Hi all. I must be doing this wrong. I'm trying to get a sense of what the vehicle registration will be for a car I am thinking about. I don't have the license number but I have the VIN # which I put acquired from as "purchase", today's date as purchase date, and purchase price. I put in my county and zip code. I even try different dates to see if that does anything.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/FeeCal...VehicleFees.do

I get this error message:
Unable to determine registration fees due. No matching record.

This tells me that the car has to be purchased before it can determine what the registration fees are?

 

Try this one out for an approximation - note that it accepts cars of any vintage:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/wasapp/FeeCalculatorWeb/newVehicleForm.do

 

They both should give an estimate. I am not sure why the used car link does not work either. I just tried it and got the same error message.

 

Call the CA DMV and ask what the Property tax fees are, and the highway use tax fee percentages are and the tag/tile/paperwork fees are.

SC uses NADA book value for the value of the car. Then for property tax they use that number and the percentage and that was my fee. 05 DB9--- value 52k--$669 for the tax. Then the DMV hit me up for the other fees which were $339 plus the personalized tag fee of $54 after the fact. NC uses 3% of selling price minus trade, plus $45 for other.

Hope that explains a bit

 

My understanding is that there are two mandatory fees, when you buy a new or a used vehicle:
1) sales tax on where the car is shipped
2) vehicle registration fee, basically for your license plates

Everything else is bogus and markup. When I purchased my new car, the dealer charged me license and registration and it seemed like there was a slight mark up compared to what the DMV link was telling me what my car should have costed based on the price. Probably a little administrative fee built into that for the convenience of the dealer registering my new car for me.

Now I am buying a used car for the first time. I notice that Florida adds "dealer fees" from $400 that they claim is mandatory. Am I still responsible for title and vehicle registration on my own? I thought that's what the $400 covers. Or is that just a bogus and just another way of making money? Or is it just Florida fees?

 

Big picture-if you're going to be driving in Aston Martin, you can probably afford whatever you are legally responsible to pay in California! So an extra three or four dollars shouldn't sway you to get the car!

By the way, it appears as though you're in California and you're contemplating a Florida purchase... I have purchased several cars out of state and it's actually quite a headache to get the car registered in California WITH A TRANSFERABLE TITLE so that you can sell it in California. If you are paying cash, great - just make sure that you obtain a physical certified FL title for the car (Florida could be an electronic title state like Arizona so you may have to apply for a hard copy). If you are financing, the lender will have to reach out to the relevant FL agency to get a physical title and then send directly to your home DMV branch (not HQ in Sacramento as this causes a serious cluster **** of confusion). First, complete the application to register an out of state vehicle and go to your local DMV branch to get a temporary registration (be prepared to pay additional use tax above what you paid in FL). That way, there will be a designated branch to receive the physical title from FL. Basically follow this: https://www.myimprov.com/driver-resources/california-driver-resources/california-car-registration-title/