What Is Title Washing and How Can You Spot It?

What Is Title Washing?

Every vehicle has a title that can either be clean or bonded. Ideally, a vehicle will have a clean title, which indicates that it has never experienced extensive damage. Because of their favorable history, clean-title vehicles often sell for more money. As such, some dishonest sellers will try to “wash” a bonded title to make it clean.

Title washing refers to when a vehicle that has any type of branded title is brought to a different state and illegally reregistered as clean. In other words, if a vehicle had a salvaged or water-damage title, the seller could try to pass it off as clean so that potential buyers wouldn’t know about the extensive damage it had borne in the past. While title washing is a federal crime, many states, such as Mississippi, Illinois, North Carolina, and California, don’t enforce laws against it.

How to Spot Title Washing When Purchasing a Used Vehicle

Title washing isn’t always easy to identify, which causes many people to unknowingly purchase a used vehicle that has experienced extensive damage. Examples of ways to spot a washed title on a used vehicle include getting a vehicle history report and checking to make sure that the seller’s name and other information matches the information included on the title document.

Perhaps the most effective way to determine if the title on the used car you’re interested in purchasing has been washed is by getting a prepurchase inspection. The prepurchase inspection should be completed by an independent certified mechanic. Such an inspection will alert you to any issues that weren’t immediately obvious during the test drive but could end up becoming a serious problem a few months, weeks, or even days after purchasing it.