California Smog & Repair

This is the place to come! Fast easy smog certification George and his staff are courteous and professional! Thanks George!

I always bring my cars here great place also great service the guys are awesome. The owner George is always on point with my cars and service prices best shop in town

OK, this is a very delayed review but I wanted to give George at California Smog and Repair 5 stars for the repairs and service I had done in early April. My ’03 Honda Accord had the emissions light go on right before my registration was due with a smog check required. George was considerate of my time crunch and got the work done to replace my knock sensor quickly. I did have to negotiate on the price, but he matched another quote that I got and didn’t give me a hard time about it. All in all, George is honest and won’t give you the run around or try to get you to fix things that aren’t necessary.

I just bought my daughter a used car and a month later it started overheating. I took it to California Smog & Repair and George was extremely helpful with notifying me of the choices we had. Needless to say he fixed the car and we couldn’t be happier! Thanks George!
Ceanne S.

Short review:
The other reviews are correct, they were very nice, helpful, fast, honest, and explained everything to me before they did it. After they fixed my catalytic converter the HC (hydrocarbons) and NO (nitric oxide) numbers went down to almost 0. Passed smog no problem.
Long review:
I failed a smog test at a smog test only center. I’m a college student and I don’t have much money so I had to wait around for someone with an engine code checker, actually had to wait around for a month and a half with a check engine light on. We got a car code: P0420: catalytic converter below efficiencies. We reset the engine codes, found out you have to drive it for 1150s twice which is roughly 20 minutes so I drove it around for an hour and went back to another smog test only center and it failed again. The functionality test and everything was okay but the smog or the gas numbers (HC and NO) were very high.
The smog test only guy told me to go to a smog repair shop or smog mechanic. I didn’t know what that was so I went to Unilocal and found two places. The first place that I found had great recommendations but they wanted $ 115 just to look at the car and couldn’t do it for another hour. So, I went to California Smog and Repair next and when I first showed up the guy looked at my numbers and in a second he told me I needed a new catalytic converter but they didn’t have enough time today to look at my car. The guy gave my papers to George and he took a look. I like to ask a lot of questions and George answered them all before I signed the estimate. I asked him what other reasons my numbers would be so high and he said with the numbers so high and nothing else wrong and the car running fine it’s almost always the catalytic converter. Then he saw I had 270,000 miles on it and that cat converters last about 150,000 miles. He also said with the NO numbers being so high it could be an EGR (exhaust gas recirculation,
) problem that he could flush out.
He said it would be $ 85 to look at the car and that if there was a problem he would put the price all together. So, you’re not charged for looking at the car and the labor in fixing the problem. Not saying I’m cheap but the $ 85 was off putting to me because I’m used to a great mechanic who will look at my car for free but we have to remember that they have to be paid as well if anyone has the same thoughts as me. They said it would be done by 1pm. I didn’t have a ride so I just stuck around, read a book, answered some calls, 2 hours later it was done. Actually, they were so nice I gave them the commission for the re-​smog even though it was only $ 10 at the smog test only. I help out honest people. When they were showing me the numbers they actually told me the car doesn’t have an EGR system. Was relieved right away when I saw the numbers. I was at AAA Auto 15 minutes later and finally finished the title change and registration.
Estimate Workup:
$ 041.75 for the smog inspection (original estimate was $ 85)
$ 008.25 for the smog certificate
$ 075.00 for repair labor.
$ 325.00 for catalytic converter
$ 025.00 for sales tax
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
$ 475.00 sub-​total
$ 450.00 total amount paid
ASM Emission Test Results [test-​only center] — FAILED
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
15mph: [HC (ppm)] 64 max. 139 actual value
25mph: [HC (ppm)] 47 max. 106 actual value
15mph: [NO (ppm)] 477 max. 1403 actual value
25mph: [NO (ppm)] 764 max. 1287 actual value
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
ASM Emission Test Results [California Smog/​Repair] — PASSED
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
15mph: [HC (ppm)] 64 max. 10 actual value
25mph: [HC (ppm)] 47 max. 09 actual value
15mph: [NO (ppm)] 477 max. 0 actual value
25mph: [NO (ppm)] 764 max. 0 actual value
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
HC = hydrocarbons
NO = Nitric Oxide
Hope this detailed review helps. I’m not good with cars at all so I completely relied on Unilocal.Thanks guys and thank you George.

These guys are amazing! My normal procedure was to take my car to my manufacturer for servicing. That was until a client of mine recommended George and the guys at California Smog. I needed a timing belt replaced and George quoted me a price almost Half what my dealer quoted. The boys replaced it in 24 hours and the car runs better than ever. I know schedule all my servicing here and have saved a TON of money by coming here. And the work is impeccable. I will continue to come here as long as George is the owner

I first found out about California Smog and Repair in 2006. They were one of two shops in the OC area that were high AAA rated. I had an old Honda with 120k miles that needed a smog check. But the Check Engine light was on (even though there were no visible problems) and whatever the computer code was, it would not allow the smog inspection to go through. I went to 2 different smog only shops that said I had to disconnect the battery or do some other things. None of which worked and none could perform the smog check for me. Finally did some research and found CS&R in Stanton and went to them. They were familiar with the problem and I think it was an O2 sensor, but they fixed it up and got the smog inspection done. Much later I had other problems with the Honda such as the alternator and water pump problems all of which I took to CS&R. They fixed them in a reasonable amount of time and as the previous reviews stated, they didn’t try to rip me off and charged a reasonable rate.

I agree they told me first to go see if I had a warranty first. they don’t rip u off. I trust these guys which is hard because i have been taken for a ride (SEARS)

You will not find better a better Smog/​Repair facility anywhere in Orange County. Louie & team are the best! Professional, affordable & wait time was minimal, even during a busy weekend.
They were highly recommended by other professionals in the auto industry.
Don’t take your chances with anyone else…