Buying a new car in Columbia District is much easier than buying a used one. But the latter option is much more affordable and thus attractive to average citizens. It’s hard to survive without a car in the capital of the USA, and of course you are willing both to buy a used car of a good quality and make this quite tough process faster and more comfortable for you.
In order to achieve these two aims, you should do a license plate lookup. A vehicle license plate is a plate which contains a VIN code – a so-called vehicle’s ID.
In the United States, license plates are issued by the State Government Vehicle Department or local authorities. In District of Columbia, they are issued by DC DMV.
There are several options to do a license plate lookup, but they are either too costly or time-consuming. The best option was created in the XXI century. It’s an online DC license plate lookup, where you can discover all the essential information about a car you’re going to buy just in a couple of minutes. After you type a 17-digit VIN number into a search window and press the “Enter” button, you’ll get a VIN report which will contain such data as:
- The information about the car’s previous owners.
- Year and place of manufacturing and production.
- Data about the manufacturer.
- Accident history.
- Information about liens.
- History of repairs and damages.
- History of being stolen.
Details on the Report
You should consider choosing another car in such cases as:
- The car is reported to be a lemon (which means severely worn or defective).
- The insurance of this car was lost and then renewed. A lot of machinations can be made provided a fake “insurance loss”.
- There are some liens (or loans) on your destination car. If you are unlucky to buy such a car without having been told about the liens – this car won’t be yours according to the US law. In order to avoid this, do an additional title check and see if the car is sold legally.
- The car survived one or several major accidents. As you know, it’s no joke to look after a disabled animal: to buy all necessary meds, to take it to the vet more often than you’re paying visits to your own doctor... The same is about cars. If your car is not accident-free, there’s a high probability you won’t avoid accidents in future.
- The car is stolen. And again, in this case, the vehicle doesn’t belong to you, and after you buy it – you’ll not be able to prove anything: the police will have the right to take the vehicle away from you and give it back to the true owner.
- The odometer data which are mentioned in your VIN report don’t match those on the site where the car is being sold. Owners like to make their car seem “newer” than it is, and sometimes the difference can be very significant.
There are some steadfast ways to avoid fraud:
- Mind the dealer’s reputation. If you can’t find any information about him or her except the cell-phone number – this dealer is probably a fraudster.
- Filter the listings of the pre-owned cars, searching only among those which are pre-checked or have buy-back guarantees.
- Check if the VIN number matches the car title. It’s easy to fake a VIN number, but fortunately. It’s also easy to unmask the fake.
- Make sure the VIN doesn’t have any tampering.
Good luck in buying your dream car after a thorough District of Columbia license plate search!
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