Department of Motor Vehicles

I went to the Lorton DMV office Sat ⁸⁄₂₂ at 7am to wait and be first in line for 8am opening.
My family member needed to take a road test. We were told that all road test appointments were booked and that we could wait if we wanted to, the wait would be hours with no guarantee. They can say they didn’t discourage us to wait, but they sure made it clear the wait would be very long.
It is not acceptable to be among the first to enter and for there to be no service rendered.
There was no mention of needing an appointment or of this priority system. It would be nice if at least the first five people coming in for such a transaction could be accommodated specially since the website has no such service or notice available.
I’ve now been on hold with (804) 497‑7100 for over 25 minutes and this only adds to my continued disappointment with DMV services.
Even the website feedback form doesn’t work.
When is spoke with 800# they stated the system only has reservations until 10:30am. Basically, we were the first to request this service and were not offered the available spots.

On a Saturday morning, the last day of the month I was taken by complete surprise how quickly we moved through the process. At 10:00 AM on the last day of her registration, my roommate could not find her new stickers that arrived in the mail a few days earlier. I took her to the MVD and saw what I believed was going to be a disaster. Long lines and many people sitting!
Instead, the line to the info counter was very quick — 10 minutes at most and we sat for no longer than 15 minutes.
In and out of MVD in less than 30 minutes on any Saturday and this one being the last day of the month was amazing!

If you don’t try to go on a weekend, you’ll have a great experience. I went about 8:45a on a weekday and the place was virtually empty. I walked right up to the info desk, explained why I was there, got assigned a number, and I got called within two minutes. The rep was nice and handled my issue efficiently.
My husband, on the other hand, tried to go around 10:30 on a Saturday morning and he said the line was out the door. Considering they have about 100 seats inside with at least 10 stations, that’s scary – they either were understaffed with very few stations opened or they were completely inefficient with doling out numbers (you have to get your number assigned right inside the door, so while that line might be long, the wait inside might not be – but we didn’t test that theory).
I’m just glad I can get this stuff taken care of without leaving town.

So frustrating. Lady in the ticket counter said I had all the correct paperwork. I waited an hour and a half, got up to the front only to find out I had nothing right and will accomplish nothing. It never fails that I have to make 3 trips to the dmv to finally get it right. I know there is a list online but they will reject something for trivial things.

They need a better system to speed things up. I arrived here at 4:30pm and it is 5:39pm and I still have not been helped. All I need to do is drop off some old license plates.
Once my number came up, it took her less than 2 minutes to take the plates and give me a receipt. Come on! Maybe have a speedy line or something.

This was the first time we went to the DMV in Lorton. We were pleasantly surprised by the speed, professionalism, and efficiency. We were assisted by a very nice person named Tabatha Hamilton. We accomplished what we needed to do without incident or delay. This is a great DMV location — Gunston Plaza.