Titles and VINs
No matter where you’re buying a used car, you should ask to see the vehicle’s title and registration before closing the deal. An auto title, also 
called a pink slip, is a legal certificate of ownership issued by your state’s motor vehicles department. It lists the car’s make, model, year and the first date sold, as well as the current owner’s name and address.
When you buy a car, the seller must sign over the title to you to indicate transfer of ownership. You’ll then take the title to your motor vehicles department, which prepares a new title in your name.
Behind the VIN
A title also indicates the car’s vehicle identification number, or VIN. On the car itself, this 17-digit number appears on a small steel strip on the dashboard, inside the driver’s side door or in the engine area. It’s important to be sure the VIN in the car matches the one shown on the title. (If you’re considering a very old car, you won’t see a VIN — they weren’t standard before 1981.)
A VIN is an important tool in the used-car buying process. With the VIN in hand, you can usually find out if the car has been in an accident, reported stolen, how often it has been sold and when. 
You might even be able to find out if it was ever involved in a crime or repossessed. There are several services on the Internet that use VINs to research the car’s history, and you may also be able to obtain a printed history of the vehicle from the state motor vehicles department.
Salvage titles
The car’s title document and VIN will also disclose if the vehicle has a salvage title. A car with a salvage title has been declared a “total loss” by a car insurer — which means it may have interior structural damage, may have been rebuilt or may have been in a flood. Reselling a damaged car isn’t as uncommon as you might expect. About 2.5 million cars are wrecked in accidents every year, and about 1 million of them may be sold afterwards.
While you can certainly buy a car with a salvage title, you will probably find that it’s very difficult to get auto insurance on the vehicle or to finance it with an auto loan. And because a salvaged vehicle may run into mechanical problems down the line, you’re taking a big risk by buying one. What’s more, a salvage title automatically voids a manufacturer’s warranty on the car.
Just the facts
Perhaps the best-known online car title search service is Carfax, at www.carfax.com. Carfax uses data from about 4,400 car dealerships, repair shops and other sources, as well as about two billion public records, to track a vehicle’s history — a bit like a private investigation for a used car. While it’s not foolproof, a Carfax report can indicate where a car started out and where it’s been since, and everything that has happened to it along the way. The report — for which you’ll pay about $20 per car — is broken into nine categories ranging from mileage accuracy to accident and recall checks to vehicle history details.
