Essentially it’s a matter of probability.
If you do it more times, you’ll hit or miss—it’s inevitable.
What do you do on the spot when you get a point you never expected?
No key cylinder cap. By the way, that’s a fail.
Faded lettering is also a fail, I think.
Structural modification brought me all the way to the distant JSDF base…
Inspector: There’s no cap on the key cylinder, you see. Without the on/off position and cylinder location marked, it won’t pass.
Me: Seriously…? It’s almost an hour and a half drive home. If I have to go back and forth, there’s no way I can make it today.
Normally I’d give up here, but…
I went to a convenience store for a break. Well, actually to look for parts.
I wandered around the store looking and looking… there’s no way something this convenient would be here.
Maybe because it’s Tama JSDF? A bottle I happened to pick up went ding♬ dong♬
A plastic bottle cap!
White and with as little printing as possible.
Cut out the center with a cutter and mark it with a marker—OK GOOGLE.
And with that, I managed to pass.
Even one burned-out LED on the circuit board means a bulb failure and you fail.
The inspector was peering in for some reason. At the tail lamp.
Inspector: You’ve got two burned out here, right? Bulb failure, so…
Me: Really?? Seriously?
Well, basically I bring inspection supplies with me, so I just remove everything and replace the bulbs—OK.
If you look strictly, there’s nothing but things that won’t pass.
If the headlight color is different between left and right, that’s also a fail.
One side was a bulb and the other was HID…
Inspector: The colors are clearly different between left and right, you see. And it’s a bit blue, maybe?
Should we do a color test?
Me: No, I’ll just go back and fix it anyway.
When I came back, they told me to test the headlights again…
Well, it turned out fine in the end.
I was asked about the location of the secondary air supply system.
Inspector: Where is this secondary air attached?
Me: It’s this one under the tank.
Inspector: Where does the hose connect to?
Me: To here on the air cleaner box…
Inspector: Okay, that’s good.
This kind of thing happens too. Removal is an instant fail.
Secondary air cancellation only flies on fully-faired bikes for emission-controlled vehicles.
For bikes with exposed engines, you definitely shouldn’t do it.
If I keep going, there’s really no end to it, and sometimes electrical things (like bulbs) go wrong on the spot.
I do think it’s true that inspections are simple.
But how many people have I seen taking that kind of talk at face value and looking lost at the inspection center…
Doing it yourself is really a good thing. But if you want perfection, I wouldn’t ride there on my own.
I think when you do anything repeatedly, you experience trauma-level things and end up being overly cautious.
