Vehicle Inspections

One of the best ways to "pass" inspections with respect to legally getting the registration for LeRoy, is to pay to have one of those that offer such services, to accomplish it for you........this way old LeRoy will not have to be seen by the inspectors.

I see... I'm all for playing "the game" as long as I know the "rules".

After reading a little more about this inspection, which sounds about like a tire kicking and horn honking - I doubt he'll have any trouble at all - but I'll gladly pay for a locals "services" if it lessens my headache getting legal tags on him.

Does the VI have vanity plates?

Yep, paying someone is the way to go. Personalized plates can be gotten, too.

We just had a friend who has been on island for 26 years go for the first time himself to license his car - took him 3 days.

I'm all for paying someone and calling it free enterprise! I think Lee Fleming's group charged us $125 or something to do it when we brought our car in. Sounds well worth the money to me. I don't know if that is a service readily offered, and by whom, on STX...I think that was a moving courtesy-for-hire by Fleming's - so if anyone knows anyone reputable on STX, please have them contact us.

I shipped 2 vehicles to STX last May when we moved here and handled the licensing and inspection process myself. Although I was expecting the worst based on what I had read on this board and what friends who had lived on STT told us, it was really pretty easy and took about half a day to get everything done. I just took one of the cars back last week for its annual inspection and that process only took about an hour. Like last year, the inspector never looked at my car, he just signed the paperwork. The most difficult part was taking off my license plates - you have to turn them in and get new plates each year. My vehicle is relatively new (2003) so I thought that might be why it was not actually inspected. However, I did not see any cars enter the inspection bay while I was there but there were a number of people in the parking lot taking off their license plates, and several of those cars were in less than steller condition.

The reason you had to change your plates was that the VI is going to the new plates with the tropical fish and getting rid of the yellow and black plates.

I think they change plates in the VI about every ten years. It isn't an annual replacement.

Jim

Stupid question - but I thought they just recently changed the plates from the black and yellow to something with ginger thomas or something on it?...(which I personally thought were pretty ugly, but I digress.)

Didn't know about taking the plates off at inspection time - thanks for the info! JE, I think you hit the jackpot the day you were there!

Does anyone know anyone who does this on STX? I still don't have the time to take the gamble on one hour versus three days.

I got my second vehicle inspected this morning and this time the car was actually inspected. The inspection took about a minute or so and just involves lights, signals, and horn. The entire process took 65 minutes. Maybe I am just lucky but everything I have done with the DMV, including getting my driver's license, has been pretty easy and has not taken any longer than it would have back in Virginia. I suspect that getting the inspections done early in the month helps too.

Vehicles 3 years old and newer do not have to be inspected. The official plates are changed every 5 years. You can also buy a variety of plates from The Friends of the Park, The Humane Society, The Historical Society, the VI Olympic Committee, Rotary, etc.