HELP! My 328 can't pass a MD safety inspection!

Boy am I P-O'd!!!!!

Just got back from having the required MD safety inspection. The car failed because it does not have a neutral safety switch which prevents the car from being started in gear unless the the clutch pedal is fully depressed.

Did these cars have them? I can find no mention of it in the owner's manual but perhaps I missed it. According to the inspector and the MVA, if the car does not have such a switch, I have to get a NOTARIZED letter from Ferrari, stating that the car was not produced with a safety switch. THEN I have to write a request to the state police REQUESTING a waiver which they will CONSIDER and then determine whether to allow the car to be passed. It cannot be registered here without passing the state safety inspection.

Also noted (failed) was the lack of a battery hold-down though that seems easy enough to fix.

Any thoughts/insights?

 

Thanks guys...

I suspect the mechanic's issue is that he's confusing the fact that "not there" and not working are two different things. Since the checklist states that the neutral safety switch(es) have to be working he's making the assumption that there has to be one. I tried to tell him that but he kept saying that he doesn't make the rules and that if he passed the car he could get in trouble. One suggestion was to wait until Jan when the car will be 20 years old and eligible to be registered as a historic car which then doesn't have to pass any of this. I'll give Richard a call.

 

I took it to: http://www.rmccar.com/whoweare.html

Based on a recommendation from a friend here locally who had work done by them. I had mentioned Competizione and he agreed they were excellent but said that these folks are also excellent and closer. He called the owner - also named Richard - and described what had happened to me at the local Goodyear shop. Richard laughed and we made an appointment.

Nice shop and great guys - as a former (non-Ferrari) engine builder I spent the whole time with the tech (yet another "Richard," what's up with that?) and the state inspection mech as they went over the car. I will admit that the MD inspection is really thorough and, in many ways could almost be a reasonable PPI though there are no mechanical engine checks (comp/leak down, etc). But just about everything else is checked.

They actually looked up in the shop's service manuals to ensure that the car did NOT originally have an oem clutch safety switch. The state inspection mechanic had to visually see that himself before agreeing that it's absence was OK and NOT removed by a PO.

To me the professional part of this, compared to the Goodyear shop, was that they HAD the info to show that the car never had a switch. The State inspection tech at Goodyear made no attempt to determine this, though he could have. I have NO problem at all with the car needing to pass an inspection and NO problem at all with the thoroughness of the MD state inspection. They found two other issues that we corrected - the battery hold-down was not properly placed; the batt was free to bounce around in the battery "box." I don't know if it came loose during the trip or was loose when the car was in LV. A new batt had been installed by the PO and perhaps he didn't properly secure it. But if so, the PPI didn't catch it and, at that "early" stage of my Ferrari experience (about a week ago! ) I didn't think to check that on my own.

Also the windshield wiper blades were pretty bad though I had figured that out on my own in the rain around Little Rock!

Although I had planned to do it myself, since I was there I had them change the oil. They put in a Baldwin filter and 9 qts of Mobil1 15/50. Since I had intended to do exactly the same myself, it worked out fine...except of course that it cost me about 2x as much as it would have if I had done it myself! But I believe in good relations with good folks...

So now I just have to go to the MD DMV and see how much tax they want to charge me to register the car. I've been told that if the price I paid is BELOW what they show as book value, they will tax me based on the book value. For an 89 GTS NADA shows a low of around 44k, an average around 55k and a high of around 75k. I have no idea what value they will select - I paid more than 44 and less than 55! I can't imagine anyone even suggesting one of these cars is worth 75 but, hey, I'm new here...