Thread: State Inspection Blues

So I was hoping, wishing, praying that my car would pass inspection, the first one since ive owned it... Nope. Front pads and rotors, rear pads, and front sway bar link. On the bright side, no more vibrating/pulsating when i slow down, and no more "ka-klunk" when i hit pot holes.

Still out $540.... not inspection necessary but i needed a serpentine belt too. I cant complain, the belt is original, has 225k on it, and it has been sprayed with coolant more than once. So she is spending the night away from home and I get to take the bus to work tomorrow...ugh. I get to go the long way, sitting between some guy ranting about the CIA and aliens and satanic rice krispies, and a guy who has not showered since Clinton was in the white house.

U could saved ur self a lot of money in labor if ya did it your self. Those items u listed all are easy to put on even for beginners

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Doing them yourself would take you maybe a day if you have never worked on a car before in your life.

I didn't know that stuff was part of inspection. How do you test for sway bar links?

hit potholes and see if it goes KA-KLUNK lol

I have no tools, no garage, no way to lift the car, and no knowledge of doing brakes and sway bar links. Taking it to a shop is pretty much the only option.

Yea pretty Mich sway bar links make a rattle noise on bumps when bad...mine were doing it real bad before I replaced em. And its understandable if ya don't have tools then

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Originally Posted by Swiggles

I didn't know that stuff was part of inspection. How do you test for sway bar links?

I believe the OP said that it wasn't required for inspection he was just getting it done, but the belt is what caused it to fail.

no, the sway bar link and brakes caused the car to fail inspection. The serpentine belt condition does not fail the car. I am having it done because of the noise it makes, and the occasional slipping.

How could a serp belt cause sway bar link failure?

Try to get a socket set with all metric. You won't need many English/SAE sizes.
Also a cheap code scanner. You can get them on Amazon / Ebay for $30 or so.
This will save you many trips to Autozone having them scan it for you when you are trying to solve a problem.

Originally Posted by Chadgervais

I have no tools, no garage, no way to lift the car, and no knowledge of doing brakes and sway bar links. Taking it to a shop is pretty much the only option.

Go to Costco, pick up a jack and a set of tools. When you're done return them.

You ....might get lucky and have some hot girl sitting next to you on the bus.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

You ....might get lucky and have some hot girl sitting next to you on the bus.

HAHAHAHAHAHA no. This is bangor freaking maine. The meth capital of new england. Pretty much, since we are the farthest north Greyhound goes, all the big cities send their undesireables here. For a city of 31,000 we have three homeless shelters, five methadone clinics, and the highest number of sex offenders in maine, higher than Portland which is double the size of Bangor.

The local bus system is a joke, except for the U Maine shuttle, the last trip for most buses is 545pm, most working people have no use for it. And the only line where one might see a "hot girl" is the University line, which is nowhere near my work or the shop that I use. Since I had my GP, i have used the bus twice, both times when she was in the shop.