Successfully Re-Titled! plus useful info for WA Kit car owners

[markbridgwater]

First of all, thank you to all those that have gone before me to re-title a FFR under the new SEMA law. Here is a quick summary of my experience, with possibly some additional info I didn't see in previous threads:

- I used the licensing office in Kirkland on 85th just east of Hwy 405:
Eastside Auto Licensing
12006 NE 85th St
Kirkland, WA 98033
Phone: (425) 828-4661

- My car was registered as a 2004 Kit Vehicle so is 8 years old on their books.
- I have had to smog the car in 2009 and 2011. It failed in '09 and required the intervention of Mr. Kelly Swayne (425) 649-7101 to overide the results and pass the car. Due to some miracle from God, the car actually passed the smog test in 2011 but I'm sure it won't ever again...

Re-titling process:
- Went to above mentioned licensing office last Thursday where I do all my cars (and the original titling for my Cobra) where I had the same experience as others in this Forum, experiencing the clerks not having the right information. Fortunately, I had brought a printout of a thread showing Bob Randolph's number (360)902-3713 in Olympia whom she called while I was waiting.
- The clerk's name is Liz and although she didn't reach Bob, she seemed to get the info needed to understand that this re-titling could be done to an existing vehicle without the Highway Patrol inspection.
- However, when she looked up my previous registration, a copy of my MSO was not available due to the DOL having a 7 year retention policy, and mine was now 8 years old.
- Liz assured me that once I returned with the MSO, she would re-register the car as a '65 replica assuming the MSO stated the same.
- So, not being able to find mine (I found everything else, even the original receipt), I contacted Sally Bean at Factory Five and she created a new one for a fee of $85 and emailed it to me, putting the original in the mail.
- This morning I printed out the attachment in color, trimmed it to the certificate size and returned to the above DOL.
- I initially didn't get Liz, and the other clerk started all over, calling Olympia, etc. until I saw that Liz was available and convinced her that it would be best for everyone if she completed this transaction.
- Liz remembered me from last Thursday and was able to complete the re-titling to a '65 Replica, with the year of the vehicle being '1965', the manufacturer being 'FACT5' and the DOL internal system code for the car remained as 'KITV' for kit vehicle.
- I left the color copy of the MSO with Liz, although I felt like she would have preferred the original, so if you have that, bring it and they will make a copy. My tabs were due today, so I provided the copy which they accepted.
- I needed to give up my personalized plates in favor of the Collector Plates, but as such, I do not need tabs or smog checks ever again.
- I recommend you print off these comments and take them with you, as I had done with the previous threads. Although they can't rely on them, it does cause them to dig deeper if they haven't done one of these already. I told them it was from a forum where owners of these cars exchange information and many have already titled their car this way, understandably with some confusion from the typical DOL office.

I highly recommend going to a specific clerk at these DOL locations who has done this title work before, or you will go around and around while they come to the same conclusion (hopefully) of how to do it. If you do go to Eastside, I recommend you request and wait for Liz to avoid a lot of confusion. Have your paperwork ready and you should be outta' there in an acceptable amount of time.

So, FFR 5038 is now successfully titled as a 1965 Replica, and suddenly the 19,000 miles seem quite low for a 47-year old car

Good luck!

[Go Hard or Go Home]

Congrats on the re-title. Watch out now cause those old cars start falling apart easy

[SwiftDB4]

Thanks for the info Mark. Great to hear guys are getting retitled now without an inspection. I didn't understand your comment on KITV as an internal DOL code though. Is that just listed under 'comments' or is that still your 'make'?
Dave Miller

[caropepe]

Good job, Mark!

Joe

[markbridgwater]

Dave,
The KITV code just remains in their system to identify that it's a kit vehicle. Probably hard-coded into the system. The key is getting the year of the car to read '1965' in their system so that it is a classic vehicle not needing tabs or smog check in the future. The rest is really just cosmetic and in fact will likely show as '65 Replica' as the type of car. They do have an input field for make of car, so we found that FACT5 was in their system so use that one to avoid issues.

Also, with 19k miles on mine, it would be silly to re-inspect the car by the Highway Patrol.

HTH! Good luck.

MB

[markbridgwater]

Originally Posted by Go Hard or Go Home

Congrats on the re-title. Watch out now cause those old cars start falling apart easy

Yeah, probably right. Some guy named Carman helped me build it...

[Go Hard or Go Home]

Originally Posted by markbridgwater

Yeah, probably right. Some guy named Carman helped me build it...

I'm sure it was a part Nate worked on...

[Paul Best]

Wednesday, July 25th--Good for you Mark. Nicely done. Maybe see you at the Exotic's show on Saturday again. Paul

[bsnyder]

Mark,

Thanks for the idea. Factory Five placed an amended MSO in the mail for me today.

Bruce

[Redshift]

I read your post, took the afternoon off and got mine retitled as 1965! Whew! Maybe this will help with the insurance quotes. The best I could get was $701/year with a spotless record. Pemco wouldn't do a kit car, and Hagerty seemed concerned with it being titled as a 2004. I passed emissions last year by running 50/50 alcohol with cats and leaning it out in the parking lot before the second test. So I finished painting it last week, hope to finish the cut and buff today and maybe reinstall the body tomorrow or Sunday. I may celebrate by ordering a set of long tube headers.

Seven years! I may not do good work, but I'm slow.

[Redshift]

By the way, I used Wendell's Licensing agency in north Seattle. Kelly helped me, and it was no sweat. I waited at the Eastside agency for an hour and the lineup for titles hardly moved. Drove back to the west side and got right in.

[Redshift]

The licensing agent suggests coming in every five years to "renew" the collector registration. She said the DOL system tends to drop registrations that have had no activity for some years.

[bobcat]

I think I was number 6 in washington to do the retitle-now I get the new response from people 'gee it's in great shape for a 1965'

I use State Farm insurance-valued at 40,000 full replacement value-full coverage - premium just under 200.00 a year- been a long time customer-3 vehicles insured but one crash in 2010 so expecting a premium reduction coming soon. ya might call them-----

and by the way, congrat's Redshift on doing your own paint-do you laugh at the money you saved? I did mine myself too (1,000 total cost) and everyone including me are amazed how nice it came out-my first time.

Bob

[Redshift]

I will feel good about my paint in a couple of weeks. Right now my elbows are sore. I got a couple of quotes for a basic paint job for $3500, up to $7000. I'm probably at about $1000, like you. I think it will be pretty good. I think the $3500 job would not include the cut and buff. I did a bunch of work on my wheel arches. Lots of fiber-glassing, grinding and thinking "why did I do this?", but the pain fades and I only think about how I'm happy with the results. My wife says this is the same reason that any woman has more than one child.

Thanks for the tip on State Farm, I'll give them a try. Thanks to you guys that led the way with re-titling.

[bsnyder]

Several weeks ago I called Factory Five and asked if I could get a new MSO as a 65 replica because my MK3 is titled as a 2009. She told me the 2009 on the MSO was a mistake and she would mail me a new MSO right away. I receive the new MSO about 5 days later showing it as a 65 Replica. I bid on EBay for a 63 Washington plate with a 65 tab. I got it for $25. Today I walked into the licensing office in Spanaway and walked out with my new registration and the Cobra is now a collector vehicle. It's a good day.

[mattbrowne]

Got mine done. Pretty simple process. Went in the the branch in Camas, WA.
Title as 67 KitV Cobra