DMV screwed up our renewal

Just received the DMV registration renewal for our coach and jumped out of my chair when I saw Smog test required. Diesel powered vehicles are exempt from smog testing in CA. I just checked the CA DMV web site and confirmed this hasn't changed. We leave for a trip in the morning, so I'm going to have to deal with the DMV (groan) when we get home.

Methinks we're somehow caught in a smog test requirement by some counties.

Are you in the AAA (CAA)?  Use them if you are.  Much more pleasant than the DMV offices.

Good point Carl. We do belong to AAA, and I forgot about their DMV service. Hm... were's the nearest AAA office I wonder.

To the best of my knowledge my home state, Indiana, doesn't allow license plates to be issued or renewed by anyone other that the BMV (what its called here). Another example of why this state is considered "backward".
A few years ago they even changed the law so that dealers can't even get your new plates for you anymore.

Woody

When i bought my MH the bank handled my registration.  They overpaid my sales tax by $260.  It took me almost a year to get it back.  Good luck with the DMV. 

I'm not holding my breath 

RE: AAA (CAA)

Years ago I could renew my license at AAA

In another time and place I argue the needs for Trade Unions.  Well this is one of those mixed blessing things

Several years ago (in round figured 3 decades though I don't recall the exact year) the union, citing job security for the bargaining unit, convinced the state to de-authorize AAA as a license renewal center.

So now I can mail order them

IN fairness to the union.  The are several good and valid reasons to keep the issuing of registrations and licenses (Vehicles are "Registered" even if we call it a License Plate, it's a Registration Tag in the book, at least here)

And I've helped the state to deal with a few who, shall we say, ignored those reasons

(In Michigan the DMV is Secratary of State, so we say SOS, and there were a few SOS offices where if you did not have all the proper papers, say a title, you could hand your paperwork to the manager along with a couple of paper retangles that had portrats of dead presidents on them and he'd give you your registration anyway.. OF course those  presidential portraits went into HIS pocket, not the states.

Last I knew those managers were still dealing in license plates... but the manufacturing end, not sales.

As I said, I had something to do with assisting them in changing jobs)

As far as I'm concerned the ONLY good thing the state of Indiana has going WRT the BMV is the fact that you can renew plates online orat a computer terminal at the branch. Fast and easy if you have a credit or debit card.
The terminal at the branch spits out a new sticker or gives you a TEMP sticker if you need an entirely new plate and then mails the plate to you.

Woody

We took off for several weeks and didn't worry about this issue until we returned home. I talked with several smog test stations, all of which confirmed what I thought (knew), i.e. there is no current smog testing requirement for diesel powered vehicles in California. I then called the DMV, waited for a live person to get on the phone, and discovered the dealer had incorrectly registered the coach as gas powered.

I asked how we get it changed and heard "that's going to be a hassle"; I could take the coach to the DMV for a vehicle verification, or find a CHP officer who is "certified" to do vehicle verifications. This morning we visited the DMV in another town at our appointed time. Waited 30 minutes, then watched the employee searching through books, apparently trying to find a listing for Monaco. He asked who made the engine, but didn't seem to have heard of Cummins.

After he scratched his head and his butt several times, I offered a copy of the original manufacturer's sticker and pointed out the line that says "Cummins ISC 350 turbo diesel". He highlighted that line, stapled it to my paperwork, took my money, and handed over my tags. Didn't make any attempt to go outside and "verify" the coach.

Here's the rest of the story ....

Concerned that the storage lot might not be open when we were ready to leave for the DMV this morning, we took the coach out of storage yesterday and parked it in the street. Someone had parked a truck in front of our house, so I parked the coach outside a neighbor's house. Less that 2 hours later Chris was leaving the house, came back in and said "there's a yellow sticker on the coach". I went to check it out and, sure enough, there was a yellow sticker reminding me it couldn't be there more than 72 hours.

I grabbed the sticker, headed into the house and picked up the phone book. Moments later, my neighbor walked in, and was about to say "I just called the sheriff about this motorhome parked outside my house" (He was kidding, but didn't know about the yellow sticker.)

I called the sheriff and talked with a lady who announced "I'm the sergeant". I politely asked what the sticker was all about and she told me that folks were parking RVs everywhere instead of in storage lots, and she'd instructed officers to put stickers on every one they saw. I explained about my morning DMV appointment and that the coach had been on the street less than two hours. She told me not to worry about it, put the sticker back on the coach, and be sure to move it (the coach) to a different location before the 72 hours was up. The "different location" had to be more than a foot away from the original location.
[edit]Fixed typos.[/edit]

There's always a silver lining ...

After our last trip, we'd put the coach away without having filled the tank. On our return from the DMV today, we stopped at the local Safeway and topped up. Chris' Safeway Club card got us $0.50/gallon discount. As a result, our diesel was $1.599/gallon.

So you could just move your RV a foot every 3rd day and be legal.  Only in California

So you could just move your RV a foot every 3rd day and be legal.

Click to expand...

No, it has to be more than a foot  ;D

Meanwhile, there's a sign as you enter Discovery Bay that says "no trailers or RVs parked on streets longer than 3 hours".

Separately, we received a visit and a notice from a county enforcement officer about a small boat trailer (sans boat) parked in our side yard; The notice quoted the then newly clarified building code stating that no trailer or RV could be more than 80% visible from the street.

As you correctly said, only in California.

Ned said:

So you could just move your RV a foot every 3rd day and be legal.  Only in California

Click to expand...

Let's say you were a city and had a problem with people abandoning junk cars and other vehicles on the street.  Compounding that was the problem of other people using the street to dead storage  vehicles.   If you prohibit "abandoning" or "dead storage" you would have to identify that in a manner that was capable of enforcement by a traffic officer.  Appearance and condition is an iffy proposition given that California has mild winters and little salt on the road so that cars can be driven for decades without rusting away. 

So what do you do?  Simple, you write a law that says a vehicle can be parked on the street for only a short period of time and then must be moved.  Now you can simply have your officer chalk the tires and come back at the end of the period.  If it has moved according the chalk mark, well and good, it is not abandoned or in dead storage.   If not, then the officer can call the tow truck with a clear conscience.  How long is a short time?  Well how about 3 days.

Is this a legitimate municipal concern?  Sure is, things like broken windows, littered alleys, and abandoned cars are a sure indicator, and aggravating factor, of disorderly behavior in a neighborhood.    There are a raft of studies on the matter.

FWIW the 72 hours in this case refers to a provision in our local (vehicle?) code allowing RVs to be parked in the street beyond the aforementioned 3 hour limit, for the purpose of "loading and unloading". We don't have a problem locally with abandoned vehicles, although we'll occasionally see partially-sunken boats on the Delta that have apparently been abandoned because the owners didn't have insurance, or at least didn't have insurance that covers salvage operations.

Tom,

We went through all that stuff on the other side of the bay from you and that is why when we moved we had a motorhome garage built that is attached to the house.  I have empathy for you...sorry.  It's very frustrating.

In my opinion the perfect house would have both an attached MH garage and a covered boathouse!!!

JerArdra said:

In my opinion the perfect house would have both an attached MH garage and a covered boathouse!!!

Click to expand...

and a horse stable..... and a plane hanger... and

Understood Jerry. A number of our near-neighbors have attached RV garages, obviously designed into the home plans. However, since we chose to buy an existing home, and since the lots here are quite small, it wasn't possible for us to add an RV garage. We could have bought two adjacent lots for a ridiculous amount of money, but we preferred to have the convenience of deep water at our back door and proximity to fast water. We did this with the knowledge that we'd be storing the RV at a remote commercial lot.

FWIW when we bought our prior home, we selected a large lot with good side access, and I put down a 40' x 15' concrete pad, which was ample for our 29 foot Pace Arrow. (More correctly, Chris and I put down that concrete pad and the 20,000 lbs of baserock beneath it.)

BTW I hope you realize that several of my messages in this topic are written with what someone once called "Tom's odd Welsh wit"; He was trying to explain to members in another forum that they shouldn't take my written words too literally. I often try to see the humor in some unnecessarily bureaucratic and maybe frustrating situation, while injecting some self-deprecating humor. Over the years, this has complemented my formal communications in the business world, and continues to provide comic relief from some of the stuff that keeps me up all night. Sometimes it backfires.

If I could draw, I'd do what Scott Adams of Dilbert fame does; He's able to capture this stuff far more effectively in 3 cartoon boxes. If you ever get a chance to listen to Scott talk, he's hilarious, and his talks are quite insightful when he explains his process.

Ned said:

So you could just move your RV a foot every 3rd day and be legal.  Only in California

Click to expand...

Nah 13 inches would do it. ;D

Well Carl, that leave a loophole big enough to drive Tom's motorhome through, every 3 days