General Tech Passing Utah safety inspection? New from Cali

[95toyrunner]

Hey guys I recently moved to Utah from California. Anyways I need to get my truck registered an need the inspection. My truck is a 96 Tacoma, 3linked, bob'd and doved, and all the fixins. Are they anal about tires being covered by fenders and mud flaps? My truck has no door keys? No e brake? Throwing a misfire code? Will they fail me cause of these things? Will they fail you cause of one little thing or is it like passing the drivers test where you can miss so many things? Thanks for all the help guys!!

 

[Spork]

This may help...
http://publicsafety.utah.gov/safetyinspections/docs/2011-2012 SI PLT Manual.pdf

 

[Maverick]

Are they anal about tires being covered by fenders and mud flaps?

Yes.

Welcome to Utah!

 

[95toyrunner]

Thanks ill have to take closer look at that

 

[Rusted]

Sounds like you may need to study a little to get past the saftey test.

Post a photo and we can help give you ideas on what they look for. 3 linked, bob'd, and doved they probalby won't know or care about. But they will look for proper mud flap coverage, and they may look for proper bumper coverage. I passed 5-6 years straight with a shortie bumper and one year they nailed me for that. So a lot of it may come down to how knowledgeable the inspector is. But even the inspectors that don't know their stuff will send you away for mud flaps, fender flare coverage, e-brake and probalby that engine code light.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Welcome to Utah. I'm from CA too, and I thought it was bad there, but the safety checks here are worse. On the bright side, emissions are easier to pass here in UT than CA. Let's see some pics of your rig.

 

[95toyrunner]

I'm guessing ill need mud flaps at least? Front and rear?

 

[sixstringsteve]

Sweet truck! I hate to break it to you but there's no way that'll pass. Even if you did pay someone off to pass it for you, you'd get pulled over in 3 hours or less and given a fix-it ticket. Welcome to Utah.


Any one of these things will cause it to fail:

- frame height being over 24 or 26" (depending on gvwr). I believe toyotas need to be below 26".
- fenders need to cover to the outside edge of the wheel. hold a penny on the side of a fender. Drop it. If it hit the tire, your fenders aren't big enough.
- no rear bumper. Rear bumpers need to be at least 4.5" tall
- no ebrake
- misfire code (maybe, maybe not)
- mud flaps need to cover from the top of the tire to halfway down the tire (center of axle line). Mud flaps are only required for the rear tires.
- do you have wheel spacers? Technically you can fail for those too, but I've never had an issue.

Some inspection places are more anal than others. If your tires are close to being covered, most guys will let it go. If your bumper is 4" tall instead of 4.5", most people will let it go. I don't know of anyone that would pass that. Maybe you can get some 30" tires that suck in a lot so the fenders cover them mostly.

 

[95toyrunner]

Dang

Now lets say I had it registered at my parents house in California so it had Cali plates and all. Would they still pull me over? Or not cause it's a Cali truck?

 

[sixstringsteve]

now that's a good question. I believe that if a truck is in Utah for a certain period of time it needs utah plates. Even if it's a Cali truck I believe they can pull you over. Paging TRD270...

 

[sixstringsteve]

Do you have a shackle reversal on there?

 

[95toyrunner]

I have dual shackles on the rear

 

[Rot Box]

Nice pickup and welcome to the forum

I agree you have some work cut out for yourself. Even with out of state plates you'd get about three blocks (in my neck of the woods anyway) before you got pulled over. Bumpers need to stretch to at least the center of the tires without space/gap anywhere between the 4.5"s of height. Tube bumpers technically don't cut it because of the space between the tubes--I was given a ticket for that.

I found with my 79 keeping it as low as I possibly could (not a bad thing anyway) and keeping the tires completely covered kept me out of a lot of trouble. There was one year it was so far out of compliance I had to have the "king of safety" drive from SLC to Lewiston to come inspect it before I could get my registration privileges back---that really sucked.

Keep it like it is and trailer it to the trail or make some compromises. You might find someone that will pass it but trust me you don't want to press your luck everywhere you go--it costs a lot of money in the long run LOL

 

[95toyrunner]

Now that I think of it, I haven't seen the types of crawlers you'd see on California roads here in Utah you can get away daily driving a full tube truggy in Cali

 

[sabatoa1]

It is just about where you live in Utah. I drive my 4runner daily and I never get pulled over. I have no rear bumper and tire's stick way out with no fender flares. Every year to pass I just through on some small tires that don't stick out and slide my rear bumper in with a couple of bolts. I live in Tooele and the cops out here are cool about driving vehicle's like mine on the road.

 

[skiboarder]

If it is not your daily driver get the california inspection. My friend has an open wheeled car that he has inspected in arizona. He gets pulled over every once and a while. But they cannot force him to not drive the car, it does
Meet standards in arizona. Do it, drive it, and dummy up when you get pulled over. Not much they can do really if it meets standards in another state and have a residents there.

 

[blznnp]

now that's a good question. I believe that if a truck is in Utah for a certain period of time it needs utah plates. Even if it's a Cali truck I believe they can pull you over. Paging TRD270...

I believe its 6 months time that you have, unless you are a student.

 

[driver920]

the problem with the utah saftey inspection code is that most of the inspecters do not know the code and/or they all interpet it differantly just for instance the code allows a 3 inche body lift max i know of 2 shops that will messure from the body to the top of the frame and if there is more than 3 inches they fail it so an inche body lift on most trucks will just squeek by in those shops others messure the blocks alot of shops will look closely at brake rotors and tierods because they are easy money but they dont know how to check a balljoint my old boss use to explain it this way and i agree with him if you want to take you truck with no brakes and drive off the mountain and kill your self that is your bussiness but if you drive down the highway and kill a man his wife and four kids that is when it becomes my bussiness that being said i also beleive they have went way overboard on some things i love my modified trucks and the very last thing i would ever do is put something i felt was unsafe or schetchy on the road but there are ppl out there that will say it wont happen to me or that is safe enough or the always popular i know better than any engineer ppl as a rule do not want to put other ppl in danger but as a rule they like to say that is good enough the yoda is a good safe rig but it is safe for the trail because of what i run i would never concider running it on the road ......... just my 2 cents

 

[sixstringsteve]

the way I read the manual, it sounds like your body can't be more than 3" higher than the frame. I could see how someone could misinterpret that to mean a 3" body lift is ok, but the manual says 3" above the frame.

But I agree, different shops interpret these differently.

 

[driver920]

go measure and older pick up at the bed just in front of the wheel well hump in the frame LOL this is one of the laws that will fail anything if you messure at the right/wrong point and no fair messuring to the body support mesure to the body LOL and this is one of the problems i really do think inspections are a good thing but i also beleive they have gone over board