Yes the mileage is consistent. The car fax list the same title number before and after the "total loss" declaration. Another weird thing is that it was declared the total loss in Georgia, but the entry before and after is in Tennessee with the same title number and it does not show a change in ownership.
Accident could have happened in GA, since it's a neighboring state to TN. I live in GA but can get to the state line in an hour.
Almost the same thing that happened with my Katana. It was totalled out in 2006 in GA, and then went to Tennessee. It went through two owners in Tenn before I got it. Since I am in GA, they wouldn't let me register the Katana until it was inspected, as they still had it listed as salvage. Tenn law says it should have been marked as rebuilt, but had a clean title when I got it. I have found a few instances of this happening in Tenn (not marking titles with rebuilt), so that could explain it. Maybe contact Tenn and GA on this. Insurance company would be good as well.
Since Carfax doesn't work that well with motorcycles, it wasn't easy to find out the Kats history. Only thing I could ever find on it was records of title transfer and registration.
Carfax is a decent tool, but take it at face value. When I traded my Buick Rainier in, the dealer Carfaxed it, and it said the vehicle had a fire. I looked at the dealer and said what fire? I had owned it the whole time, but there it was.
I "washed" a title once. It wasn't nefarious or anything. I bought a parts car for $500, took the parts, and then the crusher wouldn't scrap the car without a title. So I used a title service in NV to get a title so I could scrap it. But, if I had wanted to, I would have had a Buick Roadmaster with a squeaky clean title to build or sell despite the fact that it had been gutted, totalled, and stripped bare.
The other thing is... total loss could mean a million things. I bought a salvage title Sonoma because I saw the "before" damage. It had been sideswiped on the driver's side. Purely cosmetic. I also had a Tercel that was totalled for hail damage and given an R title.
The big reason I run from R titles (or the hint of an R title) is because of resale. When you're trying to sell it, no one trusts it for the same reason. I knew my Sonoma and Tercel were perfectly fine, but trying to sell them was completely futile.
Carfax and other vehicle reporting agencies are completely optional. A DMV, insurance company, or repair shop doesn't have to report anything, so those services are relying in the goodness of individuals to report accurate information... if they report anything at all. So a clean carfax might mean a completely totalled vehicle, and an R-title might mean it had a broken windshield from hitting a bird.
As usual - there is no substitute for caveat emptor. ;)
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