Oregon Car Registration (Salem: loans, home, transfer)

[Alaskan Snowflake]

Hello,
Many years ago I moved to Alaska, the month following my move my vehicle registration was up and I went in to register my car. I had a loan on my car but I was able to register it that day and took my new plates home with me.
Fast forward to this summer when I moved to Oregon. My husband and I went to register our cars August 18th. We still don't have plates or an Oregon registration and the DMV does not expect our cars to be done until December/January. Luckily we had lots of time before our cars Alaska registration is up but really 5-6 months to register your cars!! We do have loans on our cars which slowed down the process some but really this boils down to Oregon defining an archaic manual process which takes forever. I just wanted to warn people if your car is about to expire and you are thinking of moving to Oregon you may want to register your car in your state before moving here. You are only allowed 2 - 21 day trip permits and then you are supposed to stop driving your car.

[Metlakatla]

Never had a problem with this myself.

[Coniferian]

I moved here from Colorado last month and registered one of my vehicles at the DMV last week. I walked out with a set of plates 10 minutes later. New Oregon title will come in the mail eventually.

[Alaskan Snowflake]

I think the issue is that if you have a loan on your car and you are from out of state then it is a completely different process. The process we had to do is: Fill out a form, write a check to the DMV, get a VIN check, then send all of that to the lien holder. The lien holder transfers the title to Oregon (about 6 weeks) and sends the entire packet you sent to them with the new title to the Salem DMV. The Salem DMV then verifies everything is correct, cashes your check and waits for it to clear and sends you your plates. The Salem DMV has had our packets with new Oregon titles since early October. The DMV is estimating we will get our registration and plates by Dec/Jan.
I am telling folks this because if you have a loan on your car and you are from out of state it is going to take forever to get your registration and plates. If you get the chance to register before you leave you might consider it.

[Coniferian]

I have clear titles on all three of my old vehicles, so they just checked the VIN and we were done. I have to get a driver's license this month and understand you have to bring your original birth certificate or a passport.