South Dakota Plates?? Does it work?

And ...believe it... they actually answer the phone in person.

No .... press one for english.

Quote:

Originally posted by vandenberg Quote: Originally posted by DENNIS And here's the site to get you started: http://www.claycountysd.org/ And ...believe it... they actually answer the phone in person. No .... press one for english.

Another South Dakota anecdote

Downside.
My tags expired the end of November. Send the money in October and they send the registration and stickers to my Loreto postbox. Never got here. Called, and they send a new set. Again, never got here. Then had them send the latest set to a friend in Texas, who's supposed to arrive yesterday, but is delayed for health reasons.
Only drawback we've encountered thusfar.
And......NO Dakota address or DL required.

SD doesn't require that you show proof of insurance at the time you register the vehicle, but as Bajalou stated, insurance is required if you plan to operate the vehicle.

Our truck is fairly new and we wanted full Mexican insurance coverage and our Mexican policy requires that we maintain full US insurance coverage. Haven't figured out a way around paying for the double coverage yet, at least as long as we have HDI seguros/Bajabound. Halcyondays, it sounds like you can do as Dennis has mentioned many times and just get the basic Mexican coverage so you wouldn't need US insurance.

I've seen ads occasionally (in the Baja Western Onion?) or other online publications, for a guy who will drive your vehicle down to Baja for you. Maybe that's an option if you don't want to tow it down. Then you'd only need temporary US coverage to get it to the border.

Correct, the South Dakota driver's licenses weren't mandatory for our car registrations, but we "severed all ties" with CA (as the tax lingo goes) when we moved to BCS. South Dakota is now our US domicile address for taxes, banking, credit cards, etc. It was worth the trip back there to get it all established but the 5 yr driver's license is kind of a bummer.

Here's a link to some recent pages added to the SD DMV website which discusses their position on non-resident vehicle registration. Basically it says that they don't care if people aren't residents of SD, but they're trying to put a stop to people falsifying or making up SD addresses because they think they have to in order to get SD plates. See the first 2 non-resident memos:

http://www.state.sd.us/drr2/motorvehicle/nonresident.htm

Vandenberg, this was our first year of SD auto registration renewals. Our last name is at the end of the alphabet too so we also renew in Nov. I started working on it in Sept. Luckily a neighbor was coming down so I could have the new stickers and regs sent to them from our mail forwarding service. It may be a challenge to get the stickers on time every year tho and next year I'm going to start the online registration renewals in June or july so we've got lots of time to figure out how to get them down to us. I wondered if having our mail service Fed Ex the stuff to one of our nice Nomad amigas who live closer to civilzation ( La Paz) might be an option if we get in a bind.

The very first trip to town after receiving our new reg and stickers we were pulled over in Insurgentes where the cops asked to see our current paperwork.

Bus loads of French tourists taking photos of your SD license plate.

Check

your U2U

Yes. You are confused.
The point of having SD registration for cars in Mexico is you don't have to have it smogged every other year and you don't have to have insurance to keep it registered.

We're talking about cars garaged in Mexico. Not cars garaged in the states, but should you decide to take that car across the border into the states, you need to buy a short term...one, two, three day policy or whatever, to be legal there.

Lemme know if you're still confused.


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[Edited on 12-8-2010 by DENNIS]

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS Yes. You are confused. The point of having SD registration for cars in Mexico is you don't have to have it smogged every other year and you don't have to have insurance to keep it registered. Lemme know if you're still confused. [Edited on 12-8-2010 by DENNIS] [/quote ]not to mention the fact that SD registration cost is a fraction of CA cost and you don't have to stand in line at DMV

You could try, but I think the words are too big for you.

Quote:

Originally posted by bajamigo You could try, but I think the words are too big for you.

Dakota Sur = DS; Baja Sur = BS

Little warning.
Like mentioned before, my tags didn't make it to our Loreto postbox. A request for a replacement set didn't fare any better. A third request, to send them to a friend in Texas, who was ready to come down, was ignored.(done by e-mail)
Now we were told that the time of replacement has expired and a $10.00 penalty applied, plus, that they only send to the address listed on the registration. Also, a new signed form is required. Can be done by e-mail and scanner, but still a royal pain. In the mean time we're driving without current tags, while our fees have been paid. All we need, getting stopped down south, where they have been clamping down on non registered vehicles.
We've had major problems with our mail here.