Inspections, Registrations, Tickets, and Money

Oh story time!!!! How I love to tell these tales. It is cathartic to get this down in text after living it for a number of days. This is a little ditty about getting my new tags.

For the three people that read this, I think one of you makes their residence in Missouri so you are probably familiar with this story. Every year or two, depending on what you are willing to pay, the State of Missouri wants to extra a little fee from you. This racket, and I don't use that term loosely, is set up under the auspices of public safety. The Missouri Department of Transportation wants to keep our roads safe and this is the only way to insure this. What a joke. While Kansas may lack in some things, at least they have the smarts to just make you pay for the tags rather than jump through the bureaucratic red tape that makes people resent government.

Here's the deal. It starts with a notice from the state saying you need to renew your tags soon. One word of advice, do this as soon as possible because it might take you months to get all this worked out. So, first you have to find the last two years of your personal property tax. This was easy and is a funny reminder of how much I've already paid to the county this year and last year and last year and last year. My next move, was to drive around on expired tags for three months. While it didn't seem like a terrible idea while I wasn't getting tickets, when it rains it pours, and I got three in a week. So now the motivation is there to get this done.

You might be asking, "Ben, why did it take you so long to get your tags?"

Good question. The answer is that my car had a bad left front tire that needed replacing, the wipers weren't great, and I was pretty sure something was wrong with my front steering or suspension.

"Why does that matter?"

Another good one. Well, in Missouri once you get the inspection, if the car fails you need to get it fixed before they will pass it for inspection or find a mechanic that will pass you regardless. Those are much harder to find then you might imagine.

After getting the three tickets, I started calling around for inspections. It was going to take a least a week so I thought I would just start stopping by places. Last Thursday, Ruby had a dentist appointment so I took off the morning with the intention of getting the inspection and going to the DMV for the tags. An acquaintance of my wife recommended a mechanic down on Independence Ave. If you are not familiar with Independence Avenue, it's basically the same as Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in any major city. Before heading off, I went by Tires Plus. I have spent over a grand there in the past year on tires and such so I thought this would be a good place to start, plus they open at 7:00am. My arrival was right on time but come to find out the mechanic that does inspections won't be there until 10:00am and won't get to my car until the afternoon, but I am more than welcome to leave it for the day. Thanks but no thanks, I have things to do and they don't work with me walking or riding a bike.

Well, let's go down to the hood and give Mr. Shady's a try. I roll in there right on time and who would have thought, their mechanic who does inspections doesn't come in until 1:00pm. I am in the wrong profession, the inspection mechanic has a sweet deal and basically makes his own hours. This place does look suspicious at best. It's literally, just a old building, with a tiny parking lot, no signage, no hours on the door, no air conditioning, no television to watch Judge Judy, and all the magazines are in Chinese. The receptionist/mechanic/owner tells me to come back at 1:00.

So I go get Ruby, we hit up the dentist, I drop her back off and I start searching for another mechanic.

"I can't until Friday."

"Next week at the earliest."

"You will have to make an appointment."

Well, 1:00pm arrives and I roll back to China Town. The tiny parking lot is packed, cars almost on top of each other. I go inside and the waiting room is like the United Nations. English as a first language was only particular to me. So I walk up front and ask again how long for an inspection. Mind you, I was told that they will take $25 bucks cash, sign the papers, and send you on your way.

"Can you come back at 4:30?"

To my disappointment this is not as disreputable as I had hoped. I'm actually pissed at people being honest, I have got to chill out.

So I roll back to Parkville, taking back roads, all the while stopping at any shop that has the Missouri Inspection Decal on the window. At the last place I went a gentleman tells me if I can have it there at 7:30am in the morning he will do it. Sold.

At this point it's 2:00pm and I have had to call in and say I'm not making it in today. The YMCA is really close to where I was and a good hard run will eliminate some of this tension and keep me from exploding. When I get there, I happen across an old wrestling buddy and I relate my story to him.

"Have you tried Glen's in Parkville?"

"No."

"You just pull around back and they do it like an oil change, no appointment necessary."

Hot damn, I skip the workout and head to Glen's. They have two pull through bays in the back and they pull me right in. I am getting excited already. It's two young guys and they get started right away. One wrench wrestler comes in and I can tell I didn't pass.

"You need a new left front tire and inner tie rod ends. We can do it upstairs in the shop for around $600."

He had better be high or I better have misheard him.

"$600."

"Thanks for your help guys."

At this point I'm at least happy to have a failing inspection paper because if I get stopped at least I can plead to the fact that I'm trying to get this done. It worked once the previous day when I got pulled over by a motorcycle cop and I showed him my other tickets and he let me go. What compassion. So I decided that God gave me a extremely capable mechanic for a father-in-law it's time to ask him for help. So I go to NAPA and pick up tie rods for $80 bucks. I call him up and he says he can help. Once at his house, he helps me, but we get stuck on how to get the inner tie rod off. After we struggle for awhile he leaves to go get a "part". I go inside and google how to do this. Mind you that took half an hour because they live in the boonies and it's almost like using dial-up. Using dial-up would normally be the worst part of my day, but not this day.

So I go back outside and try to figure out how to fix this. Around the same time my father-in-law is back working on the left front.

"Hey, I was looking on google and it looks like they make a part specifically for this job."

"Like this one jackass?" As he holds up the exact part I was just looking at. "I rented it at AutoZone and will take it back when we're done."

I say "we", but in all reality my participation in this fix, was passing him parts, keeping small children from crawling under a car on jack stands, and mostly trying to stay the hell out of his way.

After spending an hour busting knuckles trying to change the tie-rods on the first one, it takes like fifteen minutes on the right side. Now, I am halfway to getting my car passed for inspection. I go to Tires Plus again and take in my tire and they can have it for me tomorrow.

So I go to work on Friday, taking my wife's car, and having her drive mine with the donut on. They call me around 10:00am to say the new tire is on. I leave work and race to get this mission done. I get the tire, take off the spare, put on the new one and head back to Glen's, because now I should pass. One quick note, when changing your tie-rods go to great pains to remember where things were aligned before. If not you will have a car that feels like you are hammered, driving home from the bars at three in the morning.

Anyway, I get to Glen's they tell me the inspection is good to go, give me the proper paper I need, and suggest strongly that I should get an alignment. I am so pumped at this moment and roll to the DMV. Never in my life have I been so happy to go to the DMV. If I was there for five minutes, it wasn't one second longer. The Parkville DMV did an awesome job and made it the most pleasant experience of this whole ordeal. I got new plates and tags with the caveat that I won't be doing this again for two years, or until my wife needs new tags. Hallelujah.

Why I am so perturbed is the whole ridiculousness of this process. After this many talks with mechanics it's a known fact that for $12 bucks they can't make any money on an inspection and they actually LOSE money doing an inspection. Hence, something has to be wrong with your car, or they have to find something, if they aren't going to lose money and time on this deal. How backwards is that.

Next, having to get tags opens the floodgates for all kinds of petty crimes. Plate theft, illegal tags, tag theft, and expired tags are four of the most common tickets written in the state of Missouri. It is also all the police need to have probable cause and open an entire Pandora's box of legal maneuvering.

IT'S A RACKET!!!!

The State is using the banner of public safety to write more tickets, collect more fees, unduly put more burdens on the lower socio-economic class, and create an atmosphere where shady business and personal practices are the norm rather than the exception.

While I normally like to be somewhat funny in this blog, I was so frustrated by the end of this that the only way for me to get rid of it was type it out.

Thanks for reading this.

Ben