Ghosts of Trucks past - A Cautionary Tale

Last night I’m working on some work-related nonsense at home when my wife comes to get me and she is a bit excited. “Someone’s here about something with the green truck…”. She leaves the room and I can hear an excited conversation at our front door. Well, the “green truck” is the Dodge Ram formerly owned and operated by… you guessed it. That truck was sold in May of 2019, so I am thinking, “What the heck could this be”?

I get to the door and find this woman telling my wife how this truck, registered to me, was dumped on her property. Once the conversation spins down to a level of sanity and coherence, I discover this person lives across town from us and her [former] step son left it on her property.

Right after I bought my Tacoma, I put the Ram on Craigslist and I sold it in less than 2 hours. This very nice woman, who was a nurse, was the first caller and I gave her first shot at it. I got at least 10 calls that day which surprised me as I thought I might have a little trouble selling it because it is big and doesn’t get very good milage. She is buying the truck for her 20 YO son who got a job in construction and needed a truck for work. She liked that it had a tonneau, a hitch, and that it was in good shape. In fact, it was in very good shape. It had a set of BFG KOs with less than 5000 miles on them, Centerline wheels, a newly rebuilt engine with numerous goodies, a tuner, a trans with low miles after I had it rebuilt for heavy use, both axels had been rebuilt and had 4.11 gears, Timken bearings, and Detroit Tru-Tracks in them, a nice alpine stereo and amps, and paint that was only a few years old. I intended to keep the truck, so the work and components were good stuff.

The buyer liked it and paid full ask. I was happy this kid was going to get a decent truck and that the truck would go on to work for a few more years. She brought her son back and picked up the truck a few hours later. I went over the particulars like how the axels worked, how to get it in and out of 4WD, explained how it was currently tuned for premium, and could only run Premium unless he retuned it to the setting for regular. He was mostly interested in the stereo, but he took it all in. He called me two times after that to ask some questions about how some things were set up. I did get a couple of calls/texts from the kid’s Dad (the buyer’s ex-husband) about how the kid needed a diesel, and she didn’t okay it with him as to what to buy. He told me how “we” should have talked over the deal, blah, blah, blah. Typical nut job ex, butting into his ex-wife’s business. Good bye and good luck.

A couple of months later, I started getting toll lane tickets from Orange County. Looks like he didn’t register it. No problem, I did all the CA DMV Bill of Sale and Release of Liability paperwork and had copies of that and the title. In addition, I have a form I use when selling cars that doubles down on the liability release, release of my interest, acknowledgment and acceptance of the vehicle in “as is” condition, “where is” delivery, payment, and agreement to hold harmless. People are litigation crazy and you never know what someone might do or try especially if they are involved in an accident right after purchase. I like the extra measure of “It’s not mine, it’s theirs”. Called on the tickets and provided copies of all the documentation and the county released me from any liability.

Fast forward to now, and this person is at my door. Apparently, she is wife #2 and was married to this kid’s Dad who, as she puts it, is a psycho. She told me this story about how he tried to kill her and she has a restraining order against him and there is all of this family drama and legal nonsense. This all came about because she was contacted by an investigator over a motorcycle that was also left on the property. I guess the kid bought that and also never registered it and there are some legal issues with it. Yikes! What a mess.

So… this lady is at my door because apparently, this father and son decided they were going to make some sort of “improvements” the truck and couldn’t get it to run and then, I guess, exceeded their knowledge of how to reassemble it. Who knows… the story was convoluted. She said all this other drama went down and they ended up divorced and the truck was abandoned there. She tried to get it removed but there is some hang up because she is not the registered owner, the only paperwork has my name on it. She came over here because she was going to court to get the truck off her property, and she though the cost might bounce back to us. I’m not worried about it. I have good documentation and the state has already acknowledged the truck does not belong to me via the ticket resolution and the fact they have not mailed me any registration documents.

This is why people trade in cars. What a bunch of BS. This is why it’s important to cover your butt with things like this. Sometimes they do come back. I wouldn’t want to be on the hook for any removal or storage, so I’m happy to have a decent level of documentation. I also have all the texts and emails in regard to the sale and the Dad’s brief interference. I saw the file I had all the documents in the other day and thought, “Do we need to keep that any longer”? Turns out we do. We may have to demonstrate it’s not ours one more time.

 

Well that's special.

I recently sold a car, but I pulled the plates off before they took it and sent in the title notice of sale to the state. I hate selling things on general public for sale sites.