Subj : Political Vehicle Inspections
To : Aaron Thomas
From : Nicholas Boel
Date : Sun Aug 24 2025 06:21 am
Hey Aaron!
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 22:40:18 -0700, you wrote:
> It's still a hassle though. I wish the state would stop requiring the
> check engine light to be part of the inspection. It's not making anyone
> any safer.
Here in Wisconsin, we're required to register our vehicles yearly, and every other year an "emissions test" is required in order to be able to register your vehicle. If your check engine light is on, there's a good chance something is wrong enough with your vehicle to the point where it will affect the emissions it produces. That alone will cause the emissions test to fail.
If I remember right, it's mostly just the surrounding counties of the big cities (Milwaukee, Green Bay, Madison, etc) that require this. If you have a residence in any of the counties that don't require emissions testing, you can register your vehicle there. However, the address you register your vehicle to is where they most likely send the mail (renewal notices, registration forms, etc), so if you don't have an actual residence in any of those counties, you may want to try to go paperless and use email, instead. Otherwise, you'll never know when your next one is due and will probably lapse on it and owe more. Just as well, if they somehow find out you're doing this and don't actually live at that address, you're probably subject to some big fines.
That said, I would imagine if you're both driving older vehicles, it's probably a hell of a lot easier to fix said check engine light than it would be on anything newer. Why not find out what the code actually is, and fix it?
Regards,
Nick
... Sarcasm: because beating people up is illegal.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20250409
* Origin: _thePharcyde telnet://bbs.pharcyde.org (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)
