Well it came time for my sister to renew the tabs on her car. Well she could not find the title. I had thought she lost it but it turns out she never got one. Well she went to the DMV with the VIN number. According to MnDOT no such vehicle exists. It might be important to know she bought the car from a junk yard. Well the DMV told her she has to take the car down to Robbinsdale and have it MnDOT inspected. Even if the car was junked out there still has to be a title some where doesn't there? The car would never pass MnDOT. Then come to find out the junk dealer she bought it from was charged with title fraud. So I quess the lesson here is that never buy a car from a junk dealer. I knew that but appearently it never occured to my sister what the first word in "junkyard" is. It probably doesn't need to be siad that my sister is not very bright. Well this just proves it more. But being the "kind and caring" brother I get stuck trying to bail her out everytime.

End rant...

 

Thanks for the lesson.

Buying junkyard or salvage cars means you have to drive them into the ground, they may have no resale value.

 

How did she get it registered in the first place? In NY that would never happen.

 

actually i know someone in brooklyn that it happened to years back.. turns out the guy had the car on the street with no plates and the city came by and tagged it for removal . The truck hadnt been on the road in a year since the guys dad got sick and the plates that had been on it expired.The city junkyard contractor said they picked it up and the title was squashed stating that the car had gone into the crusher.. ( it was like a 1978 GMC suburban) Meanwhile the guy who owned it went and sold the truck to someone who let the car sit in his garage for a year or so while he fixed it up to make it runable. he goes to DMV with a title in hand from the original owner and is told this car doesnt exist anymore it was crushed by the city. It took another six months to settle th is one out cause the idiots in the state and city wouldnt believe the car existed even after inspecting it and finding both the body and frame numbers were correct. the guy who bought the car eventually wound up getting some kiind fo salvage title or one of them state vin numbers this was like fifteen years ago this happened

 

Yes I can see that happening, but the op stated she was going for a renewel not a new regy.

 

This thread is worthless without some pictures of your sister. Maybe I can give you a hand with "taking care" of her. (Just joking man. Please don't hunt me down and kill me. )

Does she have any recept for the purchase of the car from the junkyard? Even if it is years ago a credit card company would have a record of the purchase (if she used a card).

 

She paid cash for the car. Good question though as to how she got tags in the first place. I was not with her that day. You'd think there'd be a title for it somewhere though. For a car to just plain "not exist."

 

I'll throw in my advice too: be careful of buying cars with the engine just rebuilt or the transmission just rebuilt. If your car needs a transmission rebuild, and you are willing to shell out almost a thousand dollars (maybe more) to have the transmission rebuilt, then you're probably planning on keeping the vehicle for a while, since that is a big investment. So when someone spends a lot of money on the transmission rebuild and then sells the vehicle 100 miles later, it is fishy. The reason this happens is because people will spend the money on the transmission getting rebuilt, and they get the car back, and don't like the job the shop did, for whatever reason. So they'll have a big fight with the shop, maybe the mechanic will pull it and look at it again, who knows. For whatever reason, the situation doesn't work out and the owner decides to just sell the car and at least get some of his or her money back, and cut their losses. A lot of stories I have seen, where people are drawn into buying a vehicle on the understanding that it has a brand new engine or transmission and should last a while, end up getting screwed because the car slips in third or knocks after the first oil change, or whatever. So beware - no person that has just invested a lot of money for a good rebuild that is happy with it is going to turn around and sell the same car the next month.

 

Or if they're like me, just put a brand new engine into their project car, have been driving it for the last six months since the other daily driver is down, and now are forced to sell because they are flat broke and this is the only thing of any value they have that they can sell. Maybe that's why nobody bit on the thing.

 

Extenuating circumstances. I have dumped alot of money into a vehicle, just to sell it for something I really want. Not everyone is a scammer.
Do your homework, and youll be fine.