help locate owner of wrecked Prius with just a VIN (in New Orleans, LA)

That looks stolen and stripped or abandoned and stripped. Determining ownership is going to be a PITA. If you are really determined to have control of this random vehicle in unknown condition try calling whichever law enforcement agency has jurisdiction over dumped cars at that location. They might be able to give you the name of the tow company they use, and that tow company might be induced to give you a call when they pick it up and verify the VIN. Then you can start calling insurance companies to see if they own it (if it was insured, that is surely totaled). The state motor vehicle department could almost certainly figure out the ownership (if it is an in state car) even from a slightly messed up VIN since they also have a vehicle description. However, if they are like California, they will not give you this information.

 

Restyled headlights

JTDKB20U883342713

MODEL PRIUS NHW20
MODEL CODE NHW20L-AHEEBA
RELEASE DATE 11.2007
ISSUE PERIOD 11.2005-03.2009
ENGINE 1NZFXE 1500CC 16-VALVE DOHC EFI
REGION USA
DESTINATION REGION UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FINISH FE11
COLOR 1F7

 

Shouldn't be a huge problem and Louisiana I'm sure the laws there are quite of older design You should contact the city and find out or look through your DMV laws in your state and see what's required to claim an abandoned vehicle That's an abandoned vehicle should be no problem to claim it here in my state I believe once it's ticketed with an orange tag by the state patrol or city officials like cops than any tow truck on the planet can pick it up and take it back to there tow lot where there it sits for old 15 or 20 days The tow lot files the paperwork and VIN . Then no one claims it goes straight to the salvage yard down the street. You don't know what I have done before and we won't go into that here. But I can tell you this nobody cares about that vehicle and all of that so if it was to be picked up by a tow truck driver and taking somewhere until that VIN someone attempts to put it on a hot sheet claiming their car is missing then nothing will happen it'll be in your yard forever and be a parts car till you send it away until somebody is looking for that VIN number it's dead with the car being the age it is the likelihood of anybody ever looking is probably new or they're already looking for it now because it was stolen somebody took the wheels off but not likely hugely not likely You have to look at where you're located and all that people in silly places do stupid things lot of these cars things like this happen to because they break down wherever people are ignorant of the facts they don't understand what they're working with so they grab some wheels and tires for sticking on another car or selling whatever they can run off with that they might be able to do something with they take and then they leave the rest happens all the time. I used to get Toyota celica's and supras right off the road just like this all the time My buddy would tell them off the road he would call me tell me what he has He said call me back in about 15 days and I'll bring the car out to your house. I even had one case where a guy came looking for his car got the information from the towing company and came right out to my house and his car was sitting right in my yard and he wanted to take me to court for his car sitting there and I told him go right ahead you left it in the middle of the road it got towed the towing company did their due diligence to get in touch with you about this piece of mess and you did nothing I'll wait never heard a thing about it again I told him he could have his car call John up with the tow truck and have him come over here and bring it to you it's unscathed and not been touched other than how it was left in the parking lot illegally.

 

In California a regular Joe can't just claim it even if it was abandoned on your property:

Remove an Abandoned Vehicle from your Property in San Diego

The key point in that link being, from my perspective, that you need to contact the police before doing anything. If the car is evidence in a crime, do you really want to grab it? Anyway, at least here, if you don't follow the proper procedure you may just be stealing a vehicle which at that point is owned by a person, a lien holder, or an insurance company, who just don't know where it is located.

 

Here in NC I just run the VIN and then I know who the owner is and then I try to contact them if at all possible which is usually pretty easily and try to get the story which is usually a never-ending bunch of nonsense that nobody really cares about not even the person telling the story and that's that sometimes I even tell the man I got your car and they're like all that's already been all taken care of my son such and such and so and so You just wouldn't believe it but anyway yeah you got to make sure there's no claims on that VIN number before anybody generally touches it except a towing company if that's parked somewhere where it shouldn't be at some point you would think somebody would move it like a towing company or get ordered to move it or it gets orange tagged by the city etc once that happens the towing company would only care who paid the tow bill given the condition of the car You know nobody's coming to get this with no tires and wheels and various parts missing and what have you but hey maybe but because it's possible doesn't mean it's going to be any kind of likely and now all the towing guys going to care about as you pay the tow bill and he'll even bring it to you probably just depends like where you are big cities like California lots of fees and morpe fees that's what it's all about

 

10th digit of the VIN is the registered year.
For this one the "8" means a 2008 model year.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Run the VIN find out if anybody's looking for the car apparently not there's no reports filed on it stolen missing lost You're pretty much good to go

 

What I generally do is call one of my police officer friends I have a few of them locally right here in town and in my case my town is so small but we won't go into all that. And I tell my cop friend hey man I'm looking at this car it's sitting down there on Chantilly road with no tires on it and some door handles missing no tag nothing and you know I collect these things James so this would be a good lick right Can you tell me what's up with the VIN and he's standing there right there at his car and run the VIN while I'm talking to him and it comes back with no 29s no warrants no nothing In other words there's nothing on the VIN out of the ordinary it's not reported stolen That's 29s It has nothing involved with the police and or the DMV on the first running of the VIN that just happened I'm standing there listening and my cop buddy James tells me well as you heard Thomas there is nothing on the VIN so I don't know I could go down there and orange tag it for you and then you can call Bull City towing and tell them there's an orange tag ready to go or however you'd like to proceed and I tell James thanks man I'll meet you at the waffle House in the next few weeks and we'll have breakfast so I don't know if this is in the town you live in or how that works and you could just go to the vehicle and call the police out to the vehicle and say hey man this car got left here I wonder what happened maybe the copy will turn out to be the same thing and you got to figure a car this old just sitting out there car thieves generally are dealing in classic cars and pretty new stuff If you're going to get in trouble you might as well have it be something kind of worth getting in trouble for