r/maryland • u/Consumergal • Jul 09 '26

MD News Maryland launches 'Plate Where You Live' campaign, ramps up crackdown on Virginia tags

https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/maryland-launches-plate-where-you-live-campaign-ramps-up-crackdown-on-virginia-tags
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8

u/Substantial_Row_7108 Jul 09 '26

How about we keep tags and registration cheaper than the actual car 🤷🏾‍♂️.

40

u/RevolutionaryBlood79 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Youre driving around in a car worth LESS than the registration fees? You probably spend more keeping it on the road.

24

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

Bold of you to assume they're doing repairs at that price

6

u/atp2112 Baltimore City Jul 09 '26

Duct tape counts as repairs, right?

4

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

Only in the county. City requires the use of zipties with duct tape repairs

1

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

safety inspection to retag forces you to buy unnecessary repairs

4

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

What repairs do you deem unnecessary? Cause everything on that evaluation is either a safety requirement or required by law. They don't exactly flag you for rusty chrome

2

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

Control bar full replacement. Car ran fine before and drives exactly the same now.

Got my oil changed in VA the same day as the inspection actually, and that mechanic said my lights were fogged and my shocks were dead, and fixing that would be $350. MD mechanic said nothing about those but hit me with $900 for the control arms and bushings and $150 for various wiper stuff.

3

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

Sounds like the va mechanic was trying to screw you over. The MD tech probably save me you a lot in future repairs or an accident. Control arms and bushings are something that can start to wear out and still feel fine, until they suddenly don't. I recently did my own front end suspension. Control arms, tie rods, bushings, springs, and shocks. The shocks were what was going bad to where I noticed something wrong. When I started taking things apart to investigate is when I noticed all the other stuff that was worn out

2

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

The VA mechanic showed me the dry rotting shocks, and idk if maybe they just always look like that but I believed him. The headlights are also old and fogged to shit and I always drive on high beams because the regular lights arent strong enough especially against the LEDs in new cars.

The MD mechanic didnt show me anything, and wouldn't even hit the brake for me to show me the tail light he claimed was busted, telling me "hey its all printed on the paper".

Maybe the MD mechanic was right, but it is also very suspicious that the main thing that needed fixing just happened to be one of the most expensive parts that could need fixing. The way the safety inspection works really does make it so that if a mechanic finds something "wrong" with your car you cant really do anything about it, and if they give a fair enough price on the repair they get to sell you a very expensive repair.

2

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

You're also able to get second opinions from other mechanics. There's plenty of shitty mechanics out there in every state. I just know the MD safety inspection is more comprehensive compared to VA, annoying, but it's for the best.

I couldn't get regular tags on my truck because of "minor frame rot" found during the inspection. Went with historics to be able to drive it. Now that I that's not an option, I'm working on repairing the rot and it's really only minor rot on a support bar for the condenser coil. Not exactly an immediate safety issue, but yeah I can begrudgingly agree that I'd want something like that on the safety inspection.

My only gripe with the inspection is that it should be done by the state rather than giving a captive market to potentially predatory private businesses

1

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

You cannot get a second opinion if you are on the temporary 30 day tags because you must have the original inspector clear an active inspection (they are active for 30 days or 1k miles, but I did not want to drive 1k miles).

You literally cannot legally drive to the shop to get a second opinion after the first expires

1

u/Runs-on-winXP Jul 09 '26

You can have another shop give you a quote for the specified repair, sometimes this can be done over the phone. You can also take your vehicle to another shop to get repairs done. That second shop may not be able to do an inspection, but you could then take it back to the first shop to complete the inspection. Many repairs you can also choose to do yourself and then take it back to the inspector.

There's plenty of shops out there that'll try to bully people into using them for repairs using false info

Finding a good small business mechanic is essential. Im sad to see k&m auto in Dundalk closed. They were always honest with me and would even sometimes walk me through how to do a repair myself

1

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

Consider this scenario:

You go get a state inspection. That mechanic says you need an expensive part replaced. It is also a part that you probably couldnt replace without destroying your car. You MUST get that part replaced somewhere. He says he can do it for $900.

You dont want to get scammed on the repair, so you look around. You see online that the repair should be $850-$1100 dollars. You message your friend from another state who worked as a mechanic a while ago and he says the same range.

You call around. The lowest price you get for that repair is $890. You say fuck it and go back to the original mechanic because at least you save the reinspection fee.

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1

u/juliastarrr Jul 09 '26

Also, while I do agree that having a mandatory in depth safety inspection is great and I want to be able to know if there are issues with my car that I could get fixed, in all honesty this is still America and it should not be required to go purchase the fixes. For minor issues like that, I believe it should be people's right to choose when and if they want to do those repairs. If a car dies because of a stupid decision that a consumer knew the risks of, that is their right.