When I bought my GTA way back in '96, I had a hard time trying to find out the history of the car through the DMV. From what I recall, it seems like you had to mail a non-refundable check to the state capitol and wait to see if the previous owner or owners would release the information to the state. I may be a little fuzzy on the exact procedure because it has been such a long time since I've looked into it​​​​​. My car has been in storage for many years and now I want to get it out of mothballs (so to speak) and start fixing her up again to get it road worthy.

Fast forward to 2018. I'm still wondering how I can get the history of the car between the time it was sold back in '89 and the time I bought it in '96. When I bought the car, it had a new title and plates. So, I guess it was auctioned off (maybe several times?) and then sold to the dealer from which I bought it from. As far as the car is concerned, it was all original except for a new paint job. That same paint is on it today, but I knew how crappy the factory paint was on cars built in Van Nuys so that really didn't surprise me back then.

Now that the car is 30 years old, is there any hope that I can still find the early history on the car? Or, do you think that information has been finally purged from all DMV state records by now? Many years ago, I requested the free Pontiac Historical Society invoice copy from a member on here who worked there. I received a copy of the invoice which listed the original MSRP, invoice price, holdbacks, options and tne name of the original selling Pontiac dealer. Ho​​wever, I'd would like to search for any additional information like the names of the original owner or owners, miles accumulated between each registration period, miles logged in during each smog check and anything else I can find.

I know it's a huge long shot, but I'd figure I'd at least ask one more time on here before giving up on this whole endeavor entirely.

 

Great questions. I know in my experience, parts of this is much harder and parts of this are much easier now than it was years ago. I cant speak for California, but Ohio has an online title inquire that allows you to input a VIN# into and it will give the dates and number of owners from Ohio. If it was from another state either before or after, you are SOL with that. I also know you can run an AutoCheck or CarFax to get a pretty decent history of owners, but neither are going to give you names. It would just give you mileage and dates. While not exactly what you want, it is better than nothing. I know back in the day, I would send my $5 check to the state and receive photocopies of old titles on my vehicles. I know Ohio does not do that anymore as I am sure there is concern with privacy now.

Hope that helps a little and good luck in your search..

Tom

 

Wisconsin is approx. 7 years. Well, at least for what the general public can get? Who knows if there is still some other data somewhere. I have several cars that I have owned for many years, a few a couple of them for decades. At the time, I really didn't care all that much about the history as I never dreamed I would have them as a classic car. 2 years ago I filled out the DMV forms & paid the fees to get a printed out history of them & what I got back was my own name & address. Not all that helpful.

You can get way more information from places like Carfax, which make zero sense to me because I "thought" they got their info from the DMV? Confusing at best for me......

 

Carfax only knows what is reported to them. If you wreck your car and fix it yourself out of pocket, Carfax will never have a record of it.

 

I think the original post was more about ownership history & where the car has spent its life. As far as Carfax goes I was just refereeing to the fact that carfax has registration info that in many cases the DMV no longer has. Crash history aside. Many years ago I was told carfax pulled registration data from the DMV when you made a request, keeping names and address's hidden for obvious privacy reasons. Makes sense, but learning that many DMV's don't keep these records, would make me believe carfax must have a way bigger collection of data on all vehicles than the DMV's combined do. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but thats what it would appear to be.

Just stinks you can't get ownership history for historical purposes from carfax