the California Smog Check. A vehicle will fail the California Smog Check if it is not equipped with the originally required smog devices." Thanks for any help in advance.
You might find better answers in a California-specific car forum. Their regulations are different from the rest of the country. Good luck.
After market cat will fail. OEM cats are in high demand slew of reports of cat theft. OEM cat very expensive.
Been there, done that. Sell it before moving. It won't pass smog for the exact reasons you've listed, and California mechanics hate working on east coast rustbuckets even for simple stuff like brakes and alignments. Your car won't be welcome there any way you slice it.
It depends. If you register your Prius in CA, be sure to ask, by word of mouth, which smog testing station does NOT do many (if any) visual inspections. Most certified smog check stations will insist on a visual inspection, but there are a select few who look the other way because they just want your money. Your job is to find that select, small, mom-and-pop smog inspection station that is willing to look the other way and just apply the "sniffer" to your exhaust pipe. Good luck.
As a native Californian, I can assert this is a crappy solution and would not depend on finding sleazy mechanics ever, let alone every 2 years forever. This advice worked real well in the 1980’s, but the $$ investment in smog equipment is way too high to gamble losing over your “$28 plus certificate cost” for cheating to help you pass your smog test. Unrealistic expectations, a pipe dream. You’re gonna have to sell the car to an out-of-stater if you bring it here because IN CA THE SELLER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COST TO REPAIR EMISSIONS EQUIPMENT when we sell our cars, no matter how much it costs. Ugly. CAVEAT: CA has *just* added some aftermarket cats to the list of approved uses for the first time *ever* last month (April 2021)! If you have the correct model, it should get approved after arguing with the smog guys who will take some time to learn about it. That’s the good news. The bad news is I *think* they are new models that aren’t available to buy yet, so you probably don’t have one of those. Here is a screen shot showing the models approved for 2008 model year;
