Hi everybody. A month ago I bought a car, but it has a salvage title. I’m not very good at the legal part, which I later regretted. The car was repaired, and was sold in good condition with the exception of the title. I passed the state inspection, got insurance, I have to pass the autocrime inspection soon. The only thing that bothers me is that DMV was given a rebuilt vehicle statement, and I absolutely did not do any repair work on it. The DMV said that I can fill it out myself, but I do not know what details to enter and type of work, etc. My question is, how do I fill this out and how legal is it? the previous owner doesn’t get in touch and I can’t ask him
What is an Autocrime inspection and where are you located ? Don’t need exact address but it would help getting answers if people knew what country or state you are in .
Why not just put repairs unknown in the form ?
I realize this is a painful (i.e. time consuming) thing to do, but your best bet is ask this question to the DMV directly. Be prepared that they may require you to have the vehicle inspected to verify it is safe to operate, and that it has all the original emissions equipment installed. You may be able to hire your own mechanic to do this, or the DMV may require you use a mechanic they authorize. Safety, emissions, and theft are the DMV’s main concerns I expect. If everything is in order I doubt you’ll have that much of a problem – other than some frustrations – getting it registered for the road.
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George , the person has had an inspection . He is asking about something called Autocrime Inspection and has been told by the DMV that he can fill it out hisself.
The relevant portion is that it has a Salvage Title
I’ve never heard of that before but I would suspect they want to know if it has had parts from stolen vehicles. Such as do the VINs match on the dash with the major components? If not what are the VINs on the fenders etc? Just guessing but that’s what chop shops do. Steal a car and dismantle them for use on other cars. Should be pretty easy to tell what parts have been replaced, so yeah maybe let a body shop do the thing for you.
Hope you didn’t get taken too bad. A car with a salvage title is worth maybe 50-75% of the normal value and will be hard to sell. My son bought one. I shook my head when the guy showed the title but the kid already had the cash out and would not be dissuaded. Worked out fine though. No problems except alignment with one rear wheel. Never had to sell it since it got rear ended some years later.
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It sounds to me like what most states would call a vin inspection, there should be some sort of guide available online that has the forms and what you’ll need to pass the inspection.
In Washington state you go through a state patrol office for the area (Used to be local but now it’s in Tacoma) The main goal is to make sure the car and major components aren’t stolen.
I remember years ago they did something like this for corvettes because they were getting stolen so much.
Never heard of an autocrime inspection but is this in the U.K.?
Here in OK they have a VIN inspection program that can apply to salvage or resurrected old vehicles of any sort. I bought an old Harley out of CA many years ago that went through half a dozen VIN inspections both in CA and OK.
I have heard of inspections where they also check things like motor and transmission numbers, and so on along with certain areas of the chassis where the VIN is stamped in a hidden area.
Don’t know if they still do it or not but Subaru used to stamp the VIN in the floor pan underneath the rear seat also.
I’m sorry, I didn’t specify this earlier. I’m in Texas
A little bit about autocrime inspection. I’m going through it because the guy didn’t finish the title. But that’s not my question. They gave me a rebuilt vehicle statement and told me to give it to the one who repaired the car. But I have no idea who repaired it, then some woman from the DMV told me to fill it out myself. As I understand it - is it not very legal or is it OK?
If the DMV told you to fill it out then it should be ok to do so.
as stated Texas DMV will change the salvage title to a rebuilt title. it seemed you were worried about the change.
The biggest problem with filling it out yourself is going to be providing documentation (reciepts) that the parts used to repair the car were legally obtained, IE no stolen parts were used to repair it.
In Washington state, you would be screwed and out of luck.
Maybe a mechanic can look the car over and let you know what repairs can be observed.
Here in Arizona, those receipts must either be for new parts, or if used, the receipt must show the VIN of whatever vehicle the parts came from. Problem is, no junkyard I have ever purchased parts from prints that information on the receipt–even if they pulled the parts for you. At a “you pull it” junkyard, the receipt will just have a general description of the parts purchased–not even the year and model of what they came from.
I don’t know how strictly this part is enforced, especially for older low-value models. Technically, the burden of proof should be on the state to show that the car contains stolen parts, not on the owner to prove a negative, i.e. that it does not.
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Probably a “let’s make sure this salvage-titled car didn’t come from a chop shop” type thing.
Not sure how picky they are but Washington State is the same, have to show the stock number of the donor if not the actual vin. Back in 1989 when we had to have our ;78 Rabbit inspected as salvage rebuilt but the only parts that were actually replaced were minor components such as the headlight and the bolts holding the fender in place that broke in the collision. Car still drove just fine but until the fender was fixed you couldn’t open the drivers door. Got us around town for another 7 months until we could save up for a new car.
I suspect that some people in a similar situation would simply make up plausible information guessing that no one has the time to actually check the report and just another piece of paper to file, good intentioned or not.
Of course in Minnesota the penalty for falsifying a public document is somewhere up to 7 years or $7000. As they say your results may vary.
Perhaps for something significant but for a junk car? Millions involved with welfare and disability fraud, how many serve time? Bank robbers don’t serve 7 years in prison.
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