How Did a Sandy-Damaged Truck Land on a Used Car Lot?

we start with a riddle how could anyone in the heartland ever fall victim to a hurricane one that blew ashore long ago and far away well the answer is a flood car totaled by salt water but sold as clean to an unwitting buyer superstorm sandy destroyed over a quarter million cars over a year ago and now too many of them are washing up for sale with clean titles how does it happen who's stopping it well tonight we have a major update to our summer investigation for this nightline on the lookout when cars are in a flood for any length of time a place like this is where most should probably come to die but not all do we learn this lesson firsthand thanks to this good-looking pickup we paid 20 grand for her in new jersey just two months ago but now we'd like to crush her in texas because even after this truck was inundated in the salt water of hurricane sandy she's still washed up on a used car lot with a clean title for sale to an unsuspecting customer wow it's got leather in here and since a flood car with a bogus clean title can be a dangerous thing you gotta wonder how many more are there how you doing that's the question i wanted to ask the good folks here at insurance company usaa and we're here to see rebecca hirsch sure we had hauled our evidence across country and up to the gates of their headquarters you're gonna have to turn your camera off okay hi rebecca how are you yeah i know but sometimes i can be persuasive you gotta see this tow truck we have to bring this truck down here to show you it's got dragons on it it's awesome you'd love it come come check it out and chat with me but we never got past security and it looked like a few defiant emails would be the end of our effort to talk to usaa are you kidding a very small part to play in this story how can you shirk that responsibility but then came a pretty remarkable about face can i call you kevin can i call you general take your pick bill i answered a vote an about face led by the army general turned usaa executive who invited us back and this place is so much more impressive than i pictured it it would be yeah from the gate i got it i'm just curious um there was so much resistance to sit down and talk before why why'd you decide to come talk to us today truth is at this point i'm all ready for journalistic combat with but then he said the one thing i never expected i think we would want to tell you thanks for shining the light on something that's troubling to all of us wow great but why is the good general falling on his sword well it has a lot to do with exactly how this ford ended up back on the highway if i can walk away giving you 20 for everything okay i want to take it now and it all began on a dark stormy night when super storm sandy hit the northeast last fall few were prepared for the misery she would bring nearly 300 people lost their lives thousands more lost their homes and then there were the cars an estimated quarter million of them submerged for days in corrosive salt water the months following the storm many were parked at this abandoned airport on long island just look at them all and each one a potential highway hazard because salt water flood cars are a special kind of wreck flood cars literally rot from the inside out days weeks or months down the road parts are going to fail which makes it a bit worrisome when you see runways full of flood cars now vacant yep that's the same airport packed after sandy but empty today so the obvious question is where did they all go and the answer like many things in life has a lot to do with looks now some cars obviously belong in a junkyard final resting place but there are countless others that go through storms like sandy that look just fine at first blush that's probably atlantic ocean and as the folks at the used car tracking service carfax showed us they look even better after a five-hour makeover they estimate that over a hundred thousand sandy battered cars are back on the road tonight not just around jersey but across america we see the mercedes on lot right there here's one in omaha and another in saint louis you know it's kind of an old-fashioned notion that they traded it in locally right and even a landlocked lawman in iowa is on the lookout for hurricane wreckage passed off as pure even though hurricane sandy happened what 1200 miles away these cars are shipped all over the place dealers buy them turn around fix them up make them look good don't tell you about it our ford f350 truck is one of those vehicles it was owned by a guy named mike kennedy mike's kids loved the truck so much they named it spirit and we know that when sandy hit the kennedys watch sea water swallow their point pleasant new jersey neighborhood and with it spirit the truck she was underwater for two days mike's a retired navy man so his insurance company is the military-focused usaa they declared spirit a total loss sent mike a check for thirty two thousand two hundred thirteen dollars and four cents new jersey authorities tell us that it is the insurer's responsibility to brand the vehicle title forever marking it as a salvage vehicle and knocking serious money off its value but somehow spirit made it through the auction and on to dnd's lot with a price tag of nearly 20 000 a lot of dough for what the experts say should be a pile of parts so we decided to buy it with the help of our producer aaron 20 large and cash and a few hidden cameras in her glasses and water bottle just to make things interesting we send spirit's former owner along for the ride here we go how you doing good how are you i want to buy a truck i want a big truck she enters a lot and is quickly chatted up by a salesman named jack who very quickly gets her behind the wheel of spirit one hitch the power seats don't work i think the fuse is out on the seat oh really yeah so he's got to change the fuse he told me now maybe it's a blown fuse or maybe it's because they were submerged in salt water for two days now jack did reveal that a carfax report showed that spirit had been in a flood but shrugged it off you know the carpet said something about a flood or something on it it's like a glitch a mistake but it's clean title a short time later aaron's got a deal she hands over the 20 large he signs the purchase agreement and now aaron owns the truck here we go how does it feel to be driving your old truck again feels great it feels good to be driving it again but i don't want it you can have it because she's not going to last too long the purchase creates a bittersweet reunion for spirit's former owner and mike can't resist taking it home from one more visit with the kids where he notices a few obvious signs of her watery history well i have tools in the glove box and believe it or not the tools are still here they're no longer functional tools because they're rusted shut that water was up through here the front seats don't work when we bought it today they claimed it was a fuse to bring it back and they'd swap out the fuse it's not a fuse i can't imagine what else does it work these guys will they are jersey shore mechanics and they know a flood vehicle when they see one that's definitely water driven there's no doubt about that that's like fine silt oh my god man this thing might catch fire if an air bag blows up on you you you could crash would you put your family absolutely not in a million years i wouldn't even drive this truck out of here seems like a good time for me to have a chat with jack the used car salesman at d d auto sales on unhidden camera we got a reaction cam going on this one yes but we don't want to tip them off so aaron makes an appointment to have those power seats checked out and i will play the role of her tow truck driver

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Views: 2,019,144

Rating: 4.6333151 out of 5

Keywords: sandy, hurricane, insurance, automobile, car, truck, flooding, damage, carfax, used car, nightline, abc, abcnews

Id: -f2fvRXWieg

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 05 2013