PRIVATE AUTO REGISTRATION FIRM : CARS CASHES IN ON DRIVERS WHO STEER CLEAR OF DMV
A billboard near the Ventura Freeway at the Tampa Avenue exit offers a tantalizing promise to motorists: “Avoid DMV Waiting!”
If a passer-by calls the number that accompanies the promise, he or she will reach the California Automobile Registration Service, or CARS, in Tarzana.
Ensconced in a storefront office two stories below the billboard, CARS was created on the theory that people have better things to do with their time than standing in line at the state Department of Motor Vehicles. And that they will pay extra to skip the experience.
‘No Reason’ to Visit DMV “When they come to us, there is no reason why they ever have to set foot inside a DMV office,” said CAR President Richard A. Slobin.
His firm will take care of almost any kind of transaction including car registrations, transfers of ownership, even obtaining personalized license plates. The only thing CARS will not do for its customers is take the drivers’ license test for them.
While car dealers have used middlemen for years to process their paper work at the DMV, offering the same, full-scale service to the man on the street is apparently a new idea. Slobin said he is the first middleman to start a retail service in Los Angeles.
Dominic Bartolone, the Department of Motor Vehicles office manager in Winnetka, said he knows of no one other than Slobin offering such a retail service.
Slobin opened his office late last summer and expects to set up others in Van Nuys, Studio City and Northridge by the end of the year. “The response has been absolutely tremendous,” said Slobin, a former assistant DMV manager.
“It keeps snowballing.”
Thousands of Transactions The office processes 12,000 to 15,000 transactions a month, most of them for car dealers who have relied on Slobin for more than a decade. Up to 30 motorists drop by each day. The average charge is $25.
By Department of Motor Vehicle standards, the CARS office is plush. There are carpets on the floors, for starters. Peppermint candy, periodicals, including Automotive News, and comfortable chairs await customers. A few potted plants and poster art are scattered around the room.
So what does the DMV think of Slobin’s enterprise?
“I don’t see the need for it,” said Bartolone. “A customer can generally get served at the DMV in 15 minutes.”
However, Bartolone concedes that Slobin’s service helps the DMV because it siphons off some of DMV’s walk-in business. Also, Bartolone said, CARS paper work is always in order, which is more than can be said for some of DMV’s customers.
Potential Hassles Avoided Customers use the firm to avoid the potential hassles at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
“Some people can afford to wait in line for two or three hours . . . I can’t,” said Richard Powers, sales account executive at Porsche Imports in Century City, who was visiting CARS this week.
Apparently, CARS is popular with DMV employees as well. Slobin said he has gotten calls from eight DMV employees who would like to work for him.
Bartolone said it is not unusual for ex-DMV employees to get into his line of work. “They can’t get enough of car registration.”
There will be one less entrepreneur in the business soon. Marilyn Adinolfi, who advertises as the DMV Gal, is quitting. Adinolfi, who works out of her Reseda home, has trotted over to the DMV offices, primarily on behalf of dealers, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times over the past 15 years. “I don’t want to be bothered with it anymore,” Adinolfi said. “I’m tired of it.”
