Hi Everyone. My Wife and I are finally ready to pull the trigger on a clubman, and we live in california. The only problem is we want to take advantage of the 0.9 % so ordering is out of the question. The car that closest matches is in seattle. I have never purchased a car from out of state and brought into CA. Has anyone ever tried this? Also the dealership has a 500 markup... I didn't know they still did this on clubmans. Looking forward to motoring.

Cheers,
Ben

 

I am from Ca and the rule is you can not register a motor vehicle in Calif. Unless it has 7500 miles on it. I wanted a new Corvette a few years back and could have saved $3000 by getting it from a dealer in another state. Called DMV and was told were no exception. Pretty stupid rule, something about forcing. people to buy in Ca.

 

A markup in Seattle is pretty common as we only have two dealers in the entire state. If you take into account WA, OR, MT, ID, and AK we have three total. The dealers take advantage of the situation.

Oddly enough, I bought my JCW (used) out of LA and brought it back to Seattle.

Good luck! If there is anything someone local can do to help let me know.

Todd

 

Huh? Many people have bought brand new cars out of state. Why would they not allow it? You are still paying tax on the sale price when you register the car in your county. You should just need the Certificate of Origin to do this. The vehicle should already have CA emissions since MINI's should be 50 state legal. Not to mention the fact that CA emmissions should be standard on almost every vehicle in the US by now since it is not much more to do it. However, I would check with DMW just to make sure.

http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr29.htm

 

Very simple . I bought mine from a dealer in NY. I had it shipped here and all I had to do was take it to a CA smog station to get a CA smog certificate and then take the paperwork to the DMV. You will only pay sales tax in CA. I sent my wife in with my paperwork as I was working at the time and when i got home I had a pleasant surprise . I looked at the register in my check book and noticed that the amount of sales tax / registration was a lot lower than I had calculated .For some reason the clerk somehow only focused on the base price which was about the mid 18,000 range and not the bottom line which was $ 26,000 + . Now for the past 9 years this mistake has replayed itself with a lower figure than what it should have been for each new registration tag. I think I have more than paid for the $ 1500 it cost me to ship the car here in the first place . Good luck with your deal its not that hard , the dealership should be able to give you a step by step plan .

Randy
M7 tuning

 

HI Everyone. I was planning on having a nice road trip back down from seattle, but the MA advised me that might not be a good idea since the car needs a break in period and a long distance at constant speed & rpms might be bad for the long term health of the engine, so it looks like it will just be trucked down :-(

 

Take 101 down the coast. You'll have variable speeds doing that route. Just plan to makes stops, see the sites, etc.

Todd

 

+1

What he said. Make a vacation of it and stay off the interstates. Wow, a chance to drive a new Mini down the pacific coast.............

 

+2

It is the perfect scenario for breaking in a new car!

 

Route 1 thru Carmel , Big Sur etc. voted one of the ten best drives by Car and Driver Magazine . I've done it a few times Do IT