David J. Harrington

Well, I feel like an idiot. I was out in my dad's shop(1200sq ft, climate controlled, 2 mills, 2 lathes, any tool I'd ever want, etc, etc, etc) balancing my car, when my grandparents showed up from out of town. My grandmother was admiring my car(she love to ride in it), then asked me, "How long are you going to drive around with an expired registration?"


I couldn't believe it. I knew I had ordered a two year registration, but my sticker expired MAY2001! I looked at my registration, hoping they had given me the wrong sticker, or someone had swaped stickers with me illegally. No such luck. I have been driving my car around for over 2 months illegally! I have been VERY lucky not to have been pulled over. That is not to say that cops haven't attempted to pull me over .

Disclaimer:
I have "run" from the cops twice. Both times, I was going excessively fast, when I passed a cop going the oposite direction. It's not that I actually ran from them, I just didn't slow down right away and they were so far behind me by the time they turned around, they never had a chance. If one was behind me, I would stop, no question.

Well, I have lucked out. Guess I'll have something to do tomorrow afterall.

Dave(who's been a very bad boy)

cale

I had a simmilar situation with my last (now deceased) car. I bought the car in late april, and there were temp tags on it. Since I was in the process of moving to California I didn't want to pay to register it and then go through the whole process over again. So then there were some delays, some other stuff happened. Eventually I registered the car in California in early July. The temp plate had long since expired, and I think the only reason I didn't get in trouble was because the rear window tinting was so heavy you could barely see the temp plate through the window at all, much less read it.

When I went to register it I got even luckier. Because the car hadn't been registered since I'd bought it I still had to pay sales tax on it, but since I had bought it more than 90 days prior it was exempt from sales tax. I did have to pay a $80 fine though...but compared to sales tax in California on a car that was a gift. All in all I got damn lucky, so I know how you feel Dave.

IceShark

That CA sales tax deal sounds strange. You sure something didn't get screwed up and you snuck it through? Otherwise, just let your car sit around for 90 days and save a fair amount of coin.

cale

I just know what the nice lady at the DMV told me. I told her when I bought the car, and I said it had just sat in storage until I could bring it out here (to California). She did her thing and told me that I had to pay a fine for not registering it sooner, but that I didn't have to pay sales tax. I paid ~$300 instead of probably closer to $2k worth of tax and whatever on the car. Maybe they messed up, maybe I got lucky.