Took delivery on July 31st from Universal City Mini here in Los Angeles and had not received the new plates. Been 2 months. Sent an email to the big "MA" and was told that I need to go to the DMV and show proof of insurance to pick up new plates. WHAT IS THIS? Never heard this garbage before. This is the responsibility of the dealer to obtain, or at least it has been throughout my buying experience throughout the years. They saw the proof of insurance at delivery. Sounds like a lazy "MA" to me. Any thoughts or opinions much appreciated.

 

With my MINI here in the Bay Area, it took about 8 weeks to get my plates.

 

If I'm remembering correctly my dealership (Downtown Mini in Orlando) even has a machine hooked into the DMV that printed out my new registration changing the existing info from my trade-in to the new car. They put my old plate on my new car.

Agreed, yours could have been more helpful.

 

We just received Skeeters CA plates with tabs in the mail on Saturday, still waiting for the personalized plates. But unless the DMV in you area is playing a new game, I would guess your
MA/finance officer did not complete the paper work correctly.
We have had issues when purchasing a new vehicle and dealers trying to transfer the personal plates, either they try to keep them, or we recieve an additional amount owing from DMV.

 

Hrmmmm....I do not understand at all why your dealership is sending you to the DMV. New car, no personalized plates, standard transaction - something is definitely fishy.

We've had 2 different scenarios in getting plates on our MINIs.

On LilTiger, the DMV sent me "standard" plates in 9 weeks. In the meantime, I had ordered personalized plates. They came in about 12 weeks later. So I did have to take my personalized plates in to the DMV, turn in my standard plates, and do the paperwork to have the VIN changed and a new registration card issued. But the dealership handled everything to get me the original set of standard plates.

More recently, my husband got a new R56 - and the dealership did the personalized plate transfer for us. In fact, we drove the new MINI off the lot with our personalized plates on it, and a new temporary registration sticker in the window. To have the dealership deal with the transfer cost us nothing more than a $60 check made out to the DMV. Last week, I got a $26 refund check from the DMV saying we'd overpaid for the plate transfer.

 

something is definately weird..... I have always gotten my plates within 30 days, with the MINI being no exception at 3 weeks.

 

Here in Mass, you are not allowed to drive your new car until you get your new plates. Dealers here have mini-registries within their offices, so they can provide same day plates. Its a nice feature.

 

make sure you have your mounting parts from the dealer! and that they put them on the way you want..consider your options on the front ones...you don't have to drill holes

 

I took delivery of my Mini in August from Southbay Mini, and got the license plates from DMV in about 4 weeks. It was so fast that I decided to leave them off for a few more weeks. I think your dealership did something wrong on the paper work so now you have to go "pick it up" yourself.

Years ago, the long license plates delay happened to me also. Turns out the new car I bought was sold to another person and the DMV recorded him as the owner. Dealership (Mitsubishi) told me that person never actually own the car and his payment didn't go thru, but somehow the paperwork got to DMV. So it ends up taking 3 months before we got the plates but at least the dealership went to pick up the plates from DMV and mailed them to us. I still think that the person actually got the car for a day or 2 but his payment didn't come thru, so he had to return the car, and the dealership still sold the car to us as new. I have no prove and the car was good, so we didn't really do anything about it.

 

Thank you all for your thoughts on this. I had already sent an email back telling them this was unacceptable to me. Nothing more received just yet. Looks like I may have to go over there and pound my shoe on the podium.

Going to the DMV for their mistake is not my job. We'll see what happens.

 

Yeah, that sounds like a load of BS. I got regular plates when I bought the car. No temporary plates at all! They put the stickers and everything on right at the dealer. I got my registration in the mail about 1 week later. All done!

 

Even with the refund, everything costs more in California. Of course, you earn lots more there, too.

Here in Oregon, it costs a measly $6 to transfer plates. The funny thing is that few people do. And with tags good for two years, it seems odd that more people don't.

 

it took the dmv 3 months to send my plate numbers!

 

Mine took about 2 months too, and I'm in SoCal...but dealer's responsibility for sure.

 

I'm at 2 months right now. Give it another 4 weeks?

I don't mind prolonging that "new car" aura if they're gonna force me!

 

IIRC, I showed my insurance info to MINI of Mountian View when I picked up the car. My plates arrived in the mail sometime later. Don't recall how long it took, but it was awhile.