A recent change in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to find out more about the history of cars is creating a big problem for some car owners and dealers.
The BMV says last summer, Ohio's titling system began interfacing with a national database. A new field is displayed, showing if an insurance company has ever reported the vehicle as salvage or total loss.
Some vehicles that were previously given clean titles and deemed safe to be on the road are now being labeled as salvage because an insurance company had reported them as salvage or total loss at some point.
Insurance can label a car salvage or total loss for different reasons - like when it is stolen or has hail damage - but that background information isn't included in the new field.
The executive director of the Ohio Independent Auto Dealers Association says about 200 cases have been reported to her so far. She thinks the state needs to establish language on exactly what a salvage vehicle is.
“Ohio doesn’t have a definition on its books saying this is what salvage is, this is what total loss is,” said Wendy Rinehart.
The BMV says it is aware of the problem and has added extra customer service to help connect the car owners affected by the entity that reported the vehicle as salvage.
One car owner says he was given the reporting entity by the BMV but the business was not able to talk with him because he did not buy the car directly from them.
"They said since the car was not sold to me from them, they can’t give me information," said Josh Loudenslager. He went to the BMV who told him to go back to the auction house; a virtual circle where he's stuck with the car.
In order to get a title changed from salvage, the owner needs to have an inspection by the highway patrol.
They also need to produce receipts for the work that fixed the damage.
If a vehicle owner didn't know their car was ever deemed salvage, they might not have kept those receipts.