How do I salvage a car?

Factual Questions
1

Just out of curiousity, how would one go about claiming salvage on an abandoned car?

I live in California, if that’s any help.

There’s this nice little miata on the side of the road over here that hasn’t moved but once in over a month.

I tried googling, and got back a bunch of law firms and legal briefs, but no actual “How to”.

I know that the TM will have the answer…

2

You could get the VIN and run it through Carfax. It’ll cost you a small fee, but it should tell you the last registered owner. Does it have a tag? Get the number and call the DMV.

3

Cool. I’ll look into these options…

Has anyone here ever done this before? I’m curious if I could actually get this car just by filing paperwork and paying a small fee… hehehehe

4
      • In some states/locales, there are restrictions on the sales of salvaged vehicles. There is a designation on the vehicle’s title. A pal bought a junkyard car as salvage and fixed it up pretty nice, but whe he wanted to sell it, he could only sell it to someone else that lived in the same county as where he salvaged it from. -And he salvaged it in a Missouri county, and was allowed to register it when he moved to Illinois, but when he sold it, it had to be to someone in the original Missouri county. So you might want to ask the DMV first about any possible restrictions…
        ~
5

I doubt you can get ownership in California by claiming it like that.

Im in California & the way to go about it is to contact the local police dept, they should have a dept just for this sort of thing.