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900hp sand rail crashed $24k

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In AZ, doing a rebuild is basically nothing.  It's a level 3 inspection that seems to focus on it having a mirror, tail lights, headlights, horn, and--a big deal in my state--a plate light.  I'm pretty sure branded title and home-built are the same on that.  I had to do a level 3 on a trailer with a defective MSO and it was forever branded as "home built" or whatever the actual words are.


The used car market is total insanity right now.  Just like the offer I got that led to the Gladiator, two of my friends got stupid offers to get something new for barely over trade-in.  And trade offers sight unseen for high book.


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1 hour ago, superhawk996 said:

If someone buys a totaled car from a difficult state, gets it re-titled and registered in a state that's easier, then takes it back to the difficult state; does it have to be re-inspected?  I assume they'd just transfer it since it's already titled & registered.


It's funny how different things are in different states.  In CA you can buy a totaled vehicle and all you need to put it back on the road is a brake and light inspection.  It doesn't matter how fucked up everything is/was as long as those two things are good.  It can still be a mangled mess, don't matter.  I've also learned that it can be easy to get around a salvage and keep it a clean title car, I've done it with two cars.  In both cases I told the buyer, they didn't care.


When I did my 999s I showed up at the inspection place with it in the bed of the truck expecting to have to unload it for them to test stuff.  I was a bit nervous because the tail/brake light wasn't DOT, the guy said that as long as it works he don't care.  Then he asked if I test rode it before buying, yes.  "Did you get on it"?  "Fuck yea"!  "you're alive so the brakes work, ok, come inside and we'll do the paperwork".  It never left the bed of the truck.


From there I had to go to DMV for a VIN and engine number verification.  He was too fat/lazy to get up into the truck to see it (base Tacoma squatted down with the cargo) so I volunteered to read them off to him.  The engine number was hard to see so I read it off the paper I was holding.  It was legit, but I could have easily faked it.

State law varies on your question.  We are a "may" issue state, but with revenues being so low I'm shocked they haven't changed that to a "shall not" at this point and require reinspection.  Georgia doesn't accept ours because of their revenue department, and they are so vague that they won't even tell you why they fail it, just "it doesn't pass."  You pay every time it's inspected, pass or fail there.  They won't accept ours because people on the east side of the state buy from Atlanta's GIGANTIC auctions, legitimately fix them here, we inspect them here, then inevitably a Georgia buyer buys it.  Georgia sees that as bypassing their process and won't accept them, however we do accept theirs.  Eventually it will get to the right politician and they'll change our laws to "shall not" and require reinspection for all states because Georgia wants to be stubborn.

Salvage means not legal to operate here.  The only way to make it legal is restore it to it's prior condition, plus airbag light must function and display no faults, windshield cannot be cracked, and obviously if we find anything on it stolen then that's reported to the local jurisdictional authority for prosecution.  We require it to be road ready, but in Florida (allegedly) they don't check airbag lights or even want you to paint it before inspection.  Louisiana (allegedly) doesn't even require all repairs to be completed.  Mississippi used to not have a rebuilt brand IF the brand was from another state, so you'd get an unbranded Mississippi title after inspection (may God have mercy on your soul if that vehicle ended up back in the original state's jurisdiction as they would then require inspection or proof it was inspected in Mississippi.)  Everybody has their own rules.

VIN inspections are done by the license commissioner/probate office here, unless they can't find it then it comes to us at the state level.  Problem with that is they're not trained to look for falsified/modified/altered VIN's.  I had one that somebody had printed a VIN on a label maker and glued over the real VIN (obviously came back stolen.)  I caught it at first glance but this thing had been titled in two different states with that fake shit on it for 13 years and neither one caught it.

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