Fwd: <VV> rebodied corvairs/

[Jim Houston]

My wife and I bought a Ford Aerostar from a *Ford Dealer* in San 
Antonio, TX back in 1992.  I traded in a Chevy Malibu wagon.  All the 
paperwork was done, loan processed, etc, etc.  We made payments for 19 
months and then the Texas DPS showed up at the door to recover the 
*stolen* vehicle!!  Turned out that it had been driven off a lot in 
Vancover, WA and traded in to the dealer in San Antonio using a New 
Mexico title (must be easy to get one there)..  We had to surrender the 
vehicle. The Ford dealer had declared bankrupcy and gone out of 
business, so we lost all our payments, our trade-in, and when I told the 
bank what had happened (and that I wasn't making any payments until it 
was sorted out), they put in on my credit as a repo!!  When we went to 
buy a replacement vehicle from another dealer, I had the officer in the 
stolen car dept of the DPS run a VIN check for me *before* we bought 
it.  It was clean....

Oh, it turned out that there was an insurance policy somewhere for the 
dealer and I got a check for the balance owed on the car -- I paid the 
bank off and got my credit straightened up, but we still lost a lot of 
money!  The van sat in a storage lot for a couple of years and the 
storage lot submitted a lein to the judge for the storage and was 
awarded the van... of course, by then it was trashed....  I really don't 
know why the Canadian insurance company went to the trouble to track it 
down and then just abandoned it...

Jim Houston
Brandon, FL

Tony Underwood wrote:

> At 11:21 hours 06/30/2005, HallGrenn at aol.com wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 6/29/2005 9:38:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>> RoboMan91324 at aol.com writes:
>> Mama finally gets fed up waiting for her con man son
>> to finish the restoration and demands to have the car back.  To cover 
>> his
>> ass, he tells her, "Oops, sorry Ma .... I went to get it and someone 
>> stole
>> it."
>> Of course, Mama reports the theft and the authorities see the VIN 
>> registered
>> to Bob.
>> Exactly.  In my case the daughter (an Army Officer) thanked me for 
>> her mom
>> and I got the money back I had spent (nothing for all my time 
>> naturally).  Mom
>> had tried to say I had stolen the car at first, but I didn't budge 
>> because I
>> had the paperwork--including a note from the Chevy dealer allowing me 
>> to tow
>> it--AND I had the car.  In the end everyone (but Junior) was happy.  
>> Mom sure
>> loved her convertible (red on red with a white top).  But then don't 
>> we all love
>> our Corvairs?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> This sounds like the sort of thing that could happen with *any* car, 
> whether it had been rebodied or not.
>
>
> It always pays to make sure you have legal ownership (not just title 
> to) of any vehicle before you start in on spending any money on it.   
> There *is* a difference between title and ownership.    Any crook 
> could sell you something sans title...  it's always a good idea to 
> check the DMV for title activity (AND the existence of any liens), 
> then just to be sure, run the VIN through a CRC check to make sure 
> it's not reported as stolen somewhere.   If it passes muster, and it's 
> not on record as stolen or owned by anyone else or has liens against 
> it, and the seller agrees to signing that bill of sale, then you own 
> the car.    Getting a title is then the next step.
>
> There are sample vehicle "Bill Of Sale"  forms available that would be 
> good models for anyone purchasing any vehicle without a title.
>
> But before you even get that far, run that vehicle's VIN through 
> channels and make sure of what you're getting.    This should go 
> without saying.    It can save a lot of trouble and maybe even keep 
> you out of a courtroom.
>
>
> tony.. 
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