1973 Duster 340.
I had a friend who had the opposite problem He had an Olds diesel for sale for $1800 and a parts car to go with it for $300. A woman driving by stopped and looked at the cars and bought both with cash. He gave her the titles and she said she would be back Saturday with her husband. He never saw her again and had no contact information for her.
He lives on a road named for the creek that is the county line and there is a road on the other side of the creek with the same name. Either she couldn’t find his house again or something happened to her.
He kept the cars for a year and a half and finally sold them to a junkyard that would buy them without a title.
Our state (NY) has no release form to send in when you sell a car. I won’t sell a car without making copies of everything, including their drivers license.
I hope he got the money anyway but $1800 was too much. I got $200 for my Olds diesel with new tires on it. I kept the hood ornament though and still have it mounted. After 480,000 miles, it owed me that.
@"“oldtimer 11”
“Our state (NY) has no release form to send in . . .”
What are you supposed to do . . . trust the buyer actually retitles and registers the car in his name?
There’s way too many possibilities for things to go wrong
Almost everybody I know that has sold a car private party has at least one horror story to tell
Seems to me it wouldn’t cost the state of NY very much to come out with a simple release of liability form.
In states were sellers retain their license plates buyers don’t get far before being picked up by the police for driving without plates, California is different in this respect. When selling a vehicle you must keep a copy of the bill of sale. Perhaps one day all states will have an online statement of vehicle sale that the seller came file. Then the DMV will be able to better enforce insurance requirements.
I believe in California, there is a provision for a seller to retain his plates, if they are vanity plates
But otherwise yes, the plates do stay with the car
I’d never run across that before until I bought a car from a private guy in Wisconsin. He let me take the plates with the car but asked that I send them back to him so he could use them. I sent them back in a couple days.
I once shared a shop with a guy who preferred Arizona and California cars at the auction because the came with valid license plates and he could drive these cars until he sold them.
I hope he got the money anyway but $1800 was too much. I got $200 for my Olds diesel with new tires on it.
Depends on where and when. In the southwest today a full size GM from the 1980’s goes for between $1500 and $2500. No diesels have survived however.
In Oklahoma the plate stays with the car but a new plate can be issued if the car buyer so chooses. Plate is used in the singular as OK does not require a front plate nor do they issue one.
Many years ago while crossing the Mojave in CA a CHP trooper whipped around and followed me for about 10 miles before finally pulling me over. I had no idea why as I was not speeding.
He informed me that he had stopped me for no front plate and was not going to let me move one more inch without a front plate.
I kept telling him that I had just entered the state and that OK does not issue a front plate. He just kept insisting that I had to have one and the discussion got pretty heated; both figuratively and literally as it was a 105 degrees.
He just could not seem to believe, or even want to, that OK does not issue a front plate to anyone and was actually going to impound my car. The sticky point was that the people in Barstow told him that it would be 4 hours at least before a tow truck could get there.
He had me tied up on the side of the road forever on a Sunday afternoon. Finally, his dispatcher got through to an OHP district office as the DPS was closed on Sundays. They affirmed my story about no front plates and he let me go with a “now that you’re here in CA get a front plate” comment. Apparently “I’m a visitor only and just crossed the state line…” meant nothing.
Don’t you love encountering totally ignorant Law Enforcement Officers? I have encountered a few. I have been issued 6 citations by them. 5 which were dismissed by the judge, and 1 where the fine was reduced by 50% only because I admitted to unintentionally going 40mph in a 25mph speed zone because I did not see the sign and there was no reason for a reduction from 45 mph to 25 mph on a 2 lane rural road.
I got stopped on the Niagara section of the NY Thruway in Buffalo when I was “bobtailing” ie going to pick up a trailer. He stopped me for operating a truck in the left lane of a 3 lane thruway where they are banned.
I pointed out to him that both my license plate and my registration said my vehicle was a tractor and by law, not a truck, bus, or vehicle pulling a trailer unless I was actually pulling a trailer. Those are what is banned from the left lane.
He took my license and registration and walked back to his patrol car and began talking on and then shouting into his radio. I could see the red creeping up from his collar up his neck. He threw his microphone at the dash and stormed back to me and said “don’t let me catch you out there again” .
I think he found out I was right:)
Temper temper. I think I mentioned the three squad cars that showed up when I was loading up sand for the sand box.