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In Michigan your registration expires on your birthday, and it says so on your PAPER registration certificate. The plates expire the same day, and the sticker (and in fact the whole plate) is nothing but a control mechanism to allow the police to recognize an expired registration. If your paper registration (which is the legal document) states an expiration date of, say, June 20 (if that's your birthday), then you are perfectly legal until that date.
Michigan does not refund the pro-rated unused part of a canceled annual registration, so it would make more sense to put a 30-day tag on it for the trip. You do not need to turn in the plates.
Location: Still in Portland, Oregon, for some reason
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Gosh...there's a guy that moved here in 2004 from Illinois and he's still got the now 6-year expired Illinois tags on his Audi. I'm debating on whether or not I want to report him.
I currently live in Michigan and I'm driving to California to permanently live there. The problem is that I'm leaving on June 1st, which is the same day that my Michigan plate expire. Should I drive across the country with expired plates, renew them in Michigan, or what?
Thanks!
I know that finances may be an issue,OP...but why be cheap about things?
Expired tags will almost certainly bring police attention which can cost you more than the cost of registering your car twice.
Talk w/ a CPA;maybe you can deduct your MI or CA registration as a moving expense.
I think it's wise to have your car legally registered at all points in the process. Not only are you at risk, however slight, of being stopped, there may be implications if you get into an accident (there was a recent thread here on that topic).
When we moved to Vermont many years ago we were not fast at changing our registration (like you, we were trying to avoid paying a second registration fee until we were up for renewal to save a little money) and my wife got stopped with our baby in the car. The cop claimed that if he'd wanted to he could have impounded the car right there and she would have been stuck on the side of the road with a months-old baby. Maybe he was just being a dick, but who needs the hassle?
Once you leave the state, no one is going to cite you for an expired tag - especially if you're moving. If a cop acts like a jerk, that's nothing unusual, but I don't see any reason to overpay for something that at most has a small, limited chance of causing trouble.
The cop claimed that if he'd wanted to he could have impounded the car right there and she would have been stuck on the side of the road with a months-old baby. Maybe he was just being a dick, but who needs the hassle?
There are plenty of cops who would have. They are the dicks.
By the way, moving out of Michigan, you will no longer need to feel compelled to have collision insurance if you are a safe and careful driver. You will no longer be subject to Michigan's unique "Your Fault" insurance, in which all damage to your car is your own fault, and you need to pay an additional $500 a year for collision insurance to protect your car from being totalled by some guy in a fit of drunken road-rage.
That by itself makes it worthwhile to get the Michigan plates off your car as quickly as possible.
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