New car buying out of resident state

We are Full timers our current vehicles are registered in NY. We will be in California until year end '14. We don't plan to be in NY again for at least a year. We wanted to buy a new Jeep Wrangler here and transfer our current Jeeps NY plates and registration to the new vehicle. I talked to several dealers in California and most have told me it can't be done. One told me we would have to buy the car, follow the dealer to Nevada, take possession of the car there then drive him back to Cal. I know when we re in Florida last year two people from out of state bought new cars there and returned to the RV park with their original plates.
Can anyone give some insight specific to Cal. and NY

It is  possible in most states, but I'm not sure about California. Call the CA DMV and ask directly. Then call the NY DMV and ask about procedures for transferring tags on an out-of-state purchase.

The dealers are giving you instructions about taking delivery without paying CA tax, but many states have a procedure for bypassing that for a vehicle that will be removed from the state promptly (which usually means within 30 days).

Florida is used to dealing with part-time residents and the DMV procedures are well established to accommodate them. CA is an entirely different story and not known for being flexible in their procedures for anything. I wouldn't get my hopes up. You might have to take delivery out of state as suggested, then title & register it in NV or AZ until you get back to NY. Then transfer tag & title when you get there.

In California and some other states, the license plates always stay with the car.  Other states transfer the plates between old and new cars, but California does not and never did in the 39 years we lived there.  If you buy a new vehicle in California you'll get new California license plates.  Once you take the vehicle to New York or wherever you can turn in the California plates for the new state's plates.

The delivery outside of California is to avoid paying California's state sales tax.  It used to be that you could take delivery of a new vehicle out of state, stay out of the state for six months (with lots of records to prove it), and not have to pay the new vehicle sales tax because it was considered a used vehicle after six months.  We did this with one motorhome.  The law was changed a few years ago and you now have to remain out of the state for one year to avoid the sales tax.

In some respects, this is an apples vs. oranges situation.  The license plates and sales tax rules are being treated as one.  Because you're not from California the dealer probably thinks you don't want to pay the California sales tax and because you want to keep you own state's license plates it's confusing him.  The license plate rules are set by California's Dept. of Motor Vehicles, but the sales tax rules are set by the California's taxing Board of Equalization.  I'm guessing that most people who take out-of-state delivery are Californians who want to avoid paying the sales tax.

ArdraF

In California to not pay the sales tax you must take out of state delivery. When I bought a vehicle in CA I paid the sales tax in California and when I registered in Nevada I had to pay the difference between CA sales tax in Orange County which was lower than the sales tax in Nevada by 0.5%. So I paid 7.8% in CA and I had to pay an additional 0.5% in Nevada for a total of 8.3% sales tax.