My husband is from California and I’m from Utah, and just the other day we tried to figure out if we needed to get safety and emissions this year or not. We spent a good amount of time arguing before we decided to look it up and find out. Since safety and emission testing is different in every state we finally figured out in Utah what we needed to do for our car.

I was surprised to find out that the times from safety and emissions can actually be different depending on the year of your car. The year of the car will make all the difference in safety and emissions.

Here are the rules for safety inspections. Cars that are 9 years and older need to come in every year for safety inspections. If they are 8 years old and younger, they only need to be brought in every 2 years.

For emission testing, if the car is 1-6 years old, then you only have to bring it in every 2 years. Any older than 6 years, and you are required to bring it in for testing every year.

You should do everything you can to have safety and emissions done before the registration date is over. You’ll have to get a temporary registration if you go over so that you can drive and get your safety and emissions done. If you let it go over you can get a ticket for driving it around, and most shops wont work on your car.

Don’t be upset if your safety or emissions inspection comes back a negative, meaning you need to get some work done before it will pass. A lot of times it can be just little problems that need to be taken care of. It might seem stupid but every tiny little thing needs to be in working order for it to pass.

You can prevent this from happening if you are taking really good care of your car and doing maintenance work on it. Even little things like a flashing light can fail your test.

Don’t wait too long to get your safety and emissions done. If you have realized that it is coming up, start on it right away. You can get a ticket if the police see your car in a parking lot or even if you are driving it and it is not registered.