If you run a business or are a technician in the auto repair/test industry, you cannot stop the STAR program. It is the top level of the Bureau of Automotive Repair legislation on SMOG in California. 
Yes, it allows you to undertake tests, and for many SMOG shops, it represents as much as two-thirds, or even more, of their business. In one sense that is a good thing, but in another, it can wipe you out!
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to receive a STAR Invalidation, (although the BAR currently wants to change that to “STAR Suspension”). But it really doesn’t matter what they call it: the effect on your business is exactly the same, and it can be catastrophic. Let’s face it, there are not many shops that could survive if two-thirds of their business disappeared overnight! This may be why many wish to stop the STAR program, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen any day soon.
The most important thing that you need to do if you receive a STAR Invalidation, is to take action – and we do mean right away. You only have a week to appeal the Invalidation, and appeal, you must. That in itself can be an issue because many SMOG shop owners don’t bother to check their mail every day. Or the post may be picked up by a technician who, for one reason or another, doesn’t give it to the boss directly. As soon as you see an Invalidation, the first thing you should do, before anything else, is to appeal it. How or why doesn’t matter, but you have to get your appeal in fast.
Forget That!
Better still, forget that and call our expert attorney, William Ferreira. You can’t stop the STAR program, and you are going to need an attorney in any case, because you cannot fight the Bureau of Automotive Repair on your own. If you try to do that, they will run rings around you, because as far as they are concerned, you are already in the wrong.
Part of the problem is that every STAR Invalidation is different. It could be not having a BAR97 machine, timing, ASM restarts and aborts, FPR, and much more.
What this means to you is that if you hand everything over to Mr. Ferreira from day one, you can let him deal with everything on your behalf while you get on with earning your living. He is probably the most expert lawyer in California when it comes to the BAR because before training to become an attorney, he was an auto technician himself.
He knows the law inside out, of course, but he also understands all of the technical aspects of the SMOG and auto repair business. In fact, he does nothing other than defend people in the auto repair / testing business – and he knows how to fight the BAR!