How do you get a car home after you buy it? (York: sales, insurance)

[rollswithandywarhol]

My situation is I am in New York right now but I'm buying a car in Pennsylvania and I am dropping it off at a relatives house in New Jersey until I get it registered in New York and I'll bring it all the way home later. It only has to make it 40 something miles from two towns in the sticks of each state.

I have lived in LA, Seattle, New York, and middle of nowhere Indiana.

In Seattle and LA you just drove the car home with the last owner's plates. In New York and Indiana the last owner keeps the plates but in Indiana they don't really seem to care and I've driven cars for days without plates and even to the dmv to get plates. New York is a pain and any cars I bought there I made sure to register them before driving home because I got shafted with 5 tickets for not doing it before.

How does that normally work in PA? I'd love it if the last owner left the plates on and I could just drive it to New Jersey with their plates.

[flyonpa]

Dealer will give you Drive out "Plate" A paper Plate (10 day temp tags I think)

[rollswithandywarhol]

Originally Posted by flyonpa

Dealer will give you Drive out "Plate" A paper Plate (10 day temp tags I think)

I forgot to say this is from a guy on craigslist. I'm not going to stealership.

[Wells5]

I am pretty sure that there is no requirement for a private car seller to turn in the old plate in PA. Just get a bill of sale from the seller showing odometer reading and sales price and fill in the old title and have the signatures on both the bill of sale and the title notarized. This assumes that there is no lien on the title. Show the seller proof of your insurance and ask if you could use the old plate to drive to wherever you're going. There are plenty of cars with PA plates driving in NJ so the car should not attract attention.

Click the link below for a bill of sale template.

Free Pennsylvania DMV Bill of Sale Form | Wikiform

Below is a link to the NYS DMV information page on registering an out of state car in NY.

Register an out-of-state vehicle | New York State DMV

[toobusytoday]

We sold a car on Craigslist a couple of years ago and actually did the transaction in a quicktag parking lot. Afterwards we walked into the quicktag place together where we handed over a handmade bill of sale. We kept our license plate for the replacement car we were buying.

[SorryIMovedBack]

Whenever I bought a vehicle out of state (not in PA), I got a temporary title and a temporary plate in the state where it was purchased and drove it home. Pay the sales tax to the state you reside in or register the vehicle in. Make sure they do the title right. PA temp plate is good for 90 days. I use the temp plate while I am earning the money or selling other vehicle(s) to pay the sales tax, lol, so usually I run that plate for the entire 90 days.

http://www.dmv.state.pa.us/pdotforms...fs-buysell.pdf

I would not be leaving any on my plates on any vehicle I sold. Too much liability issue there. If you no longer have insurance on vehicle, PA requires you to surrender the plate, for one. I bought a truck from the owner (in PA), we went to a nearby junkyard who could do the title transfer and put a PA temp plate on it. Sure, it costs a little money, but it gives you fully 90 days to drive around legally before you have to pay anything more for reg and tax, y'know. I just called my insurance and added vehicle to policy, and said "I'll get back to you with the permanent plate # when I get it", and sent them a check.

[Hopes]

Pennsylvanians keep their plates.

If you plan to register it in NJ, pay for a temp plate at the notary when you're transferring the title.

[rollswithandywarhol]

Alright so I called the owner and it doesn't have any plates on it anyway because he used them for another car. I'm just going to bring a trailer and do it that way. Thanks for the answers everyone.