In the past 3 months or so my neighbor’s car has been towed at least 3 times - those are the ones I’ve been home for, it could easily be more. It’s a Hyundai Veloster, no idea of the year but it looks no more than 5 year old. Not parked illegally, I live in an apt complex with plenty of parking, there’s no stickers or anything. I’m certain it’s the same car each time. I don’t know my neighbor, but she’s in the same building, and we often leave for work at the same time. At least once she was watching while they loaded it onto the tow truck.
So all I can think is either it keeps breaking down, or keeps getting repo’d. But if it broke down that much you’d think she’d sell it and get a more reliable car, and if it keeps getting repo’d how does she keep getting it back?
One, the car may be under warranty, factory or extended, and so it may be costing her nothing to have the dealership pay the towing fees. It’s not unheard of for a car, especially a newer car under warranty, to have several attempts at repairs thrown at it before the warranty company buyout and/or lemon laws kick in. And Hyundai has had engine design flaws that have caused this exact scenario as the dealership struggles to diagnosis and fix some nebulous problem (not sure about this specific model).
Two, any time anyone asks my advice on unloading a broken car, my advice is always the same – if it’s otherwise in good condition, you’re going to get the most money for it by paying someone to fix it first. Obviously there’s a point where the math flips and a repair just isn’t worth it, but if a car is worth $12k on the used marked in good condition, and $5k on the used market with a blown transmission, and a new transmission is going to cost $5k to install… obviously you fix the transmission and sell it for the full $12k. Why the disparity? Because the buyer can’t test drive the car in its current state and is going to want a buffer in case something else is wrong with it. (For what it’s worth, very few people take me up on this advice because if they had $5k lying around they wouldn’t be having this discussion with me. So while the math works, scenario 1 is much more likely).
Considering the above line, I think @steronz makes the most sense. Speaking from very minor related experience about how long it takes a car to get repo’d (from when I was an insurance claims adjuster) it’s extremely unlikely that it would happen 3 times in 3 months. Getting it back after a repo generally means bringing the payment current, or at least financing the missed payments. And if it happens that frequently over such a short time… you normally don’t make it to 3.
The plates are in state, and as I said I’ve seen her leaving for work (I presume) at the same time as me on several occasions, so she’s definitely either a resident or stays here pretty frequently. And the complex has enough parking that they don’t try to enforce any sort of parking restrictions.