Changing Title Status

[millhowz]

In this ebay aution a 98 is being sold with a clean title, but the seller says at one point it was salvaged...

seller quote:
"Also it states that the car had prior salvage at one time, however it is now being sold with a CLEAN TITLE. I have not run a Carfax report on the car so i am not positive if it truly shows prior salvage or not. Whether it does or not the fact that it has a clean title at this point will override any previous salvage history. "

I always thought once salvaged always salvaged... is it possible to change the status like this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...ory=5337&item=2493445567&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

 

[Briank]

There are ways to wash a title, Carfax reports are making it much harder hide salvage history though.

 

[sccchiii]

I am a car dealer and a lot of wholesalers that deal in multiple states will "wash" titles in states that have very easy ways to get rid of "salvage" on the title. When they are done they normally will sell the car in another state, making any type of back tracking next to impossible(this is common on E-bay and other online auctions). Thankfully, Carfax has helped a lot but is not perfect because of how long it takes for info to show, if at all!!!! If anyone has any more questions please contact me. Unfortunately, I have been on the bad end of more than one of these transactions and it is not fun.

 

[jlindy]

I am a car dealer and a lot of wholesalers that deal in multiple states will "wash" titles in states that have very easy ways to get rid of "salvage" on the title. When they are done they normally will sell the car in another state, making any type of back tracking next to impossible(this is common on E-bay and other online auctions). Thankfully, Carfax has helped a lot but is not perfect because of how long it takes for info to show, if at all!!!! If anyone has any more questions please contact me. Unfortunately, I have been on the bad end of more than one of these transactions and it is not fun.

Explain in more detail how it is washed by selling it in another state and how you can detect this?

 

[sccchiii]

Lets say that a person buys a salvage title nsx in state"A". They take the title to one of the "easy title" states-who's laws have a lot of loop holes for reissuing a non-salvage title to a salvage title vehicle from another state or even in some cases their own state(I will get a list together of these states and post it sometime soon)for this example we'll say that this is state"B". Once the new "clean" title is issued they then will sometimes go one step further and get a third title issued in state"C" to make it even more difficult to track. State"C" has no way to trace the fact that at some point the vehicle had been issued a salvage title in state"A" and they issue a another "clean" title. The vehicle is normally then auctioned or sold privately in state"C" very quickly(they know it takes a long time for the records to catch up with carfax-if at all, and want plenty of time to disappear before the buyer finds out). Hopefully this wasn't to confusing, just want to make sure that none of you get caught in all of this. It happens more than all of us would like to think it does. As always just be cautious of any auction cars and mulitiple owner cars(lots of them have multiple owners, just make sure you have a solid history behind it- backed up with service records to verify what the owner is saying about where the car has been). Sorry that this was so long!