My wife and I are scheduled to receive delivery of our E17B in Sumas in May of 2022. I am trying to track down whether I can obtain a temporary tag/plate from AZ-MVD (DOT) before we leave from the Phoneix area to Sumas, WA. Very little is available on the MDV site for imported travel trailers. I have run across some older posts on RV Life speaking to issues surrounding "grey market" classification of the trailer as opposed to an import well as Level II & III AZ-MVD safety inspections necessary before titling and registering the vehicle.
Anyone from Arizona who has picked up their trailer in Sumas and has some experience with the titling/registration and plates? Your support would be appreciated.🌵🌴
Hi Michael,
My wife and I live in Tucson. We took delivery of a 5.0 in early August of 2022. We had all the same questions that you have. After reading lots of Forum responses it became clear that the answer was different for each state and many people simply drive home with an unregistered trailer. So this is what we did.
In fact, we took a month to get back to Tucson and we traversed WA, ID, MT, WY, CO, NM and AZ. We were never stopped by authorities. We had proof of insurance and, of course, all the import and purchase paperwork from Escape.
One uniqueness of the AZ registration process is that they required a safety inspection by the Highway Patrol before they permit registration of the vehicle. This precluded registering prior to taking delivery and bringing the trailer to AZ. The inspection was conducted at the same location as the MVD site we used. The inspector was a uniformed Highway Patrol officer. The inspection took possibly 10 minutes and the only comments from the inspector had to do with how well Escape trailers are built.
Good luck!
--TJ
Drove from Tucson, AZ to Sumas, WA for 5.0 delivery on 12 September, 2022.
Delivery of trailer went flawlessly. We requested a 10AM delivery. Escape notified us the week before delivery that it would be 12 noon. No problem. I received a call at 10:30 on the day of delivery, just after we arrived at the Sumas delivery site. Trailer arrived at 11:30. Driver was very professional. He disconnected and was gone in ten minutes.
Installing funnel. I did my own installation of an Andersen hitch so I had to attach the funnel once the trailer was delivered. Per instructions, I brought a 1/4" allen socket. My allen socket was about 1/2" long. This was too short to meet the need for tightening down the funnel. This cost me about 90 minutes for a trip to Ace Hardware. An ideal option can be found at Harbor Freight. It is an impact hex driver set. The hex (allen) extends well beyond 1.5".
Registration documents. After reading the very helpful experiences in this forum and after calling Arizona MVD multiple times to discuss requirements, it became clear to us that we were not going to be able to obtain our temporary registration document prior to leaving for our trip to pick up the trailer. It required paperwork from Escape that we were not going to get until the build was completed. By that time, we were already on the trip north from Tucson to Sumas. After accepting delivery of the trailer, we spent 4 weeks on road to visit family and friends in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and back to Arizona--with no temporary tag on the trailer. No problems.
Arizona Registration process. Upon returning home to Tucson, our first stop was MVD. They required a 'secondary inspection' prior to permitting us to register the trailer. I understand that others have not had to do this. Go figure....
Issues with the trailer. None of significance. We love it and we gave it a very thorough trial run. Minor issues: 1) the low quality Dometic thermostat was frozen in the off position. It took some sleuthing to figure this out and some muscle to beak it loose. 2) We opted for the low-end, two-burner stove. Due to previous problems with the Suburban two-burner, Escape opted for the Dometic version. The rubber stops onto which the glass top of the stove rides were missing (2) or damaged (1). Three weeks into the trip we noticed that the lettering on the stove knobs was wearing off. Not a big deal. I will replace the stove when necessary. This is not the first time that I found that Dometic had Q/C problems.
We are delighted with the 5.0.
Our sincere thanks to all who make the Forum such a helpful site.
Best regards,
Tim and Nancy,
Tucson, AZ
I am going to assume that you likely already have your trailer so...;putting this here for fellow Arizonans. No worries folks. We picked up in Sumas, drove home to Show Low with no problems at all. Went to local DMV with paperwork from ETI and a short wait later walked out with registrations/temp tags. Easy Peasy no inspection, minimal questions
I'm not aware of any owner being questioned about no tags on a new trailer while returning home from pick up.
We're not from Arizona but we drove for a week or more without plates and nobody did anything to us..