The federal government has just enacted provisions to create a national database to include cars that have been stolen or wrecked by collision, fire, or flood. This database tracks cars by their unique VIN (vehicle identification number.) For a fee ($2.25 to $3.50) consumers will be able to run a background check to see if, say, a used car they want to buy is in fact a repaired wreck rather than a well-maintained creampuff.

For now, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), or "wreck registry" as it’s come to be called, is a work in progress. Ultimately it will gather information from every auto insurer, state motor-vehicle department, and junk or salvage yard. So far, according to the Department of Justice, only 13 states are fully complying, 14 are providing some data, 14 more are not participating, and 10 are moving toward compliance. Perhaps most irksome, some big states, including California, New York and Pennsylvania are providing data to the system but not making it available to consumers. DOJ claimed 73 percent of the U.S. vehicle population is represented in the system.

Until all 50 states have joined the club, which by law they must, then it will remain possible for unscrupulous operators to “wash” a wrecked car’s title by re-registering it in a different state. Since the states define wrecked cars differently and have differing and sometimes very lax titling requirements, there has long been a loophole allowing car repairers to get a wrecked car reclassified, concealing its true history.

For a variety of reasons, you probably don’t want to buy a repaired wreck. For instance, a car that’s been submerged in water may never recover from the ordeal. Electronic systems and body components, including crucial safety gear, can continue corroding from the inside out long after the car has seemingly dried out. And while it’s possible for a body shop with the right tools to undo serious collision damage, doing the job right takes time, money and skill, things that make a good, safe repair often unprofitable.

That’s where the scam artists come in. If they can make cheap repairs that make a bad car look acceptable, they can turn a big profit by reselling it. Part of the procedure is getting a clean title. While many states "brand" a known wreck’s title with a notation that this is a wrecked or "salvage" car, it’s long been possible to "wash" the brand off by re-titling the car in another state. That way a cheap repair to cover serious damage can go unnoticed. Stolen cars can also slip through the interstate web, and that’s another loophole that the NMVTIS is supposed to close.

Bogus titling is a big problem that costs consumers billions of dollars per year. In a study we conducted in 2002, we found at that time possibly 20 percent of cars involved in fatal accidents were rebuilt and resold, and that 30 percent of those had fraudulent titles.

The wreck registry has been a long time coming. Even though Congress mandated it in 1992, it took a lawsuit from a number of consumer groups, including Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS), and Consumer Action to get it this far.

While the NMVTIS program is far from complete, it’s a start. But until there are more states and reporting agencies within states to feed information into the program, it is difficult to say that the title search results are conclusive as yet.

There have long been services that help consumers check a vehicle’s history. The biggest are CarFax and Experian. Carfax charges $29.99 to check out one car, and Experian charges $14.99. Carfax says that it gathers information from police agencies among other public-records sources, which may be one reason it’s costlier than other information sources.

The NMVTIS Web site lists two information providers, Auto Data Direct, which charges $2.50 to run down information using a car’s VIN number, and CARCO Group, Inc.,  which charges $2.25 for a summary and $3.50 for a more complete report.

Bottom line
You don’t have to pay anything to receive insights into a vehicle’s history. You can also get a free VIN check from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which aggregates data from more than a hundred insurance companies.  

It’s important to know that none of the information sources are complete. So they may provide welcomed insight, but the information they lack may be just what you need. They’re a reasonable place to start, since they might exclude some candidate cars right off the bat. But in the end, you’ll still be best off by having a qualified mechanic check out any used car you consider. A trained expert can notice welds where there shouldn’t be any, improper body repairs, and misaligned or incorrect parts that may go unnoticed by most of the rest of us.

Read “Beware the flood of flood cars.” Watch our videos to see how more than 250 cars perform in Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash tests.

—Gordon Hard