HAMPDEN – It’s common knowledge that there are certain auto shops in the area that will let a vehicle slide when an inspection sticker is needed.

Even the state police admit there are inspection stations in Maine that operate illegally and are known for issuing quick and easy inspection stickers.

This year, however, things are changing, and vehicle inspection stickers may be harder to come by.

When he took his office almost two years ago, the new traffic division commander of the Maine State Police was faced with budget cuts and knew the system had to be overhauled.

Lt. Chris Grotton decided to make big changes, and he started with stepping up enforcement efforts for inspection stations.

The effects of the increased enforcement are starting to filter down to area auto shops as hundreds of inspection stations across the state have been issued violation warnings and some have even lost their licenses to issue stickers.

In the last five months, on average, one garage in five has lost permission to issue inspection stickers, Grotton said recently.

“We have … issued 177 warnings to stations, and there were 39 station suspensions,” he said. “We’ve issued mechanics 117 warnings and suspended 62.”

“Eighty-one percent of the time, they’ve [stations] received a warning,” Grotton said, “So 19 percent are being issued a suspension of some sort. For mechanics, 65 percent are issued warnings, and 34 percent are issued a suspension.”

Maine law requires vehicles to be inspected once a year. Inspection stations typically check 16 items for safety, including brakes, suspensions, lights and tires. Any one item can prevent a vehicle from getting an inspection sticker. A vehicle’s registration also is checked along with proof of insurance.

After years of being allowed to do things basically unchecked, some mechanics are finding it tough to swallow the stricter enforcement of the rules.

“The state of Maine is too strict,” Del Harrimon said recently. Harrimon, a vehicle inspector and manager of the Hammond Street Gulf station in Bangor, was suspended for three months because her service station didn’t have updated manuals.

“There are lots of stations that have lost their licenses,” said Harrimon, who now has her inspection license back.

The rules for vehicle inspections have remained basically the same for more than a decade, but nowadays it’s harder to pass the state’s hurdles because responsibility for enforcing the licenses has changed, Grotton said.

“We eliminated 10 of the troopers in this department, and we hired 10 civilians to do that work,” he said.

By hiring civilians, the state police saved approximately $300,000 and eliminated uniformed personnel from renewing licenses for mechanics and auto shops around the state.

“The advantage for us was that we hired people that were professional mechanics,” Grotton said. “Up until then, we took troopers who were involved in law enforcement and trained them in vehicle inspections.

“Now what we’ve done is hired professional mechanics, with 90 [cumulative] years of mechanic or vehicle technician experience,” he said. “That has brought to the unit a tremendous amount of knowledge and techniques.”

Grotton said he’s very happy with how his inspectors are requiring auto shops to follow the letter of the law.

Tim Oversmith, a mechanic at Rawcliffe’s Garage in Hampden, said it’s good to enforce the law strictly and for state police to “eliminate the guesswork and put down a standard.”

But the state also needs to educate the public, Oversmith pointed out.

“The downside is they haven’t informed the public that these changes are occurring – they’ve left it up to the inspectors to educate the public,” he said. “It’s become the service writer that has become the bridge between Joe Car Owner and the state of Maine.

“It’s the guys in the corner shops who have to enforce this,” he said. “It becomes tough because we become the bad guy.”

There has been no attempt from the state inspection unit to pass this information along to residents, Oversmith said.

Grotton said his first job is to get the stations running legally.

The state police regulate and license approximately 2,400 inspection stations and approximately 7,400 mechanics in the state. Since the changeover, the new state police inspectors have spent much of the last year updating the books at many of the service stations.

“As these folks have gone out to do traditional audits, we’ve found some stations without licenses or without the right equipment,” Grotton said. “We had one station that was putting on hundreds of stickers a month and they were not doing inspections.

“We’ve even had some that were out of business – these are the types of things we’ve kind of cleaned up,” Grotton noted.

The state police acknowledge that some station employees and managers are upset over the changes, but say safety must come first.

“We had two or three that gave the inspector a few problems, but we really haven’t had any serious issues,” Grotton said. “Any time you change the level of enforcement, there is some feedback, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that this is a safety program.”

Keeping safe cars on the road is the top priority, said Wayne Bouchard of Bouchard & Sons Towing in Hampden. The number of people stopping by for an inspection at Bouchard’s has increased since local stations have started to lose their licenses, he said.

“It’s picked up because so many local stations have been caught,” the business owner said. “We’re getting six or seven a day. Two [customers] out of the seven pursue [the inspection] to get it done right, and the rest go to a Joe-bag-of-doughnuts [garage] out in the country. That’s what happens.”

Because the public hasn’t been informed about the stricter enforcement, many try to convince garage owners to let them get away with something illegal, Bouchard said.

“They say, ‘You know me’ or ‘I’ll get it fixed next week,’ and I have to say no,” he said. “It’s tough, but I lost my daughter to a car accident this year, so safety is a major concern to me.”

Phil Cowan, owner of Cowan’s Service Station, said his Brewer garage provides inspections as “a service to customers.” He said there has been plenty of communication from the state police about the changes, so everybody in the industry should be aware of them.

Cowan, Bouchard, Harrimon and Oversmith also said each of their garages had to purchase equipment to conform to the state’s regulations, which reportedly cost in excess of $345 for each station.

“If you’re a one- or two-guy shop, it’s virtually impossible to make a profit at $12.50 for a state inspection,” Oversmith said.

There are still stations willing to risk their license to issue stickers illegally, one Hampden resident said Wednesday. His vehicle has a dent in it that makes a back door not seal correctly.

“I went to three different places and they said no, no, no,” the 33-year-old car owner, who asked not to be identified, said. “Then I went to a friend, and with an extra 20 bucks, he said, ‘No problem.’ He didn’t even look at it.”

According to state figures, 20 percent to 30 percent of vehicles inspected are rejected outright.

Grotton said he knows his unit still has a lot of work to do. He said the state is attacking the problem from both sides and this year created the Maine Motor Vehicle Advisory Board, on which Grotton sits, to review and revise decade-old rules and inspection laws.

“The charge to us is to come up with a program that provides for safety on our roads,” he said.