Temporary Registration California DMV?

[Florian]

Hey folks!

My brother and I will come to the US this summer We will stay three and a half week and plan start off from Los Angeles. We plan to attend Speedweek in Bonneville as Spectators and will return home from San Francisco.

We're toying around with the idea of buying a vintage car, maybe even a bump and use it for our road trip rather than renting a boring car. At the end of the trip we will either sell the car or ship it to Germany. I am fully aware of all the risks that involves.

Now the question is how we will be allowed to drive the car we will buy. I know from some other states that they issue temporary trip permits. That way you don't have to go through all the hassle to register the vehicle in your own name. All you need is the vehicle information and proof of insurance.

Have they also got something like this in California? I did a lot of research on the internet and couldn't find any reliable info. Everybody always talks about officially registering it. I hope to get some input from you guys, I am also open to any other tips!

Thanks!

Florian

[forrestbump]

California has got to be the most strict state in the Union when it comes to all things automotive.

But on the other hand, there are so many vehicles on the road here, the police and highway patrol can't keep up with all of them so it's kind of a crap shoot IF you'll get pulled over due to NO proper paperwork, plate tags and lack of insurance.

To avoid all hassles and to "Do It Right", I'd join AAA, and have one of their "experts" (they seem to know their stuff pretty well) explain to you what's all needed for your short duration trip here in California. You can even buy their insurance.

San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego are great places to visit...lots to see and do but to get a real taste of California, stick to the back roads and rural areas. Some very pretty country and nice folks are found there...

This public service message for AAA and the State of California Visitor's Bureau has now concluded...

[Kurt Combs]

I have never heard of a temporary registration, other than a one day permit to move a vehicle. If the vehicle is current on its registration, you usually have ten days to transfer it. You must show proof of insurance and and pay approximately 8% tax on the transaction based on the price you pay for the vehicle. You might check out the California DMV website and see what it has to say about how long you have to transfer. My main concern would be liability in case of an accident, not the registration. Not transferring a car in the time limit would probably get you a small additional fee, but not a big deal. You could probably get away with not transferring it until you return home, but I don't know if you can get it out of the country if it isn't in your name. Here is the DMV site address:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/vr.htm

[eggman918]

Hi there!! I'm eggman's daughter and I happen to work for the California DMV Unfortuantly we don't have anything like temporary registration in California. if you were going to buy the vehicle in California you would have to transfer the car into your name here in California and receive the title in order to be able to drive it if it is not currently registered. if it is currently registered then you don't have to worry about transferring the vehicle into your name in order to drive but if you want to ship it back to Germany then I know customs requires the car to have a title in your name to do it. If you do decide to do this make sure you do it within the first few days and it should only take about 2 weeks for the title to be sent to you. also make sure you make an appointment to visit the DMV so you don't have to wait in the long line you can make yourself the appointment on the DMV website WWW.DMV.CA.GOV I hope this helps you guys make your decision and I hope you have a great vacation!!!!!

[Atlas]

I don't know if this helps or not, I'm Canadian and back in 2000 I purchased a nice 65 Barracuda in California. I flew to Cali and bought the car and drove it back ,I had a bill of sale as proof of purchase and a signed over title. I bought a temporary trip permit in California from the DMV (which was valid across the U.S and Canada) for the amount of days that I needed to get back to Ontario , Canada where I lived at the time. I gave my insurance company in Ontario the VIN # of the car and they insured me for the trip home. You'll probably have to find out if your insurance company will insure you in the US. I had all of my paperwork in order and all of the history of the transaction including the original advertisement in the buy and sell that I found the car in and all prior email communication with the seller etc. With all of the paper work that I had I was able to drive to the border where I paid a duty. I changed over the title once I got home. The only thing that the US border folks needed was a form that was sent to the border crossing of your choice 72 hours prior to crossing the border, so that they could check to make sure it wasn't a stolen vehicle.

The thing that I know for sure is that most auto/ driving/ licensing issues in Canada and the US are designed to be seamless. I'm not sure if it also works that way with European countries. Insurance being the main issue , so talk to your own insurance company first. You should be able to find importation rules for buying vehicles and importing them into Germany.

[mybros71]

But on the other hand, there are so many vehicles on the road here, the police and highway patrol can't keep up with all of them so it's kind of a crap shoot IF you'll get pulled over due to NO proper paperwork, plate tags and lack of insurance...

This option is only good if you are interested in the very real possibility of having your vehicle go to car jail until you can get into the DMV to pay the fees...on Monday morning. Who knows, might make the trip that much more memorable. Especially if you get caught in the desert some where and have to spend a few nights in beautiful downtown Victorville, California.

At the very least pay the registration fees. You will eliminate this risk, as long as you are licensed to drive, and you will be ahead when the time comes to sell the vehicle upon departure.

Then again, it seems you are going to be looking for a running and driving vehicle you feel confident enough to drive to Utah, (where it's like 1 mile from the surface of the sun in August), and back so you'll likely find a vehicle that's already tagged and ready to go.

I have always wanted to do a trip like this. Except it would be to go to Italy and buy an Aprilia, ride it alover western Europe and then ship it home. Good luck on your trip and have fun!

[Atlas]

Victorville was close to where I bought the Barracuda , in Hesperia. Nice and dry around there for rust free cars.

[Kurt Combs]

You do realize what type of MPG a bump usually gets don't you? I hate to think what it would cost to drive my F250 in Germany. What does a gallon of gas cost in Germany these days. I was there several years ago, love the Auto Bahn, (sp?), and gas was pretty expensive them. If I remember correctly it was around $9 a gallon at that time, must be more now.

[Florian]

Wow! Thanks for all your awesome replies guys!!!

Yes I want to 'do it right', especially with the insurance! I don't want to risk anything there! And I also don't want to risk being pulled over and not being allowed to continue my trip.

To avoid all hassles and to "Do It Right", I'd join AAA, and have one of their "experts" (they seem to know their stuff pretty well) explain to you what's all needed for your short duration trip here in California. You can even buy their insurance.

That sounds like an excellent idea! I already contacted AAA about insurance for the car, but they said they currently don't offer such coverage and sent me over to Chartis. I am still waiting for their response. I will ask AAA if they can assist me in any way with the registration. One thing I already know is that they will provide free roadside assistance because I am an ADAC member (German equivalent to AAA).

San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego are great places to visit...lots to see and do but to get a real taste of California, stick to the back roads and rural areas. Some very pretty country and nice folks are found there...

We will remeber this! I'd hate to drive only on major highways all the time!

Hi there!! I'm eggman's daughter and I happen to work for the California DMV

Hi there eggman's daughter! What a cool coincidence!

it should only take about 2 weeks for the title to be sent to you.

Do you know how the DMV handles this when we don't have a permanent address to ship the title to? Could we use some hotel we will be staying along our trip? Or can the title be sent to a post office or something?

if you want to ship it back to Germany then I know customs requires the car to have a title in your name to do it.

That sounds logical but somehow the PO of my bump managed to get my bump to Germany with the last American owner's name still in the title. I think it was only signed over. Maybe he did something wrong there and just was lucky with it?

also make sure you make an appointment to visit the DMV so you don't have to wait in the long line

I will remeber this! Almost everybody I talked to warned me about this, there seems to be some truth in this

What are the insurance requirements when we want to register the car? Does California accept a German car insurance?

And one more question, do you know how "Atlas" could get a temporary trip permit ten years ago? Or was there a change in law?

You do realize what type of MPG a bump usually gets don't you? I hate to think what it would cost to drive my F250 in Germany. What does a gallon of gas cost in Germany these days. I was there several years ago, love the Auto Bahn, (sp?), and gas was pretty expensive them. If I remember correctly it was around $9 a gallon at that time, must be more now.

Yes I do. I know it quite well from my own bump. Gas costs around 1.70 Euros per liter right now. That's 6.46 Euros per gallon which equals $8.55 per gallon. How much is the gallon currently in the US?


Have you guys any tips where I could look for bumps that are for sale? I am already checking craigslist and ebay all the time. Anywhere else I should look?


I will keep you posted!

Thanks!

Florian

[eggman918]

So an answer to your questions you don't have to have insurance to change the name to you but you do need it to drive legally in California. We do give on trip permits for a vehicle to leave California for a one way or round trip but it isn't a temporary registration and it doesn't help put anything in your name its just to get from point a to point b. I have not personally dealt with customs all I have had was customers who have told me that they need the title in there name to ship the vehicle. I do know that customs are a bit different depending if you are shipping then or driving them across the boarder to Canada or mexico so my next suggestion would be to call them and see what it is that they would require from you to be able to ship the vehicle back to Germany then you could set a plan. oh and we will ship things most any place but to make sure you get the title you might want to purchase a temp P.O. Box from USPS or from a mail/packing business. I hope this answered your questions

[Helge71]

Hi Florian,

you do not need a title in your name to ship the car to Germany. If you use an experienced shipping company they will assist you/do the necessary paperwrok for you. I can highly recommend the company Interfracht in Bremen for shipping cars from the US to Germany. My bump was shipped from Oakland/San Francisco without any problems (San Francisco wil be the final destiantion on your trip, so this could be convenient). The local contact person in San Francisco is a very competent and helpful German lady. You can call Ms. Kuhlmann of Interfracht in Bremen to ask for export details (http://www.interfracht.de/index.php?id=kfz-verschiffung). This is not intended as advertising/promotion of Interfracht and i am in no way affiliated with them - I only imported quite some cars from the US with them and only had good experiences so far. I am sure there are also other good companies to ask.
Regarding the insurance i would recommend the company Tourinsure (http://www.tourinsure.de/), i think they offer exactly the kind of insurance you would need for your trip.

Regarding the temporary registration in CA i can unfortunately not help you at all - i never tried it there. I can only highly recommend from experience to get everything more or less watertight if you want to have a nice, relaxing vacation. I drove my '69 Pontiac Grand Prix through Colorado, New Mexico and Texas (to Houston for export) 4 years ago and had to find out on the 2nd day of the trip that the license plate was expired, not belonging to the car and also the insurance was expired, even though the seller told me that everything was o.k. and i could drive the car legally without problems. I was not able to get insurance or temporary registration for the car in the middle of the Colorado backwaters on short notice and had to drive on - it were about the most tense couple of days i had in a long while, especially in Texas where billboards were asking every few miles something on the lines of "Do you have your car insured?" and police cars with sunglassed officers lurking at every corner... NOT a relaxing holiday - it did not help that my car had a pretty loud exhaust and burnt off paint that did not make it very inconspicious. But i made it safely to Houston and it was an otherwise great trip and i would do it again in a minute - only with valid insurance and license plates!

Helge

[Atlas]

Looks like what most are saying is exactly what I mentioned in my post. The only thing that may be a wild card is getting insurance. When I got my insurance for the car that I drove back to Canada from California, it was through my own insurance broker here in Canada. That can be done here in North America because Canadians go to the US all of the time and vise versa so insurance is legit in either country. Also as far as the registration/ changing title into your name goes , I'm sure that can only be done in the country that you are registering it in. Like I had mentioned in my previous post the title needs to signed and if you are driving it , it also needs to be current with up to date tags/stickers.Also make sure you have a bill of sale or some sort of record of the transaction. I know that here in British Columbia you have 10 days to switch things over , but I'm sure that is different everywhere. Obviously you have to do your "due diligence" as far as making sure there are no liens , that you have a clear title and that it's not stolen.

[rjewkes]

another idea might be is if they would allow a purchasing agent to get things all legal for you ahead of your arrival.

not sure where to find such but if you have any friends or relatives in the area. they might do it for you.

[pjsf250]

A few years ago, I took a job in London, U.K. I had a 70 Mustang that I wanted to take with me. Here's what U.S. Customs wanted

"For used, self-propelled vehicles issued, by any jurisdiction in the United States, a Certificate of Title or a Salvage Title that remains in force, the owner must provide to Customs the original Certificate of Title or a Certified Copy of the Certificate of Title and two complete copies of the original Certificate of Title or the Certified Copy of the original"

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/basic_ ... ehicle.xml

I did a RORO where the drive the car onto a ship, cost me $2000 or so. I hired a broker, makes things easier. I drove the car to Galveston TX. the car took 3 weeks to get to Southhampton. I do know that rust free American muscle cars are worth a lot in Europe.

As far as driving in the U.S. I'm not sure. Here in Nevada, you can get a 30 day temp. operating permit with proof of insurance. Gas here is about $4.00 per gallon.
Hope this helps.
PJ