Tighter emmisions standards

Yes, the problems have gotten tougher since actual tailpipe emissions are no longer what they are after. If it were about emissions, then what difference does it make how it got there? The whole "Looking at the car to make sure nothing has been changed", or "flunking the car because it has a stored code in the ECM" Is garbage. It has little to do with clean air or they would just read your emissions at the tailpipe and pass or fail you.

Here's my theory ( as though anyone asked): DEQ ( or smog) is a cash cow that every car in the PDX has to go through every two years at a cost of $21 a shot. Since there are very few cars that would fail on tailpipe emissions ( 83% pass even with the tougher requirements), they have to "raise the bar" to justify the program's existence. Some places, Like OKC, have gotten rid of smog testing for this reason. Thus, they add criteria that have zero effect on smog. As I understand it, most of the 17% that fail do so on stored codes due to things like loose gas caps.

My 77 Volare still has not passed in Portland, Oregon....and has sat for four months now without tags, since now you can only get two 10 day temp permits and that's all.