So...on September 6 I sold a car. Oddly enough, I don't have a lot of experience selling cars. I tend to drive them until the wheels are falling off or the engines are failing, and then I donate or junk them. I've only ever bought one new vehicle in my life, and don't anticipate doing so again. And I drove THAT until it was falling apart and donated it. I do take care of them, it's not like I drive junk heaps around. But I hate car payments.
Anyway, I had this 2003 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer that I'd owned since 2010. It was a really good vehicle, especially in snow and ice. And it was in really good mechanical shape. During my time of ownership, I had replaced the 4WD transfer case, had the rear end rebuilt, replaced all the wheel bearings. The leather interior had some wear, but no rips or holes, and the sunroof didn't leak. All the electronics worked. Calculating all the money I had into it, excluding fuel and insurance, and including the original purchase price of $7500 and all the repairs I had done, that vehicle cost me about $4.00 a day for fifteen years. $120 a month. I'm betting y'all would love to have a vehicle that only cost that. But it began misfiring. Time for a timing belt. On that vehicle, that's a repair that crosses my threshold between repair or dispose of. You basically have to pull the engine out to do the job.
It was in too good a shape to just junk it. See the attached pics of the vehicle as I sold it. I decided to see what I could get out of it. I sold it to a guy for $600. I reported it sold to the state DMV minutes after selling it. With me so far?
Here's where the story turns ugly. NOW I know I should have removed the license plates. NOW I know why you don't sell to someone who won't show you a driver's license. But I confess none of that occurred to me. I don't do this often. And it's not like it's required by law here. I got a name, I got a bill of sale, I got an address. About 4 weeks later I got the first of several photo-enforced infraction notices. Then a couple of toll charges. All that's easy enough to quash. I just sent the confirmation email from the state that I'd reported it sold.
Last Tuesday I got a Vehicle Impound Notice from a towing company in Auburn. The vehicle had been abandoned at a car wash in Kent. They'd towed it. I was still the registerd owner. Out here, such impound notices are filed through the state. The towing companies have a computer connection to the DMV. So I called the towing company, explained the situation. Gave them the confirmation number of my report of sale. They logged in, then they said they could see that I'd been charged for reporting the sale, but nothing else. The report of sale was incomplete, and if I couldn't prove to them that the state agreed that I'd reported the sale in a timely and complete fashion, I was going to be on the hook for whatever they couldn't recoup by auctioning the vehicle, to the tune of $120 a day.
So I called DMV. I talked to Mike, who was VERY helpful. He said he didn't know what they were talking about, that he could see the report of sale just fine. But he linked me to the Public Records Unit, so that I could put in a request to get an official copy of it. I put in the Public Records request. This morning I got the document, delivered electronically. I called the towing company. I said I've got the document, could I email it and save myself a drive down to Auburn? "Well, it's gotta be an official document." I explained it was as official as could be gotten from the state. He said, "I still don't see it in the system as a complete report." Dude, sez I, DMV says it's complete, Public Records says it's complete. I'm looking at the official document from the state, in a PDF format, that says it's complete. If you can't see it on your computer, then what you have is a technical problem you need to take up with Washington Technology Services. As a tech guy for the state Dept of Health, I work with those folks all the time. I can get you hooked up with someone, and they can help fix you. Or I can call my attorney, and I'll have HIM resolve this, because that vehicle is not my problem.
"Well, I need to see what you've got. Email it." So I did. He looks it over for a few minutes, checks it with some other people at the towing shop, then comes back on. "Okay, you're going to get another mail notice we sent on Friday. You can disregard that."
Thank all that is holy.
But that was several hours of my morning.
Lessons learned.
