BAR advice

jeffnolan · #1 (**permalink**) 01-07-2015, 08:00 PM

I had my inspection at the Redwood City CHP office, Officer M. Weber, and it went really smooth. Nice guy.

San Mateo DMV... they called Sacramento for my SB100 sequence number and Iqbar Kaur (who apparently has some infamy for her lack of IQ on this despite it being her beat) declared that my Backdraft was not eligible and I had to go to the CHP first. I went to the Redwood City DMV (btw, AB60 drivers licenses for illegals means the DMV is a zoo... 2 1/2 hours even with an appointment) yesterday and the guy called Sacramento and they gave me the sequence number. He asked "why didn't they give you this on the first visit... it was already generated?". Thank Iqbar...

Now I have to go to the BAR ref, and after talking with Art today I got a tutorial on the challenges with the Bay Area BAR. My question here is what is your experience with BAR and where is the best regional office and who is the friendliest referee to seek out for this part of the process?

lippy · #2 (**permalink**) 01-07-2015, 08:21 PM

I used the referee at Skyline College in San Mateo. His name was Dan, and he was pretty cool. You need to have both sides of the PCV installed. Before he gave me approval, he said he needed to run it by his superior in Sacramento and I would have to come back for my SB100 sticker. Really they just wanted to ensure I actually built the car myself. But I was able to get him to call his superior on the phone, and I provided photos of me installing the engine, which were on my phone. He then sent the photos to his superior and I was approved on the spot. A bit hairy, but it worked out. More details here: CA SB100 and REG 124 question

Paul F · #3 (**permalink**) 01-07-2015, 08:39 PM

Lippy has it right. The BAR is painless and quick if you didn't do something stupid like not have documentation that shows it isn't a turnkey car. Just have the PVC on. They didn't even pull my car in for an inspection. It was done where I parked it.

Friendly referee? Your referee is bored to death and wants to score points with their supervisor and Sacramento. So they would love it if they can declare your car is a turnkey. This happened to someone last year and they ended up having to resell the car. They could not register it.

The turnkey issue is the only thing I can think of that can go wrong. Other than that, it's a piece of cake.