NC Vehicle Tags - North Carolina - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

Bethanytedder · 05-17-2006, 07:09 AM

The metal plates are issued if you ask for one or on new vehicles. Until you ask for one, you will be given a tag with the year on it that goes in the upper right hand corner of the car. You will have the month already on the metal plate when you get your first one. It will be in the upper left hand corner of the tag. Someone told me that the tags and stickers had gone up to $28.50 or so but I haven't bought this years yet so I am not sure. We don't have emission control where I live either. The county is all rural and no businesses that would require the emissions control test. I believe inspection stickers are about $10.00 assuming they find nothing wrong.

Skout · 05-17-2006, 09:08 AM

What do they inspect? No registration fees?

Bethanytedder · 05-17-2006, 10:18 AM

The vehicle itself. They check the headlamps, the horn, back up lights, turn signals, license plate light, wipers, brake lights, and the tires and I think that covers it for here. Registration fees are paid when you first buy the vehicle. After that, ever year, you will get a card telling you to renew the tag on the vehicle. You generally are given about a months notice and if the tag runs out say on March 31, you actually have until April 15th to get it done. After that and they can issue a ticket for expired registration. As for the inspection "sticker", I don't think there is a grace period. If it runs out on the 31st of the month, and you get caught on the 1st of the following month with an outdated inspection sticker, you may as well cough up the $250.00 penalty. You have to carry liability insurance at all times in North Carolina. If it lapses, there are a couple of option. If it has been less than ten days, you can go to the insurance office and sign a paper that you have not been involved in an accident during this time and they will reinstate you. If it has been after the ten days, you will probably have to pay a fifty dollar fine unless it has gone up. Sometimes they will take the tags you have for thirty days and charge you the fifty dollars. We had a problem with them when we moved back to Snow Hill. We didn't get the renewal on the insurance and the tag ran out. But prior to that, I had gotten the tag renewed and they had changed the address on the form here. Here is basically a window in a furniture store with one employee doing all the work. When it went to Raleigh, it was their responsibility to put the changes on the DMV copy of the registration into the computer. Well, they didn't. And I had to have a hearing. And I won. I retained my tags but I still had to pay the fifty dollar fine. And while it was partially DMV's fault that it got that far, when they sent the paper back stating what went on at the hearing, they didn't take the blame for any of it. They just basically said that I had proven the proof of insurance. Weird let me tell you. And while I am on this, you do not want to mess around with DMV here. They will get the better of you if they have so much as an inch to do it with.

Skout · 05-17-2006, 10:28 AM

DMV here isn't as strick as some areas. Here were people will sue for any reason, and have money they are more relaxed. I heard a person say he was going to sue when he failed his driving test, and guess what? He passed after!

Bethanytedder · 05-17-2006, 12:02 PM

I haven't seen anyone down here afraid to pass/fail an applicant. My grandmother was in her 60's before she ever had a driver's license. My father attempted teach her to drive before giving the honor to my uncle. She took the test about 20 + times before she passed it. But she finally got a license. My mother got her license exactly a year to the day before I was born so she was 30 when she got a license. And I had an aunt that was on up in age as well before she starting driving. I guess the mindset was that it was an "unfeminine" thing to want to know how to do. Thank God it had passed by the time I got old enough to drive. I was about 16 1/2 when I got my license. I got the permit the first time I went down. I had just gotten out of drivers ed and I failed the road test that day. The next week I passed.