I'm in Pennsylvania. A friend is moving to SC and is thinking about buying one of my cars.
I just spent a few minutes on the SC DMV website and think I found my answers but wanted to verify over here.
It looks like there is no vehicle inspection in SC? Is this correct? If there is a required inspection does it matter if the car comes into SC with a PA registration or if it is registered in SC as a sale from out of state?
For registration it looks like to register a vehicle being sold from PA it would just be $15 title and $15/year??? That seems way to cheap?
There is no inspection in SC. The title transfer and taxes would need to be paid on it.
The title would have to be transferred. Your friend will also have to pay the license tag fees. IIRC it's $20 for the title transfer and $24 for the tags, at least that's what it was for my Jensen back in Y2K. There's also property taxes, but that varies from area to area (school systems). Property taxes must be paid before the car can be registered.
Something to be aware of: there is a 'casual sales tax'. This is based on the sale amount of the vehicle. If you sell your friend the car for, say, $1000.00 and that's the amount on the bill of sale or on the back of the original title, then he's responsible for 5%, or $50.00. I know that applies to in state sales, dunno if it applies to out of state. Also, the DMV does NOT have to necessarily accept the amount on the bill of sale or whatever as the basis for the tax. If it's a 2012 Escalade and the sale price is shown as $100, they will of course smell a rat. Then they can use the blue book value!
There's no inspection BUT! tickets for mechanical violations can be outrageous. When the yearly inspection was abolished in, IIRC, 1996 the fines for violations went through the roof. For instance, operating a car with 4 bald tires = 1 ticket for each tire at $100 each, or $400. Brake light out? $125.
Also you pay taxes on the vehical each year based on the FMV.The cap on new car sales tax is 300 in SC but each year you will be taxed on the FMV and it can get high.For example the last vehical I had in SC was a 2000 Suburban and my yearly taxes was 394 bucks a year.It will go down each year as the FMV goes down but the first few years are tough.
Yeah, property taxes can be outrageous if you have a combination of an expensive car and a high millage rate. I paid, IIRC, $36.00 in property tax on the Jensen when I last tagged it in Berkeley 
County. Now that I live in Lexington County, the P/T are $24 a year. Exact same car, just different area.
Thanks for all the info. It's an 88 XT6, it will be sold for a few hundred and I don't see them squawking too much over that as a FMV...
Spartanburg County also has a $25 "road tax" that's much more than the property taxes on my 86 Nissan truck.
BTW Curmudgeon, I missd your relocation to the midlands. Lexington County used to have an unreal property tax rate on RVs. I think they changed it.
SC has no inspections. I still can't believe it, and I've been living here for 5 years now. Its like a Libertarian paradise for car guys. The local hotrod/ ratrod scene has flourished around here, since you can pretty much drive anything. I've seen a police officer pull up next to a T-bucket with pipes coming straight out of the block and compliment him on his ride.
I got pulled over for having an out taillight and received a warning. Police officer was friendly and not a ball buster at all.
Yeah, I live in Lexington County now. Low taxes but close to the, er, 'big city'. 
The cops are usually pretty cool about lights out etc but they can crucify you if they so choose. Bald tires or other obvious big safety violations are pretty much guaranteed a ticket.
There's no emissions inspection but it seems that around the coast and in some areas around Greenville ozone levels get fairly high. IIRC if it hits X number of days over whatever the allowable percentage is then the EPA can step in and mandate emissions testing.
I honestly wouldn't mind some emissions requirements. The other day I got behind a diesel pickup belching out WAY more black smoke than any diesel truck has a right to. I mean, stupidly high amounts of smoke. Imagine, if you will, a pile of burning tires. Now imagine that smoke coming out of a single tail pipe. Not a single car would drive within 10 car lengths of his back bumper. A police car passed him, and I thought, WTF? Even in a state without vehicle inspections, if your car throws off that much smoke it out to warrant a citation. Not only was it polluting, it was just plain dangerous to traffic, reducing visibility. But the police car didn't stop him.
Because of idiots like this, I predict we'll see inspections return to SC within the next 8 to 10 years.
