[urq] California Vehicle Registration Law

[Ed Kellock]

Ah yes, but they will happily accept money from out of state if you buy a
car in CA and intend to drive it off the lot in CA.  They will happily
register the car to an out of state address and take the reg fees AND sales
tax.  

Ed
Left CA in 91 and have never looked back.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: urq-bounces at audifans.com 
> [mailto:urq-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of urq
> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 7:28 AM
> To: urq at audifans.com
> Subject: Re: [urq] California Vehicle Registration Law
> 
> 
> It sounds as though you brought the car into the state ... 
> correct?  Funny, for some reason I thought that you bought 
> your car from someone in California.  You have to be very 
> careful ... I'm pretty sure that California law requires that 
> you need to notify the DMV within 10 days of bringing a car 
> into the state.  Make sure you fully understand the rules 
> before doing anything official at the DMV.
> 
> My brother thought he'd save some money on a new car and 
> bought a new Chrysler product from a dealer in Minnesota ... 
> and my brother is a resident of California.  He had called 
> someone from the DMV who said that it would be OK to do this 
> ... but he did not get this in writing.  He flew to MN with 
> his wife and they drove the car home.  When he got to 
> California he tried to register it ... and was told that he 
> couldn't register a new car from out of state in California 
> (because it wasn't CA emissions certified), only cars that 
> had 15k miles or more could be legally registered by 
> California residents.  So ... he registered the car in MN and 
> drove it until it had 15k miles ... then went back to the 
> DMV.  The DMV told him that since there was an attempt to 
> register the car here when it was new it would not be 
> possible to register it in California ... ever.  He ended up 
> driving the car back to MN and selling it there.  If anyone 
> in the future tried to bring that car into this state they 
> would have a big surprise!  By now I'm sure this car is out 
> of the operable vehicle pool though.  
> 
> Now, I doubt that there are very many other cars which are 
> basically illegal to bring into the state ... my point is to 
> be very careful to fully understand the requirements of 
> California law before you attempt to do anything official 
> with it at the DMV if there's some chance you didn't follow 
> the rules.  If someone at the DMV tells you something that 
> may not agree with the law, be sure to get it in writing ... 
> 
> ... to answer your question ... yes, it will be necessary to 
> have the car pass smog when you register it ... that would be 
> a requirement even if the car had been registered in 
> California before.  If you plan to restore the car in a 
> engine configuration which is different from the factory 
> stock one you may want to understand California law here too. 
>  It isn't that you go to some expert who verifies that each 
> and every piece is as it came from the factory ... you take 
> it to a standard smog tech ... but if the car is deemed to be 
> not stock you will be required to pay whatever is required to 
> make it so.  Mind you, I had a smog tech tell me that my 
> *stock* urq was not stock because there was a vacuum nipple 
> on the top of the wastegate which didn't have a hose 
> connected to it ... 
> 
> By the way ... did you know that vehicles with certain engine 
> types are exempt from smog testing in CA (diesel and perhaps LP gas)?
> 
> Steve B
> San José, CA (USA)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> Cali UrQ owner here.  Question: If I have not registered my 
> URQ yet (Meaning... I obtained it legally but it is just 
> sitting in my garage, not running,  waiting to be restored 
> and not yet registered under my name) would it be safe to 
> assume that when I'm ready to get it running and driving, I 
> will still have to smog it since I'm registering it for the 
> first time?
> 
> 
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