Ever wondered where your old car is located at? Well, this article will help you with that.
Letting go of your beloved car is never easy, and when the chance comes to maybe get it back, many wonder if they will ever be able to find it again. Luckily, you can! Whatever the reason is for you to want to find your car again, you will be pleased to know that this is not such an impossible task to do if you have all the right tools at hand.
The more details you have about your car, the easier it will be to locate it. To begin with, you should always check if you have the VIN, if you have a license plate number, and if you have any information about the person you sold the car to.
We’ll cover a couple of options for finding your old car, however, it will take a lot of effort and research to find the exact person holding it, and get into contact with them. Even if you find the person who owns the car, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to buy it back.
Find Your Old Car By Its VIN Number
The first thing in helping you with finding a car you previously owned is the vehicle’s identification number or VIN. Luckily, the VIN is a unique number combination and no 2 cars can have the same VIN, so that helps a lot in finding a car.
VIN is required in every single state, and besides helping you with finding your car it can also help you with all sorts of information regarding that specific car.
With an online VIN decoder, you will be able to access some information about your vehicle. These resources are excellent for finding pre-owned vehicles but are primarily used when buying a used car.
Some VIN decoder sites are free, but they only provide you with basic details like the year of production, make, model, and color of the particular vehicle. You will need to invest a bit of money for the car record via a service like CarVertical or CarFax in order to access more specific data on the vehicle, such as approximate location, if there have been any reported accidents, mileage, service records, and owners.
Help From DMV
Another way to find a car you previously owned is through the DMV or Department of Motor Vehicles. This is probably one of the safest and most accurate ways of finding a previously owned car, however, because it is so reliable, you are not allowed to access it without proper approval. Once you are authorized with this newfound information, the sky is the limit in finding your previously owned car!
If you visit the DMV in your state, officials can acquire the car’s VIN from their system using the license plate number on file for the vehicle. You can even use your driver’s license number as a backup. Even if you have relocated to a different state, the DMV still retains a record of every vehicle you have ever owned.
Alternative Ways of Finding Your Old Car
If by some chance you are not able to get help from the DMV and you don’t know your VIN, there are a few tricks that you can use.
Always check your old documents related to your car, like registration papers, insurance cards, or loan documents.
Another trick is to check in with your insurance company or a bank. Many official documents related to buying a vehicle require a VIN number or any other information you might be able to use. Your previous car’s auto insurer may in some situations be able to provide you with its VIN as well. You will be required to submit your ID and certain personal information, after which the insurer should give you the VIN after the required protocol.
However, if NONE of these work you are still left with several other ways of tracking down your previously owned car, but with less possibility of finding it.
A simple one would be to contact the person you last sold your car to. They could be the person holding the car still in possession.
Some other alternatives would be to visit sites, forums, or Facebook groups, so let’s go over them as well.
There are useful sites like The Lost Car Registry where you can give your previous car’s information in order to get some information back. Another similar site is Check My Ride.
It’s useful to know that every car brand usually has its own forum where car enthusiasts gather and help each other with any problem at hand. So if you are searching for a Corvette you can visit CorvetteForum.com, or if you had a BMW model, BimmerForum.com can help with finding your car. You can easily search other forums on Google.
And lastly, there are Facebook groups that also have car enthusiasts eager to help out. You can simply go to the search bar, enter your vehicle’s brand, select Groups, and a list should appear.
But we are not done yet! There is also a BONUS TIP to find your previous car! If by any chance you said your goodbyes with an old classic, a very good idea would be to go to the nearby auctions! There is a likelihood that it has been put on an auction, or that it has previously gone through an auction. If you’ve sold your classic car for a moderate or low price, people are sneaky enough to often buy vintage cars in private sales for incredibly low prices, and then sell them at auctions where car aficionados are willing to pay big sums.
With this bonus tip, we close our article for today. We hope that our gathered information on how to find your previously owned car will help you in finding your lost car. If you are ready for a bit of adventure, and a lot of patience if you lost complete track of your sold vehicle, these tips should help you out!