Do emissions test places want older cars off the road?

So recently last week or so on Monday, March 18, 2019, my dad's metallic blue 1996 Honda Civic LX (with 270,820+ miles on it) didn't pass the emissions test because the Check Engine light is still on despite its muffler pipe leak already being repaired the Friday prior. And my dad was pissed thinking that emissions places hate older cars and want them off the road. It's his daily driver car, but he doesn't want it as a Historic license plate registered car just yet, rather wants to drive it until the car is too wasted at around 300,000 or 400,000 miles on it.

So do emissions test places hate older cars and want them off the road?

I wouldnt know. The state I live in doesn't require us to test our cars.

The age of the car is irrelevant.

It can't pass the emission test, so it's not allowed on the road.

What's so difficult to understand?

No, they don't. They're all tested according to the rules. If they pass, they pass, if they don't they don't. In many states the fact that the light is on leads to an automatic fail.

Most emission tests have exceptions for cars older than a specific age such as 1970s and earlier
if your car failed an emission test then it failed and must be repaired and tested again or risk getting a fine
most likely causes
1. Bad cat contverter
2. Leaking piston rings
3 poor compression
4 old trash spark plugs

take it in to have a tune up, which will keep the car running longer and have it pass emission tests. Worst case it will cost $1500 if ALL those things are wrong (the cat converter is very expensive)

"So recently last week or so on Monday, March 18, 2019,"

You must be from the department of redundancy department. This is actually triple redundancy.

We don't care that the car is metallic blue. It is irrelevant to the question and it doesn't matter when the repair was done because it is also irrelevant. In fact out of everything you wrote, the only thing you needed to say was the last line "do emissions test places hate older cars and want them off the road?"

The answer is no. Those places don't care. It is environmentalists, government regulators and some scientists who care. All the emissions test techs care about is that a vehicle meets the standards and they get paid for a thankless job. They are more likely to hate annoying customers who chatter too much.

They don't care if you car is old or new or on the road. They do care if your car leaks oil in their shop or such while doing the test. They are happy to have cars fail, they need cars to fail. If their customers take good care of their cars and consequently they don't have tests that fail then the state's smog program appears useless. So the state puts pressure on them to fail your car. I've been there. So actually they are happy to see old cars.

The testers don't care, they just have rules they have to follow.

If you give the government authority to regulate they will.

The emissions testing locations are there to comply with state law.
State law says it's illegal to pass emissions testing that have a check engine light on.
If your dad has a problem with this, he needs to bring it up with your State Representative and Senator to get the law changed (it's not going to happen).

If it's more than a few hundred dollars to repair, he can get a slightly newer car for under $1000 that will pass.

Any car showing an illuminated check engine light automatically flunks. The check engine light means check the engine, and do it not just by looking at it. Pull the trouble codes, then test all the suspect systems indicated by the specific trouble codes. OBD2 trouble codes do not say "change such a part or other". They say a signal from a sensor is not proper and the area where the trouble is need physical testing to see why the sensor says there's a problem.

Depends on actual state, state laws, state politicians agenda. Some emissions stations are private under contract to state, some are city employees or stat employees. Many private contract stations like older cars that provide work to pass emissions- tune ups, catalytic converter replacements and they don't make money on newer cars. Politicians with 'Green' voters and pay offs from new car dealers will encourage state and city employee inspectors to 'Fail' older cars, trucks and pull license plates just so new car dealer can get a sale.