Quote:
Originally Posted by bentring
From what I've read, you must be fairly close to crazy to buy and register an out of state car in CA.  Threads like these make me wish I had spent more time in a shop so I could give useful input, but I am good at finding things online so here's the 20% off coupon you mentioned. You should be able to click the picture of the coupon and it will pop up a printable one. |
Thanks for the link to the coupon.
You know buying and out of state new vehicle and registering it in California is not as difficult as the California auto dealers association would lead people to think. Honestly, sham on them!
The rules have not changed since the 1980s
1. A car is considered new if it has less than 7,500 miles on the odometer at the time of sale.
2. The most important piece of knowledge when looking for an out of state vehicle is the emission sticker under the hood. It must say "and California" in the emission compliance statement. Without it you car is under the federal emissions standard which make the assessment process with the DMV assessor more time consuming and problematic, Note I'm not saying it won't pass, but it will get the smog impact challenge as possible service fees.
3. After your first meeting with the DMV you and they will schedule an appointment with a DMV assessor. The closest one to me was at Evergreen college. They will inspect and Dyno the car and the first thing they will check is the emissions sticker.
My experience will likely be different from others. The thing I remember the most was needing to partially educate the assessor. Actually the assessor, his instructor, and a training tech. Lots of books came off the shelves that day. and to be completely truthful I learned some valuable info to help them streamline the process a bit. They had never done a new car testing & inspection prior to my visit. So a Tech cheat sheet was created in the process. I found it surprising I was the first at least in their memory given the number of cars registered in my county.
The steps listed above are directly from the tech cheat sheet.
My point is don't let the dealers lack of knowledge or ignorance stop you from getting the car you want with the options you want. You shouldn't be paying thousand more for dealer installed options which are available as factory installs. And you should never get "con'd" into paying extra for inter-dealership inventory trading or transport fees to get the car you want delivered to the local dealer.
We all work too hard for the money.
Now, I might get flamed for sharing this info, but I'll stand on the merits and the California vehicle code.