I once had a very good job opportunity in CA. I decided against it because I was a car guy. CA is anything but car guy friendly.
Right out of school 30 yrs ago entertained a govt job w missile test assessment center in seal beach... but govt pay would have meant no f cars.
CA quit doing the sniff test several years ago, no rolling road either. They do an OBD test and visual inspection. Interestingly enough, I heard they started verifying that the ECU software is correct with a checksum but I haven't validated that.
yes OBD & they do also sniff tests, at least they connect something to your rear tail pipe, when i get older Aircooled porsches smogged they do that Searched for that topic couldn't find anything conclusive about it. ..
And yet it is still bigger a hobby in California than any other state. The car culture in any other state doesn't hold a candle to it by any yardstick. The things I could have delivered to my door by lunch I cannot even buy in Texas. R12? No problem. How much you want?
1976-2000 cars of all OBDx needs to be sniffed at the tail pipes 2000+ only reading of error codes, like CEL for smog testing. Any code and you fail.