Wading through Car Dealer’s ummm, “Truths”? (1 Viewer)

Mary,

It might be helpful if you posted what state, province, or country you are in.

Laws on this vary widely throughout the US and some of your expressions, "go through sales to get it sorted" indicate you may be in the UK or Australia?

In California, new cars are delivered with temporary registration tags taped to the front or back glass, and the plates arrive in the buyer's mail a few weeks later. Month of registration is invariably the month in which the car was delivered.

Some how I had a feeling you were in Texas before you even posted that you were. I ran into the same issue on my registration but my inspection is correct. I factory ordered my vehicle so this isn't an issue of the vehicle being registered when it's delivered. Looking at the paper work attached to the registration sticker shows the correct date of registration and at the same time shows the expiration date to be one month early so the problem is with DPS. I called DPS since I'm getting shorted a month and they told me "this is acceptable" to which I replied "Acceptable to who? This is not acceptable to me". Eventually they gave me some BS about the fee being prorated for 11 months, but they wouldn't tell me what the fee would be for 12 months for me to confirm their story. When the time to renew the registration comes up I plan on going through the pain in the rear line at my local DPS office to try and straighten this out, since I'm of the opinion that the registration sticker should match when the vehicle was registered.
As to your inspection sticker, that shouldn't have been done till the vehicle was sold to the best of my knowledge. So it should match the month of your purchase date. One way to check this is to look at the vehicles on the lot when you go to the dealership. If all the cars on the lot already have inspection stickers on them then maybe they do get applied at delivery. If the new cars on the lot don't have inspection stickers on them then I would start ripping into the dealership management.

I am confused (a normal occurance) did you buy the car or lease it?

in Ohio, the registration of a new car starts when you get the title (or memo title if you have a loan) in the mail and you go to the registrars office and register your car for normal license plates, you would have gottten a temp tag from the dealer
if you traded in another car, they would have just taken the plates off your old car and put them on the new car and you would be on your way

Your License plates always expire on your birthday so it really does not matter when you buy the car, all your plates are going to expire on the same day

Eric,
No reason to be confused, Texas doesn't handle registration and inspections the same way Ohio does. I'll go ahead and try to clarify the differences.

buy the car or lease it? You would have gotten a temp tag from the dealer if you traded in another car, they would have just taken the plates off your old car and put them on the new car and you would be on your way.

Again to some degree not in Texas. You have the option of having the dealer register your vehicle and getting your plates, or you can do it yourself. Also you have to option of using your old plates or getting new ones. This applies to vehicles purchased or leased, trade in or not. Since most people don't like going through the hassle of waiting in line at the DPS office, most people have the dealership handle it, so you get new plates. And since the license plates get their style updated frequently most people want the newest style license plate also.

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When I bought my VW in Texas I noticed the inspection was several months old. I assume it was inspected when it arrived on the lot. The registration was done when I bought the car. How that could end up being a month old doesn't make much sense so I would definitely talk to the sales manager and find out what's going on.

As a result of the car being inspected when it was delivered, I now have to deal with those things a few months apart. Although I did come up with a way of extending the inspection. Wait until just after the inspection expires, then get it done. I went from October to November, and next year I'll wait til December. The risk of getting a ticket for an expired inspection over the course of a few days is pretty slim.

In Missouri its up to you to take your receipt to the DMV and get the registration and pay your taxes. Your given about a month to do it, and you can also move your plates from one car to the other when you trade it in. I don't think its required to have an inspection sticker on new cars for the first two years at all.