Car inspection - out of state

Do you need to even bother inspecting if you have out of state plates? I've heard that maybe AAA stations can inspect out of state vehicles...not sure how that works.

Up here if you want to re-register a car in a different province you need to have the vehical inspected for 100 $.

The 100 $ inspection fee aint so bad what sucks is when the vehical is not worth the thousands in repairs that are needed to get licensed so it would have been better to just sell it in the same province before moving home

this often happens when junior goes to college where they acquire a pile of junk vehical and moves home

You don’t need to have your car inspected if the out of state plates are still valid.

If you need an inspection to renew the out of state plates, generally you have to travel back to that state to get the inspection done. There may be some exceptions for students and military, but you’d have to research that yourself.

And, also, I’m not a lawyer, and it’s possible that this could vary depending on which states are involved, yadda yadda...

Oh, and if you are asking about getting it inspected prior to registering the car in your new state, yeah, that is usually required.

And different states have different rules about how long you can drive around with out of state plates.

Yeah, we have to renew registration and the car is 3k miles away. It's not coming back for an inspection. Registering there creates an insurance shitshow, so that's not happening.

I was looking at buying a vw van from a guy in CA and he couldn't register it in CA because he swapped to a subi motor and blah blah blah cali bs...but he said if you have out of state registration a AAA service station can inspect it. I looked on their site and didn't see anything. Guess I need to call someplace and see.

Hard to find info on this via google. Maybe I just suck at google.

In college I had a van registered at my parents place in NY but I was in AZ then CO. Since neither of them required any type of inspection at the time I ignored it and scraped the sticker off the windshield but then NY refused to renew the registration without it coming back for the inspection. I had no choice but to sell it or junk it if the reg ran out before it was up. I was pissed...

Maybe the van is old enough that it doesn't matter but CA requires a current smog certificate prior to sale. If smogging is part of the inspection process that's something to check.

I got a ticket for an expired out-of-state inspection years ago. Fought it and won but YMMV. Scraping the expired sticker would probably have prevented the ticket.

what year?

In NH no emissions tests after 20, however a safety inspection is still required AFTER registration.

skipping out on the inspection just means NH police pull you over for not having a sticker. hard to see that scenario playing out 3k miles away

I kind of switched gears here. It's not about the van, it's about a 2012 Outback.

The van comment was just pertaining to AAA stations and if they can inspect out of state vehicles somehow. If so, we'd be able to register here and get the Outback a NH inspection in CA. I don't see that being possible, but I'll make a phone call.

NH has emissions testing now?

Inspections are such a racket. One thing I do not miss living out here. Magically, people aren't dying all over the place due to unsafe vehicles.

After college, I had vehicle purchased in OR, with OR plates that had a registration valid for 2 years for like $40. Then moved up to Seattle where they charged you an excise tax based on the blue book value of the vehicle. I got insurance but didn't change the registration. When I moved to NJ, and was getting new insurance, the insurance guy did a double take, and when I explained to him my situation, he didn't miss a beat and sold me an insurance policy. I kept those OR plates on until they expired. I had a few unpaid parking tickets, and thought I get nailed when I was at DMV and registering the vehicle in NJ. Nope. So, yeah, I've got some unpaid parking tix in NJ.