CA Registration Help

[Nap925]

I bought my truck in Montana and drove it back. It had generic temp plates leaving the dealer.
The Montana dealer charged me the CA taxes when I paid for it, Montana has no sales tax (another reason to leave CA). I did not have to pay CA taxes when I registered it here.
Trucks in CA are considered commercial vehicles (probably to be able to hose you more in fees), therefore you need to have the truck weighed at a certified scale. Tip - take the spare out, rear seats, passenger seat, any other crap that's heavy, put helium in the tires (not really), and be running on fumes when it's weighed. The weight is factored into the registration cost/fee.
Of course, you'll have to smog it. I forgot exactly what my truck weighed... over 6K lbs.
DMV will do VIN verification as part of the registration.
Total cost for registration was a little over $800 for everything (smog, weight certificate, etc...)

 

[Ellison3]

I purchased a truck in California once (won’t ever do that again!!!). Lived in Florida at the time. Told them I wanted it registered in Florida; oh well. So, eventually moved to Arizona. While in Hawaii working on a Government contract my registration expired. At that point I wanted to register it Arizona… but, wasn’t sure how to legally drive it back once I returned from Hawaii. Oh, forgot to mention my company office was in California; left the truck on their property while in Hawaii.

The point I wanted to make is there is a temporary registration you can get for traveling. Though, not sure if this applies to your situation as you are trying to get it Cali to register, and mine was registered in Cali although the registration was expired at the time.

Worth looking into. See if Delaware may offer something similar. California has outrageous registration fees. Back on 2018 they charged me $700 to register my Expedition for 1 year!!! At that point I had no choice as I had just returned from Hawaii, and had driven to the DMV with an expired registration… didn’t want to drive anywhere else like that.

 

[SurfRaptor]

OK so I just got a text back. They are registering it in CA for me. The cost do do this is a $499 admin fee. The total is $1212. $1212 minus the Admin Fee is $713. Anyone know what the extra $713 fee is? Is it CA Registration like Current Registration, Current California Highway Patrol, Current Vehicle License Fee, Current Transportation Improvement Fee and a few others etc....

They use a company that guarantees it is done correctly so if this is all correct the only items I would have to pay for is the smog and weight? so an extra $800 on top of all of this?

 

[jdholder]

It's 90 days and 7500 miles to not pay CA Tax. But that assumes you can prove you paid tax and registration elsewhere. Look up Montana Vehicle Trust - and you will be amazed at the lengths some will go to to not pay CA anymore than they need.

 

[BoostCreep]

Did you have to pay more taxes at the DMV?

No, the IA dealer collected the CA taxes and paid the CA dmv. They slightly over collected so I received a check months later for $2-300.

 

[AxelR]

One of the things you will be asked have you had the vehicle more than 90 days if you say yes you don't pay sales tax. So think about that....

This is inaccurate

 

[AxelR]

Overall registering in CA will cost you 9-10% of the Vehicle purchase price.
So at $1212 or whatever you’ll still owe taxes, need to do SMOG and get a weigh in certificate ($15-20).
The DMV will most likely want to do a VIN check and that’s free.
It’s really easy, don’t sweat it. It just costs a ton of money.

 

[BaseRaptor]

Some dealers have reciprocal sales tax with other states, some do not.

 

[SurfRaptor]

Overall registering in CA will cost you 9-10% of the Vehicle purchase price.
So at $1212 or whatever you’ll still owe taxes, need to do SMOG and get a weigh in certificate ($15-20).
The DMV will most likely want to do a VIN check and that’s free.
It’s really easy, don’t sweat it. It just costs a ton of money.

It’s funny how this all started adding up and I’m still hoping for price protection. I posted a different thread on that.

 

[bruce7105]

I bought my 17 in Idaho dealer gave me a 30 day temp tag mailed all the paper work to my address to conform where it was being registered in California Dealer did not collect sales tax they can but i would still have to go to DMV to show the sticker under the hood, you have to get a smog check, and prove the weight{most on here say to get a certified scale weight but the paper work from Ford has the weight on it and that's all I had to show} Then pay your sales tax and your done.