Department of Motor Vehicles DMV

My first Unilocal review.
It was a new building, clean, and not too crowded, at least first thing on a Monday morning.
My son had his driving test with a woman named Demitra. She was friendly and courteous. Fairly early in the test, she informed my son that she could have automatically failed him when he skipped past the merge lane and turned directly into the driving lane when making a right turn. He thought the yield lane was a bike lane because the merge arrows on the pavement are not visible until after you have turned. She said that it might have just been an error caused by the sun and she would see how he did during the rest of the test. Apparently he did well enough after that because he passed. He was grateful for the second chance.
Before we drove back to our home in Pleasanton, I checked out that right turn myself (southbound Pavillion Pwy to westbound Naglee Rd) and I agree with my son. That merge lane looks like a bike lane. Sort of unfair. Also, there is no posted speed limit on the road in front of the DMV, so it’s anyone’s guess how fast to drive. The posted speeds in the area are quite random. For instance Naglee Road is 35 mph and Pavillion Parkway is 45 mph, yet both roads are very similar otherwise. If anything those speed limits should be reversed.
I was close to giving five stars, but I’ve actually been to an even better DMV on Senter Road in San Jose, where they have receptionists out front, more parking, and an even nicer building.
I would recommend this DMV to anyone needing to take a driving test because of the availability of appointments, the fairness of the one tester that my son had, and the cleanliness of the facility. I would only caution the driving candidate to study the roads around that area closely because there are some tricky situations there.

Ladies at the reception desk could perhaps be a bit more courteous to the people; not once have I seen them talk nicely or with a smile. Another illogical thing that ask for is that people without appointment should fill the form before they get a number … How illogical can it get? People WILL have to wait for a couple of hours at least if they are there without an appointment; can’t the applications b filled while they wait?
The unfortunate state of the union is that once people are employed in city/​state job, they feel they are not accountable.

After being in California for 8 long years at different locations and obviously like all others been to various DMVs right from LA to SF, the Tracy location is definitely the best. Right from the moment you enter in the person giving out tokens itself are immensely knowledgable, they have great communication skill, understanding of legal requirement and above all they respect customers. I had an address change, state to state car transfer, license renewal and they guided me through all of this pretty perfectly. I had some balance documents to submit for my cars registration and they were very accommodating to give me couple of temporary extensions and also gave additional information to make the process smoother. Usually DMV will be the last place u wanna be in case of a zombie apocalypse, but the Tracy location is very clean and stocked with some nice staff which in fact made my DMV visits all the more satisfying. Seriously never thought I will be writing a Unilocal review for a DMV and that too giving it 4 stars.

Who would expect a five star rating for the DMV, right?
This place is as good as the DMV gets!
First the place sparkles! It’s new and clean and well maintained.
Second, my experience of customer service was tops! Heck, I can even get an appointment within a reasonable time!
Keep up the good work!

1 star is too high. This office has an unbelievable amount of incompetence stuffed under one roof.

By far the worst experience I’ve had at a DMV — I had to come back to this hell 3 times in the same week because each time I went they gave me WRONG papers to fill out!

My daughter took her Drivers License Test here. We had a 9am appointment and we arrived at about 8:45am. All of the workers inside DMV were pleasant and helpful.
After we finished the paperwork they had us pull the car behind about 6 other cars waiting on the side of the building. There were 3 driving test examiners and after they finished testing a driver they would then take the next driver in the front of the line out and the line would move forward, so we should have gotten there earlier if we really wanted our test to be at 9am. In all it was about an hour wait, my daughter left for her test at 10am.
Her examiner was a lady named Dee Dee. Dee Dee explained that they would be gone about 20 minutes and then asked me to wait outside the car. When my daughter got back (she passed :)) Dee Dee walked her over to me and went over the test score with us. I didn’t see any of the other examiners do that, and I really appreciated that she did.
A quick trip back in the building and we were done!
I did notice as we left that there were about 8 or 9 cars in line for tests, so get there early an get in line if you ant to get out of there on time.

Love it, nice people, honest, and really patient.
I was there to take my behind the wheel test and my instructor was DEDE, she was awesome and really nice. Passed my test my second time! First time was in los banos and they were rude as hell! Thanks tracy dmv!

Worst customer service experience at any dmv I’ve experienced by far. On 3 different trips with 5 different employees the customer service was by far unsatisfactory. Biggest example of uneducated and no customer service skills who are all on a high horse because they are over payed by our tax dollars. Stop flaunting yourselves like you’re above normal citizens.

Be warned if you are taking your test with Deedee (Didi?). She is on a mission to find faults and fail you. I swear she must have a dual personality. Nice and cheery before she got in the car with my daughter but did a 180 when they drove off to test.
I don’t expect cheerful and friendly DMV testers but a stable one would be good. She said my daughter did not yield to a pedestrian crossing on a skateboard who WAS NOT on the pedestrian lane. My daughter slowed down and even stopped 2 yards away (without impending traffic). But according to her comments she did not yield and failed her. I ask you, how to you stop without yielding first? She was also very rude during the test drive when my daughter (mouse like and shy in general) asked a question. Geez. Honestly, if you don’t like what you’re doing, then quit.
Second issue i have is what’s the use of setting an appointment if you wait 1 ½ hours to be seen?
Glad we are never going back to this location. We only booked this location thinking they would be efficient and the appt availability was earlier than our local DMV. We’ll stick to Pleasanton DMV which may have a long wait time at least it’s closer and people I’ve dealt with in the past were reliable and courteous.

Short wait time and the driver test instructor Dede was super polite and helpful during the test. Everybody was really polite!

They saw me really quick, and I was able to get my traffic citations and everything by just retaking my behind the wheel test.
I am doing it this Friday.
This dmv is very clean and friendly.
I love it!

I’ve been here before and it was so easy to get in line. This is the most wait I’ve ever been:(
Is it because it’s Monday? :((
4 stars still… staff are really trying to do their best to keep lines going:))

It’s a all day affair here, then have a taco truck out side now lol, boy this is crazy two windows are closed, a line to wait and no seats, about 15 of us are standing against the wall Really and I’m disable!!!

they take care of your needs as quickly as they can. You can schedule an appointment online for quicker service. They’re very friendly except for that one snotty lady, but other than that this place can get very busy and get packed (which is the norm in any DMV offices) but the service is excellent

If you are looking for a nice, new DMV office, look no further. Go to the Tracy office. Not sure when it was built but it «looks’ brand new. However, my experience there was not much different than at any other DMV office, including some of the worst in terms of facilities & customer base — think Pittsburg. So, despite the very positive reviews posted previously, do NOT expect a better experience here. That’s NOT to say that you might not actually have a lovely experience there; just don’t EXPECT it.
I only have 2 complaints about the Tracy office. First, although the building was nice, they did NOT build a large enough parking lot for all of the people who visit it.; parking overflows onto the street in front and I’m sure the local businesses are not too happy about that. And, second there are NOT enough chairs in the waiting area for all the people waiting to be served; all of the seats were occupied when I was there and people (including me) had to sit or stand along the walls while waiting to be called.
As for the service, it’s NOT much different from any other DMV office in that respect either. I came in to renew my license and made an appointment. You can do this for any office and, when you show up, you can by-​pass the non-​appointment line and get to the «receptionist» quicker BUT you get a number like anyone else and have to wait to be seen. However, if you happen to get there when there’s no one in the non-​appointment line, a rare but possible occurrence, you will have to wait the same amount of time as any one else and having an appointment won’t make any difference BUT, all things being equal, it’s better to have an appointment than not.
When I was called, which didn’t take long, I got an experienced DMV employee who knew what she was doing. However, when I went to get my picture taken, the woman there had to take care of both the camera/​license processing AND the driver’s license testing line, which held up BOTH lines. On top of that, unlike the other employee, the camera/​license processing employee was relatively inexperienced and had to ask for help multiple times in order to get my license renewal processed and printed out. The camera/​testing line grew substantially and was entirely UNSERVED for about 10 – 15 mins while this person tried to figure out how to process my license renewal.
This experience is NO different than I’ve had previously at any other DMV office It’s all a matter of the «luck» whether you get an experienced or inexperienced DMV employee to handle your business. You’re lucky if they know what they are doing and unlucky if they don’t. I got one of both.
The only thing you can do to make the experience at DMV «better» is to make an appointment before hand, which will probably shorten your wait time OR (if you’re a member and if they can handle it) simply avoid going to DMV altogether and take the matter to a AAA Office instead.
You can run into the same experience/​inexperience problem at AAA but your wait times will generally be less than at DMV, especially if you don’t have an appointment. Only problem with this idea is that AAA can only handle certain matters and that you may still have to go to DMV, even after visiting AAA, but it’s certainly worth a trip to AAA to avoid going to DMV if you can.

Wow, nice DMV employees actually exist??? In Tracy they do! After my idiot husband scheduled my appointment for the wrong day, they still took me in the appointment line instead of sending me to the back of the line. That was so sweet of them. All the employees were very pleasant to deal with and even had smiles on their faces! We were in and out of there in about 40 minutes, and that’s including taking the written test, renewing my license and picture taking.
Definitely worth the drive out there. No more visits to the Pleasanton location that’s for sure!

I’ve been driving since the age of 16 and not once in the 35 years I’ve been driving have I ever enjoyed going into a DMV Office until now.
I made an appointment online to get my driver’s license renewed and the day of my appointment, I showed up at DMV 10 minutes early to get started with what I thought was going to be a long afternoon.
After arriving, I jumped in the empty appointment line. As soon as the sole clerk was done helping her customer, she pointed at me and asked if I had an appointment. After acknowledging I did, she invited me to the counter. Even arriving ten minutes early, I was still allowed to go ahead in getting my license renewed.
Total wait time to get in and out, fourteen minutes.

The DMV… is just one of those places we don’t like going to, if we don’t have to. But like the gynecologist, we eventually have to make a visit there.
I’ve been here a few times for different things… and I’ve always made an appointment. I think between 3 times here, I’ve spent no longer than a half an hour combined.
The appointments are much more available than the Pleasanton DMV. I’ve tried making an appointment at the Pleasanton one and they are a month out. I’ve been able to find appointments as soon as the end of the week.
There was one lady in particular, I don’t remember her name unfortunately… but she was so nice. She had a bunch of dolls or something at her desk and my girls were asking her a bunch of questions.
My recommendation: if you’re within a 25 mile radius of this DMV, make an appointment and come here. It will make your DMV fears and anxiety fade away.

Been here a number of times now and I would say it’s a lot more organised and quicker than any DMV in the Bay Area. lucky for us!
The wait time is hardly more than about 30 minutes if you either go as soon as they open or around 4pm. Unless you have an out of Country passport of course. Going here to sort my permit and take a theory test took 90 minutes because no one could get their head around a British passport. First guy we saw he had to get 2 other people check it and then the second lady took 50 minutes to enter in my basic details and checking my passport. She kept on going off to get other people to look at it and had a total of 8 people inspect it by the time I was done. I was beginning to feel like a criminal on a fake passport.
Because everything took so long by the time everything was done it was past 4:30pm and I couldn’t take my test and had to come back the following day.
Theory test day was a piece of cake. Literally just went in, told them my intentions and off I went. The test itself took no more than 10 minutes and I easily passed with 100%. I was informed by the nice guy at the desk my permit will be mailed to me in a couple of weeks.
Registering Cars are by far the quickest and easiest transaction here, 20 minutes and you’re done.
*TIP*
Don’t have time to wait around? Book an appointment.