California Registration Penalties

[roman415]

I am about to buy a used Tesla in California from Tesla.

California has a tool where you can figure out fees associated with a used vehicle: Vehicle Registration Fee Calculator

Keying in every VIN I've tried, many vehicles aren't registered for the current year (in most cases, it's 4-6 months overdue) and consequently has several hundred dollars in penalties. That means that if I buy a used vehicle from Tesla, I will have to pay both the registration for the current year, while only getting approximately 6 months of use out of it both about $330 in penalties because Tesla didn't register it. Between the penalties and paying for registration during the time (registration fees being about $750, and this being half of that) I didn't own the car, that's about $750 or so.

Is this something Tesla will cover or is this just something you should expect to pay? Anybody have experience with this?

 

[four-walling]

The available cars might be sold out of state which makes the fees mute.

 

[diplodocus]

Interesting. I just tried two, currently visible via ev-cpo. 5YJSA4H25FF088542 was fine, but 5YJSA1E20FF116623 had $339 in penalties tacked on. I live in California. 116623 is located in California. Looks to me like if I want to buy it, I'd have to eat those penalties. Between this and the apparent horror of the CPO process, I'm starting to feel uneasy about my plan to buy a "CPO" MS later this year. OTOH, there's the car....my God, the car......

 

[BPeter]

That doesn't make sense, cars owned by dealers don't have to be registered do they?

 

[roman415]

The available cars might have been sold out of state which makes the fees mute.

That's a good point although my guess is the vast majority of California used teslas get sold and registered by Californians.

Interesting. I just tried two, currently visible via ev-cpo. 5YJSA4H25FF088542 was fine, but 5YJSA1E20FF116623 had $339 in penalties tacked on. I live in California. 116623 is located in California. Looks to me like if I want to buy it, I'd have to eat those penalties. Between this and the apparent horror of the CPO process, I'm starting to feel uneasy about my plan to buy a "CPO" MS later this year.

It's sleazy because Tesla is essentially misleading people about the price, but it's usually a difference of less than a thousand bucks. That's not necessarily a make or break kind of thing, but it's something to consider.

 

[roman415]

That doesn't make sense, cars owned by dealers don't have to be registered do they?

Great question I don't know the answer to. Might be Tesla dropped the ball on this one somewhere.

 

[cwerdna]

That doesn't make sense, cars owned by dealers don't have to be registered do they?

Doesn't seem like it, at least for California.

I bought a used '13 Leaf in mid-July 2015 from a used car dealer that won it at a Manheim auction (was a 2 year lease return). My registration always seems to start and end with 6/24 (e.g. 6/24/2018 to 6/24/2019). So, when I had to pay registration as part of buying the car used, I really had to pay for some of the time it wasn't in my possession.

I'm not sure if I ended up paying any penalties due to this.