Washington requires actual testing every 2 years, yes, that's the tailpipe probe, treadmill and gas cap etc, however the first 2-3 or so years of a car's life it doesn't need it, then it gradually whittles down to every 2 years after that. I don't know if this applies up to a certain year anymore or not but most cars made prior to 1974 don't require testing since they didn't have emissions equipment at all, at least that was the case at one time.
My truck passed it's emissions just fine when I got it in 2006 (at the time it was 14 years old or so and had 189K miles on it) and all of my cars have passed the emissions tests except the 83 Civic which had the annoying habit of going out of spec if you let it idle too long or didn't get it fully warmed up and could not get it right into a testing bay immediately upon arrival and if you could get right in and such it would pass just fine.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 03:09 am (UTC)My truck passed it's emissions just fine when I got it in 2006 (at the time it was 14 years old or so and had 189K miles on it) and all of my cars have passed the emissions tests except the 83 Civic which had the annoying habit of going out of spec if you let it idle too long or didn't get it fully warmed up and could not get it right into a testing bay immediately upon arrival and if you could get right in and such it would pass just fine.