Hey SoCalers,

The midwestern winter has broken my spirits and I'm in talks with my company to relocate to our LA office.

I know that MINIs are certified for CA emissions, but what is the procedure (and costs) for registering an out-of-state car? I'm guessing I'll have to get it smogged, but is it overall a difficult process?

And for non-car related issues, the office is in downtown LA. I'm not big on commutes, and I've been hearing about the downtown renaissance. So, are there actually things to do downtown that make it a decent place to live?

 

Welcome to SoCal! We have a great community of MINI owners and you should feel welcome in about 10 minutes! Not a great bunch of wavers out there but there are some of us who still do! So wave away!

Now on to business:

here is the page for figuring out your fees:

https://mv.dmv.ca.gov/FeeCalculatorW...esidentForm.do

and here is the frequently asked questions section:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/fee_calc/feecalcfaq.htm

It really isn't that difficult a process, just time consuming. I go to the DMV office about thrity minutes before closing and get a number. That way I know I'll only wait 30 minutes or so. If you go during the day it'll take you forever.


As far as living in LA, can't help ya there. I do know I love visiting there. Although I live far away from LA, according to LA standards.

 

yeah, once the state realized how wrong it was to charge sales tax on cars purchased outside of the state even years earlier it has gotten a lot less cost prohibitive to bring in an out of state vehicle. The tax was on the value of the car you paid, and it did not matter when or where you purchased it, they charged you a sales tax for bringing it into the state. I had to deal with that once.

As for living in LA, I am next to the airport, and don't go downtown too often. However there have been some recent new condos that have gone in. I still don't know if I would live directly downtown, but there are plenty of areas surrounding that would result in a very short commute.

 

First question.. I don't know much about registering an out-of-state car. My bf Dave brought his first MINI to CA from CO sometime in 2003 (?) so he might be able to help you out with this question once he gets home from work later this evening.

Second question.. There are plenty of things to do in Downtown LA. Although most of my time is usually spent trying to figure out the one-way streets , I have spent some time trying out restaurants and doing some shopping downtown as well. If you're into shopping, the garment district and jewelry district are located in Downtown LA. There's also the Staples Center and the Performing Arts Center (which houses the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theatre, and Disney Concert Hall)..

The first housing development that comes to mind when I think of Downtown LA is Santee Village, but that's only because they were offering a promotion last December wherein each new buyer would get a free 3yr lease of a MINI Cooper. I believe Santee Village is made up of lofts but you can check out more info on santeevillage.com. I know they've been building tons of condos in Downtown LA lately so housing is available.. I don't know if they're affordable, but they're definitely available.

Oh and just in case you're wondering, I live in West LA.. which is about 15-20 mins (on a good day) away from Downtown LA on the 10 freeway.

 

Ah. . . Venice and Naples to the south. . . Long Beach harbor/aquarium/Queen Mary. . . Pasadena- awesome night life and the Doo Dah parade! Ventura and Solvang less than 2 hours away on a light traffic day. . . You will be SO busy doing tons of fun stuff!

HINT: Don't be confused when you ask how far away things are, we don't tell you in miles. MILES ARE MEANINGLESS!!!!!
If you want to go to Long Beach (15 miles away or so), it will take you 15 minutes on a Sunday at 3:30 am. It will take you 1 hour Friday at 5:00 pm.
So distance = hours factored by time of day and which day. Can someone come up with a mathematical formula for that?????

 

Many, many of the reasons why I really want to make this move happen. I just need my corporate overlords to come to an agreement.

My grandparents live in the area, so I've spent a week or two in LA, about every summer, since '90. Solvang might be more interesting to me now than it was when I was 12 . They're no help on location info, though, as they've lived in the Valley since the '60s. Everything over the hill is dangerous, according to them .

 

Just outside of Solvang is a wonderful wine area (featured in the film Sideways). The Valley is "safe?" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! All of L.A./SoCal would seem dangerous to some folks, I guess...

You'll love it here, especially if you don't have to make a big commute to work.

 

los feliz/silver lake/echo park is only 15-30 mins from DTLA.
Plenty of lofts in downtown now but pricey.
night time is hit or miss these days in downtown, still a lot of vagrants but lots and lots of new venues. a new art district off of main street.
chinatown is pretty close too.
i dont know what type of person you are but if you're game there's highland park which has lots of nice spaces and lots of nice spaces with heavy gang activity.
south pasadena is great. there's really lots and lots of things to do within reach of downtown

GL on the car registration thing

 

Registering a car is no biggie. Finding someplace to live will be much harder.

 

As I recall when I moved to California, you have to go to a smog station and get your car smogged. As I also recall they can run a vin check for you at the smog station. Then you take both of those to the DMV (make an appointment to cut your wait time) and you have to do an inspection at the DMV. Then you pay your registration fee and get your plates. You'll probably want to handle your license on or before the time you handle your registration.

Keep in mind that if you have mod'd your car that you'll need CARB stickers for your engine related mods. Cat-back exhausts are fine, but if you have a non-CARB approved intake, you may want to consider just reinstalling your factory airbox.

 

Shoot. I forgot all about that. The Alta CAI still doesn't have a CARB sticker yet, right? I mangled the hell out of my stock airbox during the install, so I don't know what I'll do.

 

Hey Silver Bullet, after a few months here you'll get spoiled with our weather. So much so that, you'll whine about how "cold" it is when the temps drop to upper 50s.

Chicago vs L.A.:
- Road salt (in its place will be smog)
- Goose Island (in its place Anchor Steam)
- Sound of the 'L' (do I hear helicopters)
- Italian beef sandwiches (well . . . there's just no good replacement here)

 

From an emissions standpoint, the CAI isn't a problem. It's the visual inspection that could cause issues. That said, I suspect there are measurement stations that are friendlier than others.

And welcome to CA AgBul8.

 

Dave has everything just about covered. I moved to Irvine from Indiana and it was fairly painless to get the MINI moved over. I have a 15% pulley (no intake at the time) and the guy doing the smog check/inspection didn't mention it, but it's tucked away pretty well so I wasn't really expecting a problem.

The worst part of the experience was someone running a red light and hitting my car on the way to the DMV :/. Talk about bad timing.

 

What would happen if I left the intake there and just hoped that it would pass the visual inspection? It's not as severe as, say, removing the cat, right? Would I then just fail, put the old box back on, and give it another go? Or are there fines for trying to trick the system?

Looks like I'll miss Chicago emissions testing as much as the Italian Beef. We get a 4-year new car waiver, then every 2 years after that they hook the OBD to the diagnostic machine just to make sure it works, not even sniffing the exhaust.