Originally Posted by amani

I live in the Bay Area Ca and not sure if it is too late to reply. As long as you have full coverage insurance, you are covered for 30 before you activating the new policy. However if you are a little paranoid, just activate a new policy a day before picking up the car. All you need is the VIN# and tell your agent that you will be buying this vehicle. If the sale fall through the crack all you lose if 2 days of policy balance ans shouldn't be that bad. I have done that before, insured the car but the deal fell through at the end.

Regarding the tag, as long as you have the bill of sale you are ok and I don't remember if you have 15 days or 30 days to register your California registered new purchase. There were few occasions that my new used car purchase needed a new plate, and I don't remember whether they had expired registration or something else. In general as long as the registration is not expired, a regular plate stays with the vehicle. Just someone mentioned above, I would worry about outstanding balance more since insurance and registration can be easily done. To alleviate your concern, I would activate an AAA account, find an AAA office with DMV service in LA, and do the transaction/registration face to face in the AAA office. Provide the office the VIN# and check for any outstanding balance before the transaction. Once everything is cleared then you can do the money transaction/registration in such a safe environment which is beneficial for both parties. Usually the wait time in AAA office is minimal and to me that $100 membership fee is worth for the waiting time in the DMV, safe environment plus one year of AAA service. There is no reason for the seller to refuse doing the transaction in AAA with you unless something is sketchy. Hope this help.

Originally Posted by tsukasa36

I actually just bought an S2000 in CA as well. I live in SJ too. Insurance as people stated above should be obtained prior to picking up the car. They will usually email you a temp card if you call them. (I had statefarm and even though my agent's office was closed, the call center took the call and provided me with the temp card via email).

For license plate, I believe it stays with the car with the registration sticker. When a drunk driver rammed into my car totaling it, I surrendered the car and the plate with it to the insurance company. I'm originally from NJ and I thought you kept the plates, but in CA they told me to leave the plates with the car. In the same way, when I bought my car through a broker, they gave me the plates on the car that was registered and had registration left on it. I just had to apply for a registration transfer through DMV which was like $14. I'm assuming that if you have documents showing proof of purchase, and the car is registered and in process of being transferred, the officers would work something out.