jerseydrew

tell me about the process and what is allowed and not allowed. the two concerns i have on my car is i have tinted front windows and i have American Racing headers with the high flow cats. do these things pose a problem with inspection in the state?

puterami

What inspection? I've lived in TN for four years with 5 vehicles and I have had no inspection.

In regards to your tint there are laws that are on the books.
https://www.tinting-laws.com/tennessee/

The only thing that I could find on exhaust is that muffler cutouts are illegal.

JDebler

Some TN counties do have emissions testing. Mine does, I am sorry to say.

I don't think they care about tint. They just do a visual check of having cats, run a scan through the OBD post, and put a sensor gas cap on. I think that's it, at least in my experiences.

puterami

Wow, glad I live where I do and that it's a county thing, not a state thing.
I see that 5 of the 6 counties are around Nashville with the last being Chattanooga.
https://www.dmv.org/tn-tennessee/smog-check.php

TCW

Don't worry about the inspections. Most of Tennessee don't bother with them. If you move to a county that has them, just register your cars in the next closest county.

The following counties are the only ones that do inspections,

• Hamilton
• Davidson
• Rutherford
• Sumner
• Williamson
• Wilson.

The tinted windshield (other than OEM tinting) is illegal in all of the state!

Tom

jerseydrew

not familiar, so i guess franklin and brentwood are in one of those? i do not have windshield just front side windows. and if i remember correctly they are 25%

TCW

No. Franklin is a county of its own. Brentwood is just a city in Williamson county.

Tom

jerseydrew

Thanks! I am going to get out to the area and spend some time there this summer. Got to see if the area is the right fit for me before making such a move.

vader86

Yes its not every county, only a few require any inspection or sniff test. The clerk will go outside and check the VIN with you when you register an out-of-state car, thats it, I've never heard of them saying anything about tinting at that time.

Henryr01

NashvilleGrandSport

The folks that emission test don't care about window tint. it's strictly pass/fail on emissions. They plug into the OBDII port on 1996 and newer cars..
The state allows 35 window tint as legal. Some tint shops even add a compliance sticker to the driver's side window.

My 1995 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo is not an OBD car, so they use the tail pipe sniffer. It's passed twice without issue.

Boostedsvt

A buddy of mine who works in the office that handles the emissions testing told me that it will be going away soon for all but Davidson county. I’m not sure when but it’s been called a “poor tax” in whatever county that Chattanooga is in and they are doing away with it. He said that because there are so many liberals in Davidson county that they opted to keep it but the rest of the counties will go away from it soon.

Legal window tint on a car is 35% on the sides and rear I believe. I have 15% and 50% on the entire windshield of all of my cars and have been rather fortunate to never have any problem with the law. The only time I was ever messed with for window tint was when I was younger, with loud Mustangs and the cop told me he used the window tint law looking for drugs and DUIs. He didn’t cite me for it

Capt. Shark

Our state legislature passed a law last year doing away with the stupid smog test but it still has to be approved by a bunch of pencil pushing bureaucrats at the EPA. What a crock. At least next year before it's gone. They check for a cat and either do a sniff test or OBD. But first they take your $9.

dr_gallup

$9 LOL. Reminds me of the old SC inspections that they did away with. For $3 they were supposed to check the lights, horn, brakes, etc. For $3 they were losing money just scraping the old sticker off and putting on a new one. Came down to either putting in a real inspection system or doing away with it entirely. They got rid of it entirely.

Eddie 70

Just glad we are not as sticky as some states. My 70 could never pass 2002 requirements, I don't think. It runs, I put gas in it and pay gas taxes when I do use it.

Hope you enjoy your trip to Tennessee.

JDebler

Just pulled my 2009 Z06 w/AHP 116 cam out of semi-storage this past week. Went to get the stupid Sumner Co. emissions done. Rolled in...they hooked up to the OBD-II port and looked under with a mirror (factory exhaust manifolds/cats). If they did anything else, I didn't notice. Paid my $9.00 and went home.

JDebler

Oh yeah, and here's a side note...
Late last year, I disconnected my battery for one reason or another (likely trying something for my YouTube channel) and it stored the disconnection in the ECM or wherever. Not long after that, I had to go do emissions testing and failed because of that disconnection. They gave me a got a piece of paper stating that I had a grace period of 60(?) (I don't recall) days to drive around for a while and get the code out of the system. Heck, that put me into December when the car was in storage. So I didn't bother redoing the testing until this week (see above post). But I still had to get my registration tags...

This morning, I took my piece of paper stating that I passed emissions from earlier in the week (see above post) to the DMV and the nice lady said, "You are way past your renewal date." I said, "Yeah, the car was in storage for a while." She printed of an affidavit stating that I wasn't actually driving the car since the tags expired. I signed it. Paid my hundred bucks or so. Went home. DONE.

Car is now nice and legal for another year. Piece of cake...and rather pointless, I think. I also think that it is a system that can be easily circumvented with a little subterfuge. Good thing I am honest.

Phanni

Consider checking out East Tennessee for a "fit". the weather is better, the housing is many times cheaper. amd the big city of Nashville is about 4 hours away. I live in Knoxville, at the foot of the Smokey Mountains, there are many car events held nearby, housing and taxes are cheap, and the folks are very friendly. We also have the ;largest Corvette club in the country, along with a great Corvette event every spring with literally a hundred venders.
POH yeah,,the "tail of the Dragon" is very close.

PS, no inspections.

Capt. Shark

Shhhhhhhhuuusssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh At least you're sending them to The Dragon, though, instead of the other one which shall remain nameless.

H P Bushrod

As a former NJ resident, I think you'll like it more down here. A lot less liberal crap to put up with and a lot less snow.