The short version of this story is simple, I screwed up. Me. I never should have bought the car. But I had.
The slightly longer story is that I bought a 2011 Subaru WRX hatchback at auction with a Nebraska Rebuilt Title. I went to the Illinois Secretary of State Office and submitted paperwork for an Illinois Title. Three weeks later I got the title, branded Junk, not Rebuilt. I was screwed! In Illinois, a Junk title can never be operated on public roads. It’s either destined to be a track car, parted out or crushed. That’s it. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Here’s the full story.
I bought the car at auction, as stated. The car had a Nebraska title and was located in Lincoln, NE; at the Copart auction site. I drove my F-150 the 476 miles across Illinois and Iowa to retrieve it. I stayed overnight at a hole-in-the-wall hotel to keep my costs down, then snagged the U-haul trailer in the morning and headed on over to Copart to pick up the WRX. Once I had the car loaded up I hit the road for another 476 mile journey back home with the WRX in tow. All-in-all I made I back to Chicagoland without incident; it was a very windy day when I drove back so my mileage was pretty horrid and I was constantly wrestling the wheel, but I made it.
At Copart they use big ‘ol front end loaders with long forks to pick up and load the cars onto your trailer for you. At home, no big front end loader (bummer). The car was advertised as “run and drive” so I put the key into the ignition and turned it; silence, the battery was completely dead. No matter. I grabbed my battery charger and extension cord, disconnected the battery and let it charge for a while. When I went back some time later, unplugged the charger and reconnected the battery, the dash lit up like a Christmas tree. The engine would crank and turn over fine but wouldn’t fire. I solicited the help of my wife and eldest son to unload the car; my wife steered while we brutes pushed the car backward off the trailer. We finagled it into the driveway and let it sit.
The WRX looked clean from the front
It also looked clean from the back
The following weekend I figured I’d mess with it for a while to see if I could get it running. When I turned the key in the ignition the whole dash again lit up, the radiator fans ran full on, and the temp gauge read to the nuclear meltdown side of hot. Again, it cranked over just fine but it refused to fire. Run and drive my… bad luck. I played with it for honestly only about 15 minutes before I decided to just table the project, submit for the title, and spend my immediate time working on other projects.
My intent for the car was to buy it cheap, sort out a few gremlins from the previous flood damage, tune it using a COBB Accessport and go Stage 2 (turbo back exhaust), drive it for a while and then move on. My standard approach when I research, assess, and purchase a vehicle is that, worst case, I’ll break even if everything goes pear shaped on me. Well, I got a basket of pears with this one.
When I got the title back from Illinois it was indeed branded Junk and was accompanied by a simple letter that explained that this vehicle had at some point been branded Junk in Texas, and therefore that was the title condition Illinois would recognize going forward. I had done a basic vehicle history report on the VIN using vehiclehistory.com and had seen the previous junk designation but also saw that it was currently titled as Rebuilt. According to the Illinois Secretary of State website it stated that Illinois would recognize other states Rebuilt titles and issue an Illinois title likewise. In my researching before the purchase, I hadn’t found any published or electronically posted document to tell me otherwise.
My previous purchases to this were good experiences with Copart but “previous” had ended here. Screwed is a word that comes to mind. They don’t certify anything, and I knew that going into the deal, but this vehicle was certainly not “run and drive” condition.
I did some digging into the branding of titles and what it takes to get their designations changed. In my research I was able to figure out that only two states in the country allow for Junk titles to be converted to Salvage, and then onto be Rebuilt, those two states are Virginia and Kentucky. My car was washed through Kentucky. Title branding is similar from state to state but the specific term they each use to define the condition may be different, they essentially mean the same thing though. For instance: for a vehicle which cannot ever be used on the road again; Illinois uses the term “Junk” while Florida uses the term “Certificate of Destruction”. In both cases neither state will allow the vehicles to ever be legally registered for road use. Most all other states allow for Salvage vehicles to be repaired and inspected before be re-branded as Rebuilt and given the okay to legally be driven again.
The interior was clean in the front
It was also clean in the back
What Now?
Initially, I was furious. I felt like I’d been robbed and also like an idiot for making the decision/mistake. I probably could have taken legal action and made a big stink about the whole thing but I didn’t want the hassle. The hard truth is that I also wasn’t innocent in my own stupidity either. As angry as I was, I just wanted to recoup my money and move on.
I had a few options, (no, crying on the porch step was not one of them) I could try to sell it as-is to someone who would use it as a track car, part it out, or donate it. I looked into donating it and decided that was the least financially smart option. Parting it out could potentially enable me to recoup my total investment but it would take a while and be a perpetual hassle. The final option would be to sell it as-is, at a loss, which would be much less effort and would get rid of the problem quicker, maybe.
Well, initially I went down the road of trying to part it out. I figured if I were to sell it outright I could maybe get $5k for it. So if I were going to part it out I would set myself the same goal of $5k. Not long after posting the part out ad on Craigslist I had numerous inquiries, mainly for the front bumper cover and the front fenders. Between two guys who wanted those three components I was already set to make $1,200; but then one of the guys back out and I figured it wasn’t worth selling just the one one fender to the other guy. This scenario of people making offers and promising to come get parts, only to cancel, played out a couple more times before I changed my mind and decided that I just needed to sell the car whole as-is, take my loss, and move on.
I had the car listed for quite a few months on CL, Offerup, and Letgo before a guy and his son decided that it would be a good project to tackle together. Between the bid price, auction fees, U-haul trailer rental, gas, travel expenses, tax & title costs; I was in the car for $9k. I sold it for $4k. In that one transaction I lost $5k along with a fair amount of time, effort and hassle. The fact of the matter is though that dwelling on the loss does nothing to promote the future; it simply becomes a hindrance to progress. I had to move on.
It was a tough lesson to learn but sometimes it’s the tough lessons that teach best. There’s a quote I heard recently to the affect of, “Learning from my mistakes is free, learning from your own mistakes will cost you.” Its a true and succinct statement. I’ve learned from my mistake, I hope you do too.