auto inspection

Welcome which island will you be a resident of?

The inspections are carried out where you get your tags. They have a long check-list & sometimes they don't check anything & other times they're very nitpicky.

There are inspections, but no emissions test.

Its similar to stateside but totally different. Its the dmv so you know it will not be fun or quick. You never know if they will be lazy, lazy and rude, rude, cruel or efficient. But the odds are not in your favor. 🙂 Quite a few people pay people to register their cars here so they don't have to go down and wait a hour or two and loose your mind in the process. We always do it ourselves. It gets easier every year because you are, hopefully, a little better prepared for what to expect. Bring a book and lots of patience, of coarse those are the times they are efficient.

Never have had that much of a problem. Make sure all of your lights and horn works.

Also to clarify - there don't appear to be emissions inspections like many states have.

Last time, when I approached the inspector I opened the door to give my paperwork(I couldn`t open the window, the power window motor was bad).
The inspector asked"why didn`t you open the window" I said "because the window motor is bad" he said "you fail"!
I said 'what about the new tires , the new brakes & all the working lights?
He said" you can even pass open da window, me ain gonna check dem tings, you fail"!

I couldn`t understand any of the scribble he wrote on my registration (& doubted anyone else could).
So I went inside, presented it & got all my paperwork/stickers!
And the car ahead of me with the tree for a bumper passed...
Ah. you never know!

That's hilarious DUN. (tu)

I went in to get inspected but my registration was torn in several places (long story)
"Macho" the bossman at the outside station taped it back together and sent me inside saying "if they give you any trouble, have them call out to me." So....I went inside and handed them the taped up registration and the lady scowled and said "who told you it was acceptable?" I told them "Macho said it was ok and to call him if there were any questions." Then the lady called him and chewed him out! Then she said I needed to get a new duplicate, which I eventually did for $10. But first... I needed the duplicate request form notarized. There being no notary inside (duh), she told me, "there's a notary sitting under a tree outside who will do this for you." I go outside, no notary under the tree.

That said, it's really not as bad or as long as people say it is. Just make sure everything works and you got all your paperwork ready.

Last year I had a turn signal light that was out. The inspector asked me if I promised that I would fix it. I promised and he passed me. I fixed it that day.

We just had two vehicles inspected fresh off the ship, both had issues with lights, two different inspectors (one who was extremely unfriendly and pissed off at end of his shift), both passed fine despite the problems, pays to be nice no matter how nasty they may be (and one guy was just truly miserable).

We actually have not registered one of the vehicles yet because after the inspection we were told USVI doesn't accept Progressive (for a scooter) despite what Progressive said, still the inspector said to come back with accepted insurance and present the inspection paperwork he gave us. We'll see how that goes . . . but, so far, so good.

USVI doesn't accept X insurance means we don't want you to use X insurance because it would mean one of our local underwriters couldn't overcharge and make a living here!

It's not guaranteed to work but I would highly suggest your print your policy declarations page showing coverage in U.S. territories and bring an insurance card from Progressive with a local address on it and nicely stand your ground. I did this last year for my cars and boat (different insurance companies - neither on the local list) and it worked (was a pain as I had to go back to get documents redone.)

Based on my work to renew a vehicle recently I can tell they're going to give me a hard time yet again. However I'd like anybody from government to show me what makes them think they can dictate how I spend my money when I'm using a U.S. carrier to covers here. I seriously doubt there's a written policy.

We use a local company underwritten by Lloyds of London. I would be worried about how an off-island agency could/would handle a claim. Has anyone had experience with that?

Seriously, you've gotten Progressive to insure a vehicle in the VI? I've never heard of this...only non local company I've heard of is USAA but you have to have been in the military or be the offspring of a member to qualify which I cannot comply with.

Local company's are ridiculously priced, double what we paid in Washington DC for the same covereage. It's also scary as hell that so many people are driving around with $10,000/$20,000 policies.

Sean

I check with Geico and they told me that they were trying to furnish coverage there but at that time they weren't allowed.

We use a local company underwritten by Lloyds of London. I would be worried about how an off-island agency could/would handle a claim. Has anyone had experience with that?

I use Marshall and Sterling which is underwritten by L of L. We had no problems when our car was hit head on bye tourist on the wrong side of the road. The claim went through relatively quickly after we waited forever to get a copy of the police report, and they compensated us for our late 90's toyota land cruiser for more than we purchased it less than a year prior in the states.

Got my wife's truck inspected today, there was a line of six cars waiting for inspections at ~9:00am, I parked and went up front and the guy running the inspections asked the year of the truck, ours is 98 which I guess is too old and needed to be inspected, ( our '06 honda has never needed to actually be inspected they just check off all the boxes). Anyway six cars took about 40 minutes which I was impressed. They went through the whole routine, and then they checked the tint on my windows....the after market tint was too dark...had to come off. I'm guessing they are getting more strict on this rule since another guy was there loudly complaining about the fact that their tint had to be removed, he wanted to know why it was so important but didn't think the obvious answer was sufficient. We bought the used truck last year and I actually don't like the tinting since it makes it hard to see my blind spot when I have sunglasses on, but was surprised that he caught it since it passed fine last year, then again last year the guy we bought it from took care of the registration for a small fee (lesson here is that if there is anything wrong with your vehicle get one of the helpful "expediters" on island). Long story long, I spent another 30 min in the parking lot scraping the tint off my backseat window with a razor blade that the inspection guy loaned me...which I thought was decent since he could have just rejected me and wasted my previous 40min wait. Brought up the removed tinting (which he insisted I show him) and he handed me the paper work. The air conditioned wating room is a pleasant upgrade from the old open air, hard wooden benches from just a few years back, but I don't think our tax dollars really needed to pay for the two flat screen lcd's tv mounted on the wall, especially if you are going to have the Martha Stewart show on both tv with the sound muted, might as well stare at the wall or cotemplate how long it took for the early 20 something white kid to grow those long mishapen dreads and what his obviously overly supportive mother felt about the current state of his personal hygiene. After I got my number from the not so cheerful lady behind window number two I took my seat not knowing whether my number 149 was 5th in line or 55th since they couldn't be bothered to put a little electronic display showing the number they were currently serving (yet they certainly got the cable for those two aforementioned TV's). Waited about another 20minutes when I took a chance and assumed the garbled number they spoke over the PA was in fact "149 Window 5, 149 Window 5" (again not one but two LCD flat screen TV's mounted on very nice movable wall mounts, but they couldn't improve a PA system that works as well as a circa 1995 Micky D's drive though....priorties people). Paid my 65 dollars and was back on the road after a grand total of about 90mins. all in all a better performance than trying to sitdown with someone at the local bank.

"After I got my number from the not so cheerful lady behind window number two I took my seat not knowing whether my number 149 was 5th in line or 55th since they couldn't be bothered to put a little electronic display showing the number they were currently serving (yet they certainly got the cable for those two aforementioned TV's)."

On STT they use random numbers. Customers have no idea of the order in which they will be called, so they can't gauge the wait and they can't tell if other customers are getting preferential treatment.