Illegal to Work on Your Own Car in Your Own Garage in Sacramento County?

[NoVAGT2]

This doesn't sound like it is true. Can anyone in California verify this?

Sacramento County Says It's Illegal to Work on Your Own Car in Your Own Garage

Thanks

 

[MerlintheMad]

1. Using tools not normally found in a residence;

2. Conducted on vehicles registered to persons, not currently residing on the lot or parcel;

3. Conducted outside a fully enclosed garage and resulting in any vehicle being inoperable for a period in excess of twenty-four hours.

Interesting conflict of interests there. Neighbors will report and complain if a car nut abuses the privilege of working on his own vehicles. Perfectly reasonable. The reasons for the prohibitions are obvious. Noise, pollution, unsightly derelict vehicles and parts thereof strewn about. If you do all your work inside an enclosed garage, nobody will see and get upset. Simple.

 

[turboAWD]

Yeah, but.. Working on a car for a friend is pretty common, if you have more room on your driveway, or they live in an apartment.

Sadly, it is true that California is often anti-car - Mary Nichols, head of CARB is a well-known car hater. Keep in mind that Sacramento is the capital, so it's where all the political types tend to gather, and enforcement is probably strictest. Pretty sure there's lots of states where "strict" laws are enforced in the capital, but 500 miles away in Nowhere county, you can do it all day.. I have not heard that it's illegal here in Silicon Valley..

 

[NS_Stinger]

I'm pretty sure I've heard of this before, I think it's true and the idea is to keep people from running an autoshop out of their own driveway. I don't think you'd have an issue working on a friends car here and there unless you break the 24hr rule and a neighbour decides they've heard enough of your air tools.

 

[turboAWD]

I totally get the point behind the article. I wish they'd have a similar rule about "you can only park 2 cars per licensed driver on the street around you" or something - there's a guy on our street who runs a body shop / fixing cars / selling cars he fixed up. It can take forever for him to get to a given car. While they're "in the queue", he parks 5-10 on them on our street at any given time.. He doesn't work on them here.

OTOH, they're all still driveable and not "rotting on the driveway" types, so it could be worse.