California Body Type ( BTM) Codes

After over a year my truck was totalled the DMV finally ran my paperwork and I officially have a salvage title. One of the final steps was having to take my truck down to th DMV and have them do a VIN Verification. I was dumb enough to take my truck down to the DMV with my camper mounted. The DMV employee right off the bat started saying she was going to categorize my truck as a PM (pick w/ camper mounted) instead of the PK (pickup) it was always coded as. I got into a pretty good argument with her saying my truck is separate from the camper and the camper can be removed at anytime. After a heated argument another employee came out and agreed it was a pickup, but said it should be labeled as a VA (all other commericial vehicles). It looks like I should have let her label it as a PM because this is in the Automobile category and is exempt from the high weight fees I have to pay. Registration for my truck every year is $338 and $257 of that is the Weight fee. By coding my truck as a PM I would only have to pay $81 a year! I guess The only catch is I would have to leave the camper on the truck all the time, or risk getting pulled over if an officer sees there is no camper in the back. So for those of you that leave your campers on all the time you are able to re-categorize your truck as a PM and not have to pay the high weight fees California charges.