How to sell your midway truck in Seattle’s Tundra Wholesale Market
“You’re like, ‘I’m not going to be able to sell this for a couple of days,'” he says.
“I’m like, I have to sell it.
I need to sell some truck.”
A few weeks later, he and his wife decided to buy a truck, only to have it taken away from them when a contractor came to pick it up.
“They put the license plate on it, like, you can’t sell this truck in the state of Washington.”
In August, he had to pay $2,200 in fines for a violation of state law that requires trucks to be parked at least 20 feet away from a driveway.
The next month, he got a letter from the state saying the license plates weren’t valid because they were not affixed to the truck, as required by law.
“It was a pretty big deal,” he says of the state’s actions.
“You go into a truck store and you can get something that you’re not entitled to.”
The next day, he found out the license wasn’t registered to him.
“This is a truck that I have no rights in,” he recalls.
“Why do they give me this license?”
But he’s also aware that many drivers don’t realize that the state isn’t obligated to protect them, either.
“The problem is it’s not illegal,” he explains.
“What is illegal is a lot of things, and that’s why it’s such a big problem.”
It’s the second time he’s been hit with a license plate-holder fee, after he had his license suspended last month for driving in the middle of a highway.
The $1.40 fee was part of an effort to make the state more transparent about the process, he says, and he was able to appeal the decision.
But he hopes to get the fee back next year.
The biggest hurdle he faces is the fact that it takes time for the state to process a claim.
He’s been waiting months to get his truck back, and his case is currently being heard by the State Highway Patrol.
“If you think of all the time and effort it takes to get your truck back from a state agency, it’s ridiculous,” he laughs.
“We’ve spent over $5,000 to get this truck back.”
