We are looking at new motorhomes and searching the internet I find great savings out of state. We live in southern California with limited RV dealers in our immediate area.What Are the pitfalls of buying out of state? I hear stories on the forum and dealer reviews about taking an RV in for waranty and service and being told to take it where you bought it. Plus what are the registration and licensing issues? I assume all vehicles now comply with Calif emissions standards??

The DMV website has complete and correct info on buying an out-of-state vehicle. DMV site I cannot get the link to the correct page to work here. Go to Vehicle Registration, then "Buying and Selling," then "Buying an Out-of-State Vehicle."Pay special attention to registration issues and to sales tax issues.I just copied this off that linked DMV site: "If you are a California resident and acquire a new car, truck, or motorcycle from another state, it must be certified to meet California smog laws to be registered in California. This includes certain diesel-powered vehicles. DMV cannot accept an application to register a vehicle in California that does not qualify for registration (California Health and Safety Code §§43150 - 43156).What Is Considered a New Vehicle?California considers any vehicle with less than 7,500 miles on the odometer at the time of purchase or trade by a California resident or business, to be a new vehicle. This is true whether or not the vehicle has been registered in another state.Aren't All Vehicles California Certified?Not all new vehicles are manufactured to be sold in California. Many manufacturers make vehicles to be sold only in the other 49 states. These vehicles (49-state) are made with smog equipment that meets federal emission standards, but not California standards. California-certified (50-state) vehicles are made to be sold in California."

Find a local RV place that will honor warranty work prior to buying the unit. If you get their assurance then you shouldn't have a problem. And yes, you might have smog issues buying out of state. Taxes are calculated for California so that shouldn't be an issue. You might find a local dealer willing to match price or come close.

I,ve bought three MH out of state and have had no problems with service. it is a good sales pitch for dealers to tell you ,they won,t service it, but most do .money is money.

We purchased our Class C MH while in NJ. We live in GA. We did no pre-planning as we did not expect to buy the Motorhome while in NJ. We had been looking for a long time, but we went to NJ for a wedding and ended up buying a new MH while we were there.We financed the Motorhome. The dealer collected sales tax and then gave us a check made out to our County's tax collector to give them when we registered it. (in our county, the Tax Commissioner does both Property Tax collection and Vehicle Registration) He told us if we had paid cash, they wouldn't have charged us sales tax and that we would just settle up with GA when we went to register it. In NJ, they do not tax document and licensing fees, however in GA, they do so we had to pay another $18 or so when we registered the MH in GA.The nearest Jayco Dealer to us is about 2 hours away in St. Augustine, FL. When we contacted them about warranty work, the service rep did not say they wouldn't do it, but he did say they were really busy and it would be a few weeks before they could look at it. I took that to mean they didn't want to do it. We contacted the next local dealership about 3.5 hours away in North Charleston, SC. They were great and handle our warranty service promptly. It stunk having to drive that far, but Charleston is a great city so we made a day of it when we dropped it off and picked it up.I have heard plenty of folks say they have had issues with their local dealer not wanting to do warranty work on a RV bought elsewhere. That was not the case for us fortunately. The FL dealership didn't flat our refuse.If you know what manufacturer you want to buy from, it might be worth taking the quote you get out of state to your local dealer and see if they will match it or come close. If the difference isn't much more than gas money/travel costs to pick up out of state, it would probably be worth it to buy locally. If they can't, at least find out if they would honor warranty work on it.-Michael

We purchased both of our motor homes out of state and in both cases, it was a real ordeal and I probably wouldn't do it again. Dealing with California DMV (and probably many other states) is always an act of frustration. Many agents have no idea what it takes to register a motor home, especially a diesel one. You can talk to one agent and get one story and then another agent in the same office will have a different story. Our first coach was purchased in Arizona and the dealer told us that if we paid the Arizona sales tax, that when we got back to California to register and if the California taxes were less (which we knew they were) we would be reimbursed the difference. Turned out that was a total lie and we lost about $1000 on that deal. The agents at our local DMV had no clue on what smog laws our DP motor home had to conform to. It literally took months to straighten out that fubar. We had to have the motor home inspected by several different people and we received two different sets of license plates. Unbelievable.On our second (and current) coach, we did all of our paperwork in Oregon, paid CA sales tax and registration fees and then the dealer sent all the paper to the Sacramento DMV office and they promptly lost them. When we got back to CA, we didn't received any new license plates and contacted the local DMV. They insisted we start from scratch, pay the sales taxes and registration fees again (we're talking many thousands of dollars here folks). We contacted our dealer in Oregon and they in turn contacted the Sacramento DMV. Between the two of them, they were able to find the original paper work and informed us that our duplicate taxes and registration fees would be refunded to us. Several months later and many more calls to Sacramento DMV, they finally did reimburse us.On top of all this, the local DMV insisted that they physically inspect the motor home to insure it complied with current smog laws. The tag on the engine that proves this is located down on the front of the engine and since I have a rear radiator, I had to remove the hatch in the bathroom floor to gain access to the engine. It was quite a site seeing that, shall we say overweight, lady agent laying on the bathroom floor with her head and shoulders down in the engine compartment. At least that gave me a little payback.It took us almost six months to get everything straightened out with our first motor home and four months for the second one.Ron

Buy out of state | Good Sam Community

midnightsadie
Explorer II
Apr 26, 2015
I,ve bought three MH out of state and have had no problems with service. it is a good sales pitch for dealers to tell you ,they won,t service it, but most do .money is money.
guidry
Explorer
Apr 26, 2015
Find a local RV place that will honor warranty work prior to buying the unit. If you get their assurance then you shouldn't have a problem. And yes, you might have smog issues buying out of state. Taxes are calculated for California so that shouldn't be an issue. You might find a local dealer willing to match price or come close.
Tiger4x4RV
Nomad
Apr 26, 2015
The DMV website has complete and correct info on buying an out-of-state vehicle. DMV site I cannot get the link to the correct page to work here. Go to Vehicle Registration, then "Buying and Selling," then "Buying an Out-of-State Vehicle."

Pay special attention to registration issues and to sales tax issues.

I just copied this off that linked DMV site:

"If you are a California resident and acquire a new car, truck, or motorcycle from another state, it must be certified to meet California smog laws to be registered in California. This includes certain diesel-powered vehicles. DMV cannot accept an application to register a vehicle in California that does not qualify for registration (California Health and Safety Code §§43150 - 43156).
What Is Considered a New Vehicle?

California considers any vehicle with less than 7,500 miles on the odometer at the time of purchase or trade by a California resident or business, to be a new vehicle. This is true whether or not the vehicle has been registered in another state.
Aren't All Vehicles California Certified?

Not all new vehicles are manufactured to be sold in California. Many manufacturers make vehicles to be sold only in the other 49 states. These vehicles (49-state) are made with smog equipment that meets federal emission standards, but not California standards. California-certified (50-state) vehicles are made to be sold in California."

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