Well, this may be goodbye
 

So I arrived home from work today to find that my 78 had been towed.
I called the cop shop and found out that the guy that I bought my truck from had stolen the registration tags that were on my truck and it hasn't been registered legitemately since 04.
Thanks to the CA DMV for not looking this up & informing me of this when I transferred the title.
If I'm going to get her back I will have to pay a towing fee, 4 years of registration, storage fees, smog (probably won't pass) and impound fees.
I'll find out what the total cost is on monday.
I paid $1,700 for the truck and I'm trying to decide if it is worth it to pay the fees or just let her go & start over.
I have a car & a motorcycle so it's not like I need it for transportation but I was really starting to grow attached to her.
What do you guys think?

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I would get a lawyer and go after the guy you got the truck from and make him pay for everything

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

What bugs me about that situation is why the heck did they tow it from you? Don't y'all change tags when the vehicle becomes yers? That's how it is here, when you sell a vehicle you keep its tags, new owner must get new ones or transfer some old ones they have from before... And the DMV not catching that, it's their fault, why should you pay all the fees? Time for a lawyer, me thinks, there's now way you have to pay for someone else's negligence... If you choose the lawyer way, there's gotta be a way to trace down which idiot at the DMV wasn't paying attention, and then you can file charges against them - you sue them for the all the money the cops want from you plus the legal fees and the lawyer fees. Alternatively you can go after the previous owner of the truck, especially if you still have the title they signed over to you, that may actually be more feasible than chasing down the DMV. Really bro, we live in the most lawsuit-happy country in the world, use it to yer own advantage and make them pay for their incompetence, that's what I'd do if I were you.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I really dont know what to say my thought is this. Id say it worth it if it were me but i bought mine for 300.00 and got about 1700.00 in the truck know so yea id be one very pissed off person. And id want my truck back so get it back.

Also what did it look like.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I know in Texas they just ask you "are the plates in good shape?" After reading this i'm starting to think it's a good idea to say no in any situation to get a clean set.

Thats their fault. You were in good faith that you had a legit set of tags. The fact that they didn't catch this mistake is their own problem.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

Yea bro,, Im not a lawyer or anything near it but DUDE,, something doesnt sound right!! I agree I would atleast talk to a lawyer thow.!

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

MTV PIMP MY RIDE OR OVER HAULIN. Could allways get luck

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

id definitly pay the fines....you dont need all that.... you just need the temparary moving permit...

1) ticket, pay later
2) tow and storage....pay on the spot
3) go to DMV, and get temerary moving permit

most likely you need a release from the PD.... just get the moving permit first....show the PD..then go to the impound yard, and give them the release..

then i would take a break from the truck...once its safe.. at least for a couple months.. after wasting that much money, you wont be in any kind of mood to drop any more money into it......but 2 months down the road it will be water under the bridge....

i have WAY to much experience in this department.....living in TORRANCE....and we all know the TPD are all AHOLES.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I am sure the reason he didn't mention hiring a lawyer is the guy he bought it from doesn't have anything to sue for. If he had money, he wouldn't have stolen the tags.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I just don't understand how you can register a set of stolen plates??!!:crazy:

Hell, even if he did register them, he paid the fees right ? That shows he was in good faith that the plates were legit.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I never "registered" the truck. I simply transferred the title and thus ownership.
In CA. you have to jump through a lot of hoops to register a vehicle in order to make it street legal, so, since it was a project truck I just transferred the title w/a vehicle/vessel transfer and registration form. When you do that they don't care about the the tags or license plate, they only run the VIN. to make sure that it's not stolen.
It got towed because I took it out of my garage so that I could move my car in & wash it. I left the truck on the street & drove my car to work the next day & when I got home it had been towed.
I'm not gonna go after the guy b/c as someone already said, he is a poor POS and I wouldn't get anything.
I'm just trying to decide if I want to pay to get it back.
I'll find out on Monday what the cost will be and I'll let y'all know what I do.
Thanks to everyone for the advice.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

Everybody's got a slant on this.....Mine comes from California.

I hate the Smog Boys. And the Ca DMV is about as close to Nazi Germany as you can get and still be north of Central America.

There are questions, here. If you really want opinions, I'm sure you will get them. But if you want help, I'd say there are questions that would have to be answered......Some members already asked a few of them and I saw no responses. But, I'm old and could have missed them...

How did you register the truck? Or were you still waiting to do so?

Did you go get, or require the seller to get, a current smog certificate?

If you were still waiting to register the ride, and gave the seller $$$ before you saw evidence of a clean (passed) smog, then my suggestion would be to gut it up and look for another truck.

If any other set of circumstances occurred, like the DMV actually registered the truck with you going in, standing in front of them, giving your dough, etc., or if that happened and they sent you away with a temp. and asked you to do something (like have the PO sign off or get a smog...BTW, for Non-CA lucky members, you do a smog at a "certified smog station", they put it in the computer next to the VIN no....the cert ois good for a certain period no matter who owns the vehicle), then something is screwy.

I'm a big believer in not asking the government, or someone else to do my dirty work. And this is not advice. But I once learned from something like this. I was lucky enough to find the guy (mostly you can't...scum-suckers). I was small then. I solicited the help of three big "new" friends to knock on his door. That was a small mistake....They were anxious to go into the place and get equal dollar value from anything that was not attached to the house.....Scum's girlfriend answered the door and immediately came down with a bad case of a short-term disease of the lower intestinal tract. We had layed low outside, so we knew Scum was in there. As is typical, the Smelly Girl was about 15 years younger than Scum. She gave him up. With the repayment (the cash portion) I extracted that day, I paid the Gorillas a case of beer each. I did not come out whole. And it could have been much worse, as I tended to go into those situations with hidden pyrotechnic "helpers" back then...Could be writing this from a very dark place.

As I heard it, Dirty Girl left Scum for the local Circus Midget who was also a meth dealer. Scum drove his 20 year old Mercedes into Tomales Bay while high on powder. I only got a portion of my money. And it took me three years to shake my new Gorilla friends, who wanted to do more "jobs".

My advice? State the problem clearly here.....Dump the truck if you F'ed up. And if that's the case, don't carry either any baggage or weapons.

If you didn't blow it, write me. I have lawyers in the family...Nope. I'm not one.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

whats weird is if you are NOT the "registered " owner...why is the the tow/impound bill coming to you?

in anycase, if redondo is anything like torrance, the tow fee will be around 100, storage is like 30 a day.. like i said, get a 24 hour moving permit for the truck from the DMV pay impound fees and chaulk it up....letting it go is pretty permenant... one of those things that stays with you FOREVER.. :damm i shoulda got it out:...lol

look at it this way........

all those fees you will be trying to avoid, by letting the truck go....will STILL be your responsability to pay....it will go on your credit report......even if you let the truck go..

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

Ok, let me clear some things up.
you pay a registration fee when you purchase or renew a vehicle.
That fee is in place on all roadgoing vehicles to pay for things like road repair, road construction, street sweepers, parking meters etc........
When I bought the truck I transfered the title into my name in order to establish ownership.
Ownership & "registration" are completely seperate entities.
Since I didn't "register" the truck it didn't have any business being on a publicly owned (taxpayer owned) road.
It is simply a piece of property at this point. If you put your refrigerator in the street in front of your house the cops will take it no matter what kind of plates it has on it.
I know this sounds wierd to the CA. members but the reason that I know that you can transfer titles w/o making your "registration" current is because when I bought my motorcycle from an old widdow I went to the DMV to register it and they couldn't find it in thier network because it is a 73 and the last time it was registered was in 82. so they transfered ownership to me w/o any regaurd to roadgoing registration.
Later I had to go to a CA. Highway Patrol inspection site so that they could look at the bike and confirm that it was what I said it was in order to get tags for it but regaurdless of the tags it still legally belonged to me the whole time.
Since I purchased my truck it has just been a piece of property that I own and as far as the DMV and the cops are concerned, not a vehicle. That is why it got towed from a public road.
As far as the tow fee "coming to me", it didn't. I haven't recieved any kind of correspondence from the police. I just know that I will have to pay it if I want the truck back because I called them and they said that as the owner of said "property" I am responsible for all fees.
The plates & tags are null & void but I thought that because they were "CURRENT" I could get away w/parking it on the street for a day, apparently not.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

The last thing I'd ever do would be to argue about something that is not my business.

I will tell you that I have registered at least 75 vehicles by going to the CA DMV.

EVERY TIME *I* do it, they check for current tags. If the vehicle has not been registered for 5 years, it drops from their system, and all is good. If the tags are not current, within five years, or if they are going to expire within 60 days, I've been forced to bring them current. $$$$$.

But I look like a bad person. You probably look like a good person. Next time I go, and I think the tags may be not current, or I'm not worried about the seller being a Scum, I'll take a shower and comb my hair.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

I hear what you're saying but through my motorcycle debacle I discovered this way of changing title w/o registering.
They tell you that you have to bring the registration to current status because that is the norm. but it is not actually required.
I didn't bother to make sure that it had been smogged within the last 90 days b/c it was a good price & I didn't really care b/c it was to be a long term project. The legalities were going to be sorted out after it was finished.
I just made the mistake of thinking that the Redondo Beach Gestapo wouldn't care about an old truck parked on the street for 12 hours.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

And I thought I had it bad in my neighborhood! No neighborhood association, but there's some snooty lady down the road that always reports any vehicles that she can get any dirt on. Funny though, there was a thugged out crack house up the road with a shell of a car sitting in the driveway, and I mean a junky shell of a car. She never reported them, probably because she was scared of the consequences if they found out it was her.

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

Where my friend lives there's one like that too, she once called the cops on me cause I cruised in with my interior lights (red) on and making lots of noise (stuck IAC valve so high idle) so I was "suspicious" :crazy: Lil' did she know I got a 10,000lbs towing strap in the trunk ;)

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

Well, that explains everything - disregard my previous comment about the lawsuit, it don't apply in yer particular situation - I know how registering vs. owning goes, my truck was legally mine well before it was street legal and registered with the DMV here, it didn't get towed from my apartment complex only cause I have a carport for it and manager knew the engine was in the process of being rebuild and that obviously takes some time.

Kinda makes me wonder tho, how did they find yer truck, were they patrolling the street and happened to run the tags, or someone rattled you out?

Re: Well, this may be goodbye
 

If the fees become more than 1500 then I have a friend that has a 1975 Chevy short stepside for sale= NO SMOG! Let me know in a PM if you might be interested in calling him. With 4 years back reg,penalties,tow,impound fees,smog inspection, I'll bet you are going to be over that by a long shot. Good luck. Cali sucks in my opinion. I am originally from Illinois and things are WAY different there.
-Lance