Santa Paula DMV at 250 West Harvard Boulevard A, Santa Paula, California.

I visited the Department of Motor Vehicle offices in Oxnard, Ventura, and Santa Paula today. The Santa Paula Office DMV is over-rated, especially for those who do not have a scheduled appointment. The Ventura DMV Office is rated appropriately. The Oxnard DMV Office is a nightmare.

I scheduled an appointment to be seen in all three offices -- the earliest date I could obtain was 2-1/2 weeks in advance (Santa Paula). For Oxnard and Ventura - the earliest dates were 3 weeks in advance.

Since I could not wait so long to register my car, I drove to the Santa Paula and Ventura offices without having an appointment. The waiting times to be seen by the greeter for both offices were less than 15 minutes. However, I was told by the Santa Paula office that I would have to wait 1-1/2 hours to have my car registered. Plus, I did not see any empty chairs in the small office (about 1/2 the size of the Ventura and Oxnard offices) and I did not want to stand for such a long time.

So I drove to the Ventura DMV office. The facilities are the nicest of the three DMV offices mentioned here. The non-appointment line greeter there said that its computer system was down and that they did not know when it would be back online -- if it did go back online. The greeter referred me to either the Santa Paula DMV office or Oxnard DMV office.

So I drove to the Oxnard DMV, where I waited nearly 2 hours in the non-appointment line before being seen by the greeter. After I was seen by the greeter, I was told that I had to have my car inspected, and then, I could return to the appointment line to be have my request processed.

It took so long to see a greeter in the Oxnard DMV because there was only one greeter available to talk with customers in BOTH the appointment and non-appointment lines. When there were customers waiting in the appointment line, they would be seen before any customers in the appointment line (which snaked outside of the electric doors). Understandable, but very frustrating! In retrospect, I should have waited at the Santa Paula DMV -- even if it meant standing for 1.5 hours.

The Oxnard DMV staff, in addition, is not so pleasant as the staff in Ventura or Santa Paula. I guess stress can really make people nasty and rude.

Santa Paula DMV is the best of the three. Ventura comes a close second. Oxnard does does not compare and truly deserves one star. It suffers from poor management, indifferent and rude employees, and meh facilities.

Good luck to all of you. The California DMV system truly is broken.