Registering a SMB from out of state

[lbp]

I am wondering if anyone has had experience registering a newly purchased Sportsmobile if they live in a different state. I live in Massachusetts, but have family in California so my wife and I decided to work with SMB West to get a van. If all goes as planned, we will be picking the van up in February. The issue we have is with registering the van. This is a bit of a long story - apologies:

Due to COVID, we will be driving across the country, not flying. We'll visit my son's family in L.A. before picking up the van, and then after we have it, we plan to spend time with my daughter and partner and go to Yellowstone. We are trying to figure out how to deal with registration for the new van.

Apparently we would get a temporary registration from SMB, but only have a week to get permanent registration. If we register in Massachusetts before we leave, we'll only have 7 days to get the van inspected in Mass. We have an address we can use in California, and could try to register the van in CA, but don't have CA driver's licenses.

My question is - has anyone else purchased a new van through Sportsmobile and dealt with registering out of state, AND taken more than a week before returning to their home state?

Any thoughts / stories / experiences would be appreciated and welcomed!

lbp

[mikracer]

Does SMB sell you the van as a new, unregistered vehicle? Or are they selling it as a van they own/register?

[danbr]

We did this over the summer between CT and MA - bought a used Sportsmobile from an MA dealer. At that point in time, all the CT "temporary" deadlines were extended by either 90 or 180 days, so I was able to actually drive from CT to AZ and back before the temporary registration ran out :-). There's another level even to this - it took so long to get the temp tags in CT that we finally drove home from the dealership with dealer tags on the van, then it sat in our driveway while I waited for the CT temporary tags.



If you haven't done this already, I would check with the CA DMV and see if there are extensions on the temp registration due to the pandemic.

[simplesez]

colorado is 30 days.

Your question is state specific. CA issues the temporary registration so that is who you should research.

Don't forget you pay taxes when getting it to MA. Good Lord they aren't cheap.

[rumrunner73]

I drove on that temp permit for several weeks across many states then home , no hassles . registration was a breeze when I finally got around to getting plates. this was just last year this same time.

[rumrunner73]

My bank paid the taxes . SMB calculated the full amount for me . Cali did not have reciprocity with Washington state . I paid the the cali rate 8.5 i think . you can pick up in reno but the cost to pay SMB to drive it from fresno to reno was not worth it for me I think they wanted $600 $ .

[rumrunner73]

Your states vehicle registration has no idea about the vehicle till you register with them . It could be sitting on a flatbed truck for months , they dont care . Insure it and drive it till you get the time to figure out registration . getting pulled over in a bad ass SMB will normally be a conversation about your rig and where you are headed , not why you dont have plates yet ? especially a state your just passin through. Oh yeah just dont gett pulled over .

[rumrunner73]

unregistered , just like buying a new car off the lot

[simplesez]

Good Lord 8.5% on a SMB is a lot of coin

[rumrunner73]

Yep , $10000 in taxes