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Just moved to HI, and a car I had just purchased is on its way from Florida. Bought from a used car dealership, its a 2013. Problem is the car is being shipped without any plates. The catch-22 on arrival is that it needs inspection before plates. So how could I get it inspected without plates short of paying a tow truck?? What do people do in this situation? I hope there is a temporary plate solution.
Ben
How long before you came to Hawaii did you buy your car? How long did the Florida DMV say you would get your plates, and is your plates being mailed to Hawaii from Florida? Do you have mail setup.
It might cost, but you could have your new car towed to your home of residence and wait for your plates to arrive. You would have to rent a car for a while. Would save on getting a ticket, and its a long process not having licence plates. Just a thought.
To add to the Hawaii card-stock-required-for-valid-insurance-cards comment, when I added my cars to my insurance policy it automatically generated the send-him-his-insurance-cards event, however later I realized it might not be very soon so I called them and they said they could have them printed and mailed that day if I requested to "rush" it. Yes, I requested it. I did receive my insurance cards on the required Hawaii card stock within 2 days from the "rush". I received my cards that were generated by the send-him-his-insurance-cards event about a week after that. At least USAA has the capability to speed the insurance card thing up. I don't know about other companies.
But to recap, "regular" insurance cards are not valid. Only the ones printed on Hawaii card stock are accepted by the vehicle registration people (often times called the DMV on the mainland) or the police. Anything else is just toilet paper.
I am moving from FLA to Oahu at the end of the month. Going through the process of selling the car before I leave. In FLA if you sell a vehicle and are not purchasing another at that time, you must turn in the plates. Plates stay with the person and not the car. Now this is for an Individual and not a dealer. For me its a pain, cause I gota sell the car out of town, rent a car, drive back and return the plates. I could do it by mail, but i want the headache over with, and really dont want something to go wrong and find out a month later my license is suspended etc..
I did complete this process and it went just like I expected. I drove the car (technically committing a traffic infraction) from the barge to the safety inspection place and got my "failed inspection due to no registration" certificate. Then I drove from the safety inspection place to my house a few miles away. Then using a different (legal) vehicle I took my OFFICIAL insurance card information ON HAWAII CARD STOCK, title documents, and checkbook to the registration office and stood in line. When my turn came I provided all documentation, wrote check, and received two plates and a registration sticker good for only 10 months (? not sure why). I drove back to house, put new plates on other car, and drove it back to the safety inspection place (technically committing a traffic infraction again) and got my permanent sticker. Now I'm legal. I risked getting tickets along the way, got shorted out of 2 months worth of registration fees, stood in line like what seemed like forever, basically the entire experience was bureaucracy and time/money wasting at it's finest. I'd say it took about 2.5-3.0 hours off my life that I'll never get back not counting commute times etc. If I had actually received a citation for driving the vehicle "illegally" when the only other option was getting it towed THREE TIMES (when there is nothing wrong with it...but as I was instructed, the only LEGAL way to do it...though in theory you could do it only getting towed twice if the safety place lets you leave your car there... but then you'd have to get a taxi or inconvenience a friend or relative... really no good option), the experience would have been much more expensive and frustrating.
But as it was... yes... FRUSTRATING. But much better than the 5 hours it took me to get my old out of state driver's license converted to Hawaii. That. Was. Epic:
I landed on this page via Google Search. Please, any updates on this? Thank you
I believe all of the DMVs have different hours due to COVID. You will probably need to call the County where you plan to register the car for current info.
"... Problem is the car is being shipped without any plates. The catch-22 on arrival is that it needs inspection before plates. So how could I get it inspected without plates short of paying a tow truck?? What do people do in this situation? I hope there is a temporary plate solution ..."
Am I supposed to create a new thread for what was asked already?
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