WASHINGTON, May 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Automobile
 Dealers Association (NADA) has joined a diverse coalition of consumer
 protection, law enforcement, and auto industry representatives to urge the
 U.S. Department of Justice to finalize a critical rulemaking to help
 prevent rebuilt, wrecked, flooded, or stolen vehicles from unknowingly
 ending up on a consumer's driveway.
 
     Each year, millions of vehicles are totaled, and many of them are
 refurbished and return to the road with no record of the vehicle's severe
 damage. In an effort to benefit all used car buyers by reducing vehicle
 title fraud, Congress passed legislation in 1992 creating a national
 information system to link state DMVs electronically and to mandate that
 insurers and salvage yards report the VINs of junk and salvage vehicles to
 the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS).
 
     In a May 20 letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, NADA, consumer
 protection organizations, law enforcement, and auto industry
 representatives strongly urged that the Justice Department make the NMVTIS
 rulemaking a priority by finalizing the necessary regulations to implement
 the insurance and salvage yard VIN disclosure requirements under the
 Anti-Car Theft Act as soon as possible.
 
     In addition, the letter urges the Justice Department to make the NMVTIS
 data readily accessible to the public (via a Web site or similar electronic
 media) without waiting for the rulemaking to occur.
 
     "The auto industry and consumer advocates share the same goal of
 ensuring that salvage vehicle reporting requirements are enforced under the
 law," said Ivette Rivera, executive director of legislative affairs for the
 National Automobile Dealers Association. "NMVTIS presents an important
 opportunity to track potentially dangerous salvage vehicles - whether it is
 keeping a problem vehicle off a dealer's lot or helping consumers spot a
 severely damaged vehicle."
 
     The Justice Department has failed to meet the Congressional deadline of
 January 1998 for implementing the rules for the NMVTIS database.
 Consequently, vehicle salvage fraud, title-washing and VIN cloning
 (switching the VIN of a stolen car with the VIN of a similar make and
 model) continues to plague used car buyers.
 
     NADA, founded in 1917 and based in McLean, Va., represents about 20,000
 new-car and truck dealers with nearly 43,000 separate franchises, both
 domestic and import.
 
 
 

SOURCE National Automobile Dealers Association