I purchased a new car from a dealer in New York city, and my registration will be in NJ. The dealer (Audi Manhattan) gave me the car with temp NY plate, with the understanding that they have applied for NJ registration, and will receive the plates in 3-4 weeks.
As of today, it has been 6 weeks and I have not received my NJ plates. The NY Temp registration has expired. The dealer is saying that the delay is due to NJ DMV, and I can still drive the car on the expired plates. The dealer has promised that in case I get pulled over and get ticketed, they will fight it and get it quashed.
I have not driven the car since the NY plates expired 2 weeks back, but I really need to use the car this week - is it okay to drive on expired temp registration (as said by the dealer)? Does it void my insurance?
Also, does anybody have information on how long NJ DMV is taking to process registrations for out of state dealers?
I had the same issue with a Tiguan I purchased in CT. The temp plates ended on March 27th, and I didn’t receive my plates until late May. After my 2nd call to the dealer, they verified that my paperwork was at the NJ DMV, and my car was “registered,” but they were delayed. I continued to drive the car without incident. It may have helped that the CT temp plate is a little different than NJ’s, and the date was partially obscured by the cheesy plastic covering it had.
So, I kept driving because I had a valid reason for not having the plates on the car, and I generally am not a worrier. Who knows if NJ’s DMV is still having major delays, but your issue seems about the norm during these strange times.
For out-of-state titles/registrations, dealers generally rely on an outside vendor, like DMV Nationwide. They charge a hefty fee that some dealers pass onto the buyer, and seem to be utterly inefficient and useless. There is no need for the process to take months, and the delay in your case is not because of the NJ DMV; it’s because of this vendor. If you walked into the NJ DMV yourself, you’d walk out with new plates the same day.
I’ve insisted on handling registration, etc., on my own for my two purchases this year for that reason–why should I pay an extra $200 to this useless vendor on top of the actual motor vehicle fees to wait 6 months for plates, and have to nag the dealer to send me (and charge me for) temp tags every month in the meantime (even though they promise they’ll just send them automatically–yeah, right)? I can go to the DMV and handle it all myself in minutes. The ultra long lines in my experience have been for driver transactions such as licenses and IDs; the vehicle transactions counters were pretty much empty and I didn’t have to wait at all. Both times, I’ve gone in and walked out with new plates in under half an hour.
Had I known about this delay, I would have definitely done the registration on my own. The dealer did charge me an extra $130 “out of state registration” charge, which I paid since I did not have the time at that time to go and do the registration myself - in hindsight I should have done it myself and saved the $130.
they can’t let you register on your own because its a liability issue for the finance company. If they gave everyone that option, I’m sure there would be a lot of unregistered vehicles driving around.
Why would the finance company care about registration, I would assume they would only care that the car is insured no? what would happen if I’m planning to not drive for a year, park the car in the garage, return the plates but keep insuring the vehicle, how is this a liability for the finance company?
I dunno. There are potential “liability issues” but they’re so remote, especially if the finance company has done its diligence and has a solid buyer with good credit, etc. The finance contracts have language under which the buyer agrees to pay all applicable taxes and registration fees. If the buyer fails to hold up their promise to do that and the car gets ticketed, or at worst impounded, the buyer is liable for that breach to the extent it somehow harms the finance company. The worst thing I can imagine happening from the finance company’s perspective is that the car gets impounded for not being registered, the buyer disappears, and the lender has to pay the impound fees to recover its collateral (i.e., the car). It’s not quite like mortgages, where simply agreeing to pay property taxes is not sufficient to protect the lender–a mortgagee’s failure to pay property taxes can result in a tax lien on the property that is senior to the lender’s lien such that the municipality can actually get title to the property free and clear regardless of the outstanding loan balance, and the lender’s only recourse is to go after the mortgagee to get its money back.
Mine took a little less than 3 months. The out of state dealership manager was very responsive. I had 3 temp tags before receiving my registration and plates. One thing I learned was that if you purchase out of state, you have to take your car and registration to an NJ inspection station to get the damn sticker. It was painful for me since I was traveling out of state for business.
