Maine Salvage Title Check by VIN — Is the Title Clean?

Maine is the state where counting parts changes the word on the title, and the count runs the opposite way to most people's intuition. § 667(5) sets out four legends. “rebuilt salvage” — the serious one — is required if “Two or more vehicles with different frames are joined,” if “A salvage vehicle has 5 or more component parts replaced,” if a title already legended rebuilt salvage by Maine or by any other jurisdiction comes in with the application, or if “A total vehicle loss has been repaired by the use of a front or rear clip.” “rebuilt” — the milder one — is required if “A salvage vehicle has at least one, but less than 5, component parts replaced.” “repaired” covers work that fits § 602(12), which defines “Repair” as “to remedy structural or other damage without replacing component parts of a vehicle.” And plain “salvage” is for a vehicle with “no marketable value other than the value of the basic material or parts used in the construction of the vehicle.” So a Maine car badged rebuilt had fewer parts changed than one badged rebuilt salvage, which is backwards from how the two phrases sound. What counts as a component part is listed in § 602(2), and there are ten: engine or motor; transmission; chassis, front or rear clip, frame or equivalent part; door; hood; tailgate, roof, deck lid or hatchback; quarter panel or fender; front fork or crankcase of a motorcycle; cargo bed, transfer case or sleeper of a truck; and airbag. Three details change the arithmetic. First, airbags are on that list but are switched off for the count that decides between rebuilt and rebuilt salvage: § 667(5)(C)(1) provides that “Notwithstanding section 602, subsection 2, for the purposes of this subsection, airbags are not considered a component part.” An airbag replacement therefore cannot push a car over the five-part line. Second, there is a second and different list in the same chapter — § 602(10), defining “Rebuild” — which runs A to I, stops at the truck cargo bed, and omits the airbag altogether; § 602(2) runs A to J and includes it. Same chapter, same subject matter, two lists differing by exactly one item. Third, a “clip” is defined at § 602(1-A) as “the portion of a vehicle removed by cutting the front or rear of the frame or unibody the width of the vehicle,” and a clip repair to a total loss sends the car straight to rebuilt salvage no matter how the parts count comes out. Do not read “reconstructed” as a Maine brand. § 101(60) defines a “reconstructed vehicle” as one altered in “the original steering, braking system, suspension system or body design,” dune buggies and street rods included, and adds that “Repair to a vehicle that replaces parts with similar parts is not reconstruction.” § 101(59-A) defines a “reconstructed motorcycle” as “a salvaged or dismantled motorcycle that is repaired or assembled without original manufacturer component parts, excluding fenders.” Those are vehicle categories, not title legends — “reconstructed” is not one of the four words § 667(5) puts on a Maine title, even though the BMV's consumer page runs it together with rebuilt as “Rebuilt/Reconstructed”. One more brand sits outside § 667 entirely, and it has nothing to do with crash damage. § 670 requires the Secretary of State to issue a title carrying the brand “Lemon Law Buyback” for a vehicle handed back to its manufacturer under Maine's lemon law, and “All subsequent certificates of title to that vehicle must contain the same brand.” On carry-forward generally, Maine is firm in two places and soft in a third. § 667(5)(D) is the boomerang rule: a Maine-legended car that is titled in another state and later retitled here “must also contain the legends appearing on the previous certificate of title from this State,” so laundering a Maine brand through a second state does not clean it. § 667(5)(B)(3) and (C)(2) likewise make an incoming rebuilt-salvage or rebuilt title from “any other jurisdiction” mandatory grounds for the matching Maine legend. But the flush language closing § 667(5) says only that the Secretary of State “may apply a legend from a certificate of title issued by another jurisdiction to a subsequent title issued by this State” — discretionary, and sitting in visible tension with the “must appear” of the paragraphs above it. For any brand other than those two, an out-of-state legend carries across because the Secretary of State chooses to carry it, not because the statute compels it.