Army Sgt. Rosa-La Williams thought she was getting a great deal when she bought a used 2002 BMW 325i from a dealer in Honolulu. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that she found out why the dealer had been so eager to sell the car — Williams learned through the manufacturer that a previous owner had crashed the car into a tree and the engine had caught fire.
There are countless stories from people like Williams who have bought used vehicles without knowing that their cars had been previously totaled and rebuilt. Congress tried to fix the problem in 1992 when it passed a law calling for a national database that would require states, insurance companies and junk and salvage yards to report information about these vehicles.
Now, more than 15 years later, the database is still far from reality.
Today, Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety and Consumer Action sued the Department of Justice, the agency in charge of creating the database. Public Citizen is asking the court to order DOJ to get off the shnide and force U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to do what Congress asked for in 1992.
Mr. Mark A. Gatz
*BEWARE of Otis Ford,Inc. Quogue,Eastern Long Island,N.Y. “Otis Ford Put USED Parts On My NEW Car”. http://www.otisfordsucks.com Edward T. Otis III,owner. Website was designed to educate & inform the public. Thank you.
March 5, 2008 at 11:27 pm
clyde schmitz
I work for the DMV, State of Florida, our state is signed up with (NMVTIS) National Motor Vehicle Title Information System. Not all states are signed up. About 23 states are reporting in real time. Some states down load information on a weekly basis. It’s an ok system. The information is some what vague. It will tell us a vehicle is salvage, but there are many types of salvage. Some are “repairable or rebuildable” Some have already gone through an inspection process and are “repaired or rebuilt” and some cannot legally be “rebuilt or repaired” and can only be used for parts. Right now we can’t tell which one of three it could be from NMVTIS, we have to look for other clues. It will be a lot better when all the states are signed up and are reporting in realtime with more detailed information.
March 22, 2008 at 10:48 am