How do I tell if a US car had the title cleaned from flood damage?

I'm told that there are still states where you can "clear/ clean" a title for a flood damaged car, then ship it off to auction.

I believe this has happened to a car in my city which was bought from Florida. Of course I have a friend interested in this car.

I know how to find the flood damage, I'm just wondering what those "loose" states are and if I can track the VIN from the car as proof?

Thanks.

Neil

 

Just remove the floor carpet and it'll be obvious........that is the best proof you've got.........or you can run the VIN at

www.nicb.org

 

Any idea on what those states are?

 

This is horrible. Back years ago, I had a 1975 Porsche 911S.

I was driving home to Yukon, Oklahoma and a terrible thunderstorm hit. The road had a patch maybe a quarter mile long with standing water, but it didn't really look all that deep. So I drive on in.

Before I know it, I see water coming right up between the headlights into the valley of the hood. I am afraid to stop for fear of flooding the engine, so I plow straight ahead. Water comes up to about the bottom of the windows, and it gets into the interior through the ventilation. It comes up about waist high - enough to touch the wheel.

The car did not stall, and I eventually drove on out of the water. Apparantly the engine was protected by the wave the car was making, and stayed more or less in the dry. The water only ran back out of the inside to the bottom of the doors, leaving a nice mess in the footwells. It took days with fans and blowdriers to dry it back out. The only obvious mechanical effect was that the handbrake rusted all together so that you could not operate it.

I traded this car to a guy for an airplane not long after that and never said a word about the flood.

James

 

Gebus dude, I said flood, not ocean.

I did that with an ATV as a kid, as I got deeper in the "puddle" the trike started to float. Not cool for the new owner of your car though.

 

James, Don’t worry about it. Before I traded the plane to you, I clipped the left wing on a fuel truck and broke off part of the wing. As I didn’t want problems with the FAA, I fixed it myself with some heavy duty super glue. On the surface it looked like new so I didn’t say a thing and I traded it to you. It looks like our trade worked out for both of us.