Blue View - Tripsus Interruptsus

We found it necessary to interrupt our delightful road trip through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Blue’s registration expired yesterday, and we had to make a 1000+ mile detour to Nevada to renew it.

“Surely”, you ask, “you could have renewed it before you left... if not, you certainly could have renewed it online?” You’d be right on both counts, but there were complications. First, Nevada only allows us to renew a registration within 35 days of its expiration, which was a few days after our departure. But we did check before leaving to be sure we could renew it online and found that this was not only possible, but encouraged. All set, right?

It was necessary to head to reno

Not quite... we discovered that we needed a smog check first. And not just any smog check; a diesel engine smog test. With gasoline cars, smog checks are required in Nevada every few years, and since we just had one last year on Blue, we thought we were good. We just found out that light diesel vehicles are required to have a smog check every year. We’re not sure whether this is a recent change or whether we were just unaware of the requirement, but either way, we needed one before we could renew Blue’s tags.

Now, we thought, this has to be a common problem and there must be a way around it. There must be hundreds if not thousands of Nevadans each year that are traveling out of state with their vehicles when it comes time to renew their registrations. Marcie spent a couple of hours on the Nevada DMV website, and found the solution. All we had to do was print and fill out a renewal form and an affidavit that must be signed by the local authorities attesting that no emission test is required where we are. Just mail these (mail?? really??) to the DMV offices along with a check for the amount required and the address we wanted the registration mailed to. This couldn’t be our home address... it must be the out of state address at which we planned to be. Hmm - that’s a slight complication; since we had no idea of the timeframe needed for the processing, we had no idea where we’d be when it was mailed back. And, of course, even in the best of times, let alone during the pandemic, no one at the DMV was answering phones.

Ahhh... there was one more possibility. With the office closures, the state has allowed everyone a hiatus on renewing drivers’ licenses and vehicle registrations. The latest update was on July 1, when it was proclaimed that any document expiring on or before July 15 would be automatically extended until September. Ours expired on the 24th - but maybe they’d grant one more extension. This was not to be. We waited as long as possible, but there were no further extensions.

Okay... so it appeared that a side trip from our road trip was not to be avoided. Where did we need to go? Well, only two counties in Nevada require emission testing; Clark County, home of Las Vegas, and Washoe County, home of Reno and Carson City. Not surprisingly, these were also the only places we could get an emission test done. Reno was the closest - a mere 1045 miles away, and 2-1/2 days later we were there. 

Nevada Auto Diagnostics was one of only five places in reno that could do diesel smog tests

And could fit us in

There were a couple of other minor glitches... of the five diesel smog testing stations in Reno, the first didn’t test Ford Transits for some unknown reason and the second couldn’t fit us in that day. The third, Nevada Auto Diagnostics, not only got us in, but renewed our registration online for us. An hour and a half later and several hundred dollars lighter, we were legal for another year. 

On our way back, we decided to take a side trip from our side trip and spend some time in a tiny, little known town we’d been hoping to get to for some time. It was fascinating, but that’s a story for another time and Marcie will fill you in on it in a week or so. 

As always, stay well and see you next week.