Read the VIN.
Then check open recalls.

In 2023, the National Insurance Crime Bureau recorded more than 1.02 million vehicle thefts in the United States, the highest total in nearly two decades. A significant portion of those vehicles were eventually recovered, retitled, and fed back into the used car market. Some came with clean paperwork. The buyers who found out what they had purchased did so after the fact, when a mechanic pulled up the history or a resale attempt surfaced the original theft record. A VIN number check run before the sale would have shown the same thing in under a minute.

The used vehicle market in the United States processes roughly 40 million transactions per year, according to data compiled by Cox Automotive. Every one of those vehicles carries a 17-character identifier that links it to a chain of title records, registration filings, insurance claims, and federal recall notices. The information exists. It is distributed across state DMV databases, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, NHTSA recall records, and salvage auction logs maintained by insurance carriers. What a VIN check does is pull those sources together against a single number. Odometer readings filed at each state registration event show whether the mileage on the dashboard matches the mileage on file. Title brands issued after flood events, fire damage, or total-loss declarations follow the vehicle regardless of how many times it changes hands or crosses state lines. Accident reports filed by insurance adjusters attach to the VIN at the time the claim is processed, not at the time the owner decides to disclose them.

The vehicles that generate the most VIN check activity are not the obvious candidates. Pickup trucks, particularly full-size models from domestic manufacturers, account for a disproportionate share of both theft records and structural damage claims in the national databases. Late-model SUVs returning from rental fleets carry commercial use histories that their odometer readings do not fully explain. Luxury imports from Germany and the United Kingdom show up in VIN records with European damage history that predates their US title registration, because insurers in those markets file claims that eventually surface in American databases when the vehicle is imported and registered. Dealers operating at the retail level are required by federal law to disclose known defects, but the law does not require them to run a history report before they buy a vehicle at auction. The gap between what a seller is required to say and what a VIN check will show is where most of the findings live.