Leno's Law

[Bitsyncmaster]

Today, September 16, 2026, Leno?s Law has officially been signed into California law! 🇺🇸🏁

This is good news for all owners. Hope it spreads to all states.

[WHO1DMC]

At least it's a start for California. It will be a few years before the first D owners start to get any benefit.
I'm in Minnesota and there's no smog or inspection. I hope that doesn't change.





Dave B.

[mike123]

If I read correctly, the mileage restrictions are pretty rough (less than 1000 miles driven per year). Maybe that is easy for a Model A to stay under, but for something like a DeLorean which is still a reasonable everyday car, it's a big obstacle. Not sure how they monitor it but if there are annual inspections that record the odometer, I can foresee some angle drives "accidentally" breaking.

[Rich]

It's a big milestone for DeLoreans in California.

There are two ways to exempt our 1981-1983 cars from passing smog after this new law kicks in: if it's insured as a collector car OR driven <1,000 mi/year.

Both of those criteria are written generally. The precise interpretations are left up to the CA Bureau of Automotive Repair.

We'll need to wait for the BAR to sort out the new procedures.

Initial relief becomes possible after Jan. 1, 2029 for the oldest DeLoreans (1981s).

See this article for some of the details. Here's a link to the text of the law if you want to see ALL of the details.

It could have been worse...

[Helirich]

No checks in FL either, but I believe you?re supposed to have everything working. I think they should exempt everything 30 years or older. The percentage of vehicles on the road after 30 years has got to be very small.

[Timeless]

No checks in FL either, but I believe you?re supposed to have everything working. I think they should exempt everything 30 years or older. The percentage of vehicles on the road after 30 years has got to be very small.

Not around my parts. Plenty of 30+ year old Porsches, Volvos, etc... driving around. My 928 was used all the time and it is 33 years old. Heck D owners here drive year round and I daily use 1 of mine.

[Chris4099]

No checks in FL either, but I believe you?re supposed to have everything working.

You are correct and what a lot of people get wrong about emission checks. Just because your state either no longer checks or never checked tail pipe emissions during the registration process, doesn't mean the requirements are gone. For example, my state doesn't check my brakes or brake lights, but I still need to have them in working order. Removing or bypassing the catalytic converter on a vehicle driven on a public road is a violation of federal law (Clean Air Act), regardless of whether your state checked/tested it during the last registration. For the blatant violations (such as visible smoke or missing cat) you could get ticketed by the police, just like a ticket for a missing plate or no working headlights.

Fortunately where I'm at, our testing process isn't broken like what California's appears to be. I can easily get my D emission checked and I only have to pay the testing fee once I pass. Since my D is in normal operating order, it easily meets or exceeds the requirements of any other 1981 passenger vehicle and I pass every time.

[AugustneverEnds]

Surprisingly, for New York, cars 25 years and older are exempt from emissions testing. You do still have to have a yearly safety inspection done, lights and brakes really. There is no mileage limit, so I hope that doesn't become part of the deal here.

[DMCVegas]

The history behind emissions laws is beyond fascinating. One could very easily write an entire book about the history of them in the states, let alone California's exemption for the argument of state's rights and how said exemption came back to bite them when they had to play by their own rules and tried to force tighter standards against auto manufacturers. But no one wants a diatribe, and we're especially restricted from talking about politics on here. So...

California Senate Bill 1392, aka Leno's Law.

What is it?
This is the fourth modification to California's rules regulating emissions testing for Classic Automobiles. This is an addition to the rules rather than a modification/revocation as what happened last time.

Why do we need this law?
There are two reasons for this:
1.The first is that parts for older vehicles are getting harder to come by, though this is honestly a dual-purpose copout. Older vehicles, such as ours, don't like ethanol (which replaced MTBE as an oxygenator and octane booster). It breaks down some rubber components and helps to flush water through cars to accelerate rust in the fuel system The second reason...
2. California requires vehicles to go through emissions testing on dynamometers. Despite shops having the proper equipment to perform the tests, many are unable to conduct said emissions tests because their employees are incapable of operating manual transmissions. So this helps avoid lawsuits.

When does it go into effect?
January 1st, 2028.

Will my DeLorean be exempted?
No. Not until January 2029 for 1981 models. 2030 for 82s, and 2031 for 83s respectively. Furthermore, all exemptions will cease in 2033 for the final model year 1985. So this leaves the final years of 1986-1995 for the Third Generation of emissions vehicles out of luck.

How do I gain the exemption?
Your vehicle either must be driven less than 1,000 miles per year, or, you must carry Collector Car Insurance on the vehicle which comes with it's own limitations on mileage. In addition, you must own another vehicle to ensure your DeLorean isn't placed into daily driver status. Furthermore, it may not have any emissions system modifications/tampering. This means either 100% stock engine, exhaust, and emissions, or CARB-approved parts. Engine swaps are not allowed.

How is any of this going to be enforced?
Good question. The Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) is responsible for the implementing and maintenance of this program. This means that aside from law enforcement potentially pulling over vehicles and demanding they be remitted for state inspection, if the state does not allow for physical or electronic affidavits and electronic insurance verification, you may still need to bring a vehicle in for a bi-annual inspection to verify mileage and/or insurance coverage, along with a full physical inspection of the vehicle to prove no vehicle emissions tampering has occurred.

That's cool, I'll just get the cheaper collector insurance and daily drive my car!
Good luck with that. The Collector Car Insurance requirement is meant to be a significant financial deterrent from letting this occur. In order to have this type of insurance coverage, you must meet very strict storage and operating requirements. This means that you can't just drive your DeLorean to work, because if you were indeed to get into an accident, you have violated the terms of the insurance and coverage is revoked. Pleasure driving on the weekend? If the odometer is over the limit of what you've been allocated, coverage is revoked. So in the event of an accident, you are now 100% liable for everything yourself.

This is terrible! Our streets will be filled with old clunkers causing ever worse pollution and ruining the environment!
Nope. Certainly there will be a bump in the number of classic registrations you'll see on the streets, and yes seeing a Ford Taurus with Classic Car license plates is a painful reminder of how you're old now. But vehicles which smoke due to bad rings or blown head gaskets are not long for this world anyway. Anyone who refuses to repair an engine with that kind of damage will soon enough have it cease to run at all, so that is a self-correcting problem. Otherwise, no, you won't see anymore increases in pollution than there already are.

Ha! Ha! It sucks to be you, California!
Yeah, no so fast there. Air Quality enforcement varies from state to state as those states see fit. Many after years of improving air quality have been able to abandon their automotive emissions testing programs entirely since the geography, topology, environment, and improvements in technology have allowed it. Some states have it written into their constitutions to automatically adopt California's standards. While this applies to tailpipe emissions, states can also follow or deviate from California's programs as they see fit. Nevada did so, and California actually has taken Nevada's Classic Vehicle regulations as the basis for Leno's Law, but gone insanely strict (we require Collector Car insurance, but give a limit of 5,000 miles per year with no inspections), and states such as Minnesota wished to restrict driving entirely to the point of banning it during the week. So no matter what, you do need to remain vigilent with your own state's laws and regulations.

[bytes311]

What sucks is that California is such a large state. That 1,000 mile annual limit will get used up pretty quickly. A trip to Los Angeles and back is over 600 miles for just one event. At that point, it makes more sense to tow the car.