Owner History in Wisconsin...
 

One of my car buddies bought a used 2019 Corvette from Ewald Chevrolet...the story was the original owner passed away and the family sold the car back to the dealer. He then bought it used from Ewald.

He wants to 'connect' with the original owner's family to learn more history.

Is there a way to research the VIN history thru Wisconsin DMV??

I have a call into the dealer to see if they will help me.

thanks,

wilma

I'd be shocked if the DMV will freely give out that info. A shady car dealer might, though.

If someone called me asking for history on a 5 year old used car that wasn't even mine, I'd probably tell them to get their head examined and order a carfax before I blocked their number.

The DMV will raise holy hell with a dealer if the dealer portal is used in that fashion. You have to check an acknowledgement each time you do a vehicle inquiry, as to not use the information for other than business reasons.

The best that I could imagine the dealer doing would be to take the current owner's contact info and pass it along to the OO's family, and let the family decide if they wanted to pursue it or not. I wouldn't get my hopes up though....

I had a nice person in the MN DMV do that for me 18 years ago and I did track down the '70 SS Chevelle that I'd had. The owner was willing to sell the body to me to mate the original engine I'd had since removing it '77, but wanted a kings ransom for it. Never bought it and lost it again.

I can't even get to see an actual DMV employee anymore. It's all subbed out to 3rd party vendors now...:rolleyes2: