What's wrong with this picture? (Buying a car w/ a salvaged title off a

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gutero

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private owner)? Here's all the pieces of the puzzle (that I know):
-I'm in the state of California.
-I want to buy a car off a guy from Craigslist.
-The car has a salvaged title
-The car is a 2004
-The car has no license plate (only the sheet left over from a dealership)
-The owner says registration is pending
-The owner has had the car for around 10 months
-The owner has the title but no smog certificate.

From the looks of it... the car is completely UNregistered. Can someone own a car with no registration? Can they sell an unregistered car? I really like the car, really like the price... I still want to buy it. What's the safe way to do it?

It's hard to find info on this when there's the salvaged title added to the equation.. help me out people!
 
email him for the vin number and then find out if you can buy it
 
Get the VIN & do a carfax on it.

Looks like a fishy deal with out the needed info.
 
Think about this for a second... the guy has owned the vehicle for 10 months but hasn't registered it yet. WHY? The most likely scenario is that he COULDN'T register it. Are you going to run into the same difficulty? I know he says the registration is pending, but if it really was pending, why is he trying to sell it? I suspect he's lying...if he's lying about that, what else is he lying about?

There may be nothing wrong, but I would be very, very careful. If you aren't sure what's up, call in the experts. Better to be safe than sorry.
 
Avoid this car. The registration issue can be worked out, but the salvage title and relatively short ownership of the current owner are huge red flags. There is a reason the insurance company 'totaled' the car - it was too expensive to fix. Which means somebody did a cheap-o repair job hoping to make it drivable. Typically, buying a car with a salvage title only saves you a couple of thousand dollars, which is nothing compared to the problems and headaches you'll encounter. Run away.
 
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