. People do this all the time.

. The police never check.

You'd be surprised how expensive an old pickup's registration can be in CA.

The main problem isn't the cheating by low-end tradesmen but that the average schlub's truck is considered a 'commercial' vehicle including registration cost by gross vehicle weight. (at least that's how I understand all of this).

They never make it easy here to do anything, but people will put up with a lot of rules and taxes if it mostly happens to others.