EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — The Department of Motor Vehicles new requirement for state vehicle inspection stickers is fueling frustration. Auto shops are having to upgrade to a new system to churn them out, and that upgrade hasn’t come easily.
State inspection appointments are filling up fast.
“We do anywhere from 75 to 100 inspections a month, I would say,” said Steve Henry, co-owner of Village Auto Service in East Syracuse.
But with the new print-on-demand inspection stickers required by New York State, that could change. This is a big concern for repair shops like Village Auto Service. Henry says he ordered the new software last November but didn’t receive it until May. Henry says he can’t even use it because he still hasn’t received the formatted stickers.
“If we aren’t able to continue to do inspections then the revenue that’s generated from inspections we would lose,” said Henry.
His loyal customers would lose too.
“Our customer base is huge. We’ve been here for over 40 years. There’s a lot of people we see routinely, annually every single year that depend on us for that service. So they’ll have to go elsewhere,” Henry said.
Henry says, as of right now, he has enough inventory to do at least three weeks’ worth of inspections and plans on placing a new order next week. If you do need to make an appointment for a state inspection, he says customers should plan ahead and call at least a week or more in advance.
Another shop owner is also feeling the sticker stress. He didn’t want to show his face on camera but said glitches with the new system are slowing him down.
“Definitely takes longer to do, cables were shorter so we had to buy extended cables because they weren’t the same length as the old machine was. So we had to buy that at our own cost,” said the owner.
NewsChannel 9 has reached out to the state DMV about the issues these business owners shared with us. We will share their take on the troubles as soon as we hear back.
