Police Auctions

Lansing Police Are Selling 55 Impounded Cars at $500 Each, No Title and No Keys. Here's How You Turn One Into a Titled Car.

By UX Auctions Editorial Staff

The Lansing Police Department has 55 abandoned and collision vehicles on GovDeals, from a 1995 F-150 to a 2022 Kia Forte, every one opening at $500 and all closing November 10. The buyer gets a Michigan TR-52L bill of sale instead of a title. Here is what that paper is, the four steps that turn it into a title at the Secretary of State, and what to know before you bid on a car nobody will promise runs.

LANSING, MICHIGAN — Most of the police vehicles that reach auction are the ones a department bought, drove and retired. The other kind are the ones it never owned: cars towed after a crash or left on a street until the law says the city can sell them. The Lansing Police Department has fifty-five of those on GovDeals right now, lots 30727-248 through 30727-302, every one with an opening bid of $500 and all of them closing on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at 1 p.m. Eastern. Two weeks before the close, bidding had already started on a 2014 Ford F-150 at $575 and a 2014 Dodge Durango at $580, and the rest were sitting at the opening number.

The range is what stops you. In the same sale as a 1995 F-150, a 1997 GMC Savana, a 2001 Silverado 2500HD and a 2003 Lincoln Town Car are a 2022 Kia Forte, a 2021 GMC Terrain, a 2020 Cadillac CT4, a 2020 Buick Encore and a 2019 Chevrolet Traverse. There is a 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, a 2007 Cadillac Escalade, two Chrysler 300s, two Jeep Grand Cherokee-era SUVs, a Subaru Impreza, a 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid, a Suzuki GS500E motorcycle and a Sanyang scooter. Somebody is going to drive a six-year-old car home for a few hundred dollars, and somebody is going to pay to tow a shell with no keys, and the whole difference between them is whether they read the listing and showed up at the tow yard.

The 1995 F-150, lot 30727-262, on the hook. Photo: Lansing Police Department listing, via GovDeals.

What the listing actually says

Lansing's description is the same on every lot, and it is worth reading twice. The vehicles were either involved in a collision or abandoned. If a mileage reading could be taken it is posted; where it could not, the odometer field is blank. The department does not know whether keys exist for any individual vehicle or whether it runs or drives. Everything is sold where it is and as it is. The paperwork the winner receives is not a title but a TR-52, the State of Michigan's abandoned vehicle bill of sale, and it is handed over at the tow yard where the vehicle sits, when the vehicle is picked up, Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

There is one chance to look before you bid. The vehicles can be viewed in person on Monday, November 9, at their tow lots; the listing names Northside Towing at 222 Russell Street in Lansing, 517-487-5921, with a viewing window of 11 a.m. to noon. An hour, the day before the close, is not much, and it is the only hour there is. The sale is on GovDeals under the Lansing Police Department, and the department's listings also appear on the Lansing page and the Lansing Police Department page on UX Search, where each card shows the middle closed price for similar vehicles beside the bid.

Six of the fifty-five: a Chrysler 300 on the flatbed, a Grand Cherokee, a Ford Escape, a Cadillac DTS with the tow tag still on the glass, a Dodge Magnum, and a Saturn Aura with the side caved in. Photos: Lansing Police Department listings, via GovDeals.

Why a police department sells cars it never owned

Michigan's abandoned vehicle law gives a police agency custody of a vehicle that has been left on public or private property or towed from a crash and not claimed. The Secretary of State notifies the last titled owner and any lienholder, and the owner has twenty days to pay the towing and storage and take the vehicle back or ask a court for a hearing. When nobody does, the law makes the police agency responsible for disposing of it, and the way it does that is a public sale, open to anyone, by open bidding or sealed bids, held no sooner than twenty days after the notice went out. The money goes first to the tow company's accrued towing and storage charges, which is why the opening bids are low and why the tow yards, not the police station, are where you pick up.

That is the difference between this sale and a fleet sale. A retired patrol car comes with a title in the city's name, a maintenance file and a known history. An abandoned vehicle comes with whatever the tow driver found. Some of them are cars somebody walked away from after a wreck. Some are cars whose owners could not pay the storage bill. A 2022 Forte in an impound sale is, as often as not, a car that was worth more than its owner could get back.

The paper you get, and how it becomes a title

The TR-52L, the Abandoned Vehicle Bill of Sale, is the State of Michigan's own form, generated for the police agency through the Secretary of State's system once the vehicle is eligible for sale. It is the document that proves you bought the vehicle lawfully from the agency that had the right to sell it, and the Secretary of State accepts it in place of a title. Getting from that piece of paper to a Michigan title in your name is a short trip.

First, check the TR-52L before you leave the tow yard: it should be completed and signed by the law enforcement agency, with the vehicle's year, make and VIN matching the car in front of you. Second, fill out the Application for Michigan Vehicle Title, form TR-11L, which is a one-page form available at any Secretary of State office or online. Third, take the TR-52L, the TR-11L and your driver's license to a Secretary of State branch office; you can make an appointment online or walk in. Fourth, pay the fees: the title fee is $15, and Michigan collects 6 percent sales tax on the purchase price or the vehicle's fair market value, whichever is greater, so a $500 car with a book value of $4,000 is taxed on the $4,000. If you want to drive it, you register it at the same visit with proof of Michigan no-fault insurance and pay for a plate. Do it within fifteen days of the sale; after that the state adds a $15 late fee to the title.

That is the whole procedure for most of these vehicles, and buyers who have done it describe it as easier than they expected. There are two exceptions to know about. If the vehicle has been designated a distressed vehicle, which in Michigan means an insurer or the owner has declared the damage severe enough that the car's value is mostly gone, the law requires the buyer to apply for a salvage certificate of title within fifteen days instead of a regular one, and a salvage-titled car cannot go on the road until a specially trained police officer has inspected and recertified it and the state has issued a rebuilt title. Several of the Lansing lots are collision vehicles, so ask at the viewing whether a salvage designation is attached. And if the TR-52L is delayed, which the Secretary of State says can happen, the Abandoned Vehicle Help Desk at 517-636-5234 or AbandonedVehicles@Michigan.gov can trace it; the tow yard and the department are the first calls.

What these cars are worth, and what they cost to own

The opening bid is $500 on everything, which tells you nothing about what each lot is worth and everything about how the sale is structured. The UX Search sold archive, which keeps the closed price of every government auction the index sees, gives the other side. Across government sales in the past year, a 2014 Ford F-150 has had a middle hammer price around $7,150 among trucks within three model years of it; a 2013 Chrysler 300, around $3,100; a Jeep Grand Cherokee from the mid-2010s, around $9,000 to $10,000; and Ford Escapes from 2015 to 2019, between $15,000 and $19,000. Those are fleet cars with titles, service records and keys, sold by agencies that drove them. An impound car with the same badge and the same year is a different thing, and the gap between the two numbers is the price of not knowing whether it runs.

The costs that do not show on the bid are the ones that decide whether $500 was cheap. Towing from the yard if it does not start, at local rates for a flatbed. A key, which on a 2020 Cadillac or a 2022 Kia means a dealer-cut and programmed key that can run several hundred dollars, and on a 1995 F-150 means a locksmith and a lunch. Sales tax on the state's idea of the value, not yours. A salvage inspection if the car is distressed. And the storage clock at the tow yard, which starts the day you win and does not stop for weekends you do not come. A buyer who adds those up before the viewing, picks the two or three lots that make sense at the number, and bids once at the most they will pay is the buyer who drives home happy from a sale like this. The buyer who bids on photos of eleven cars at $500 is the one who ends up owning three they cannot move.

A white F-150 in the weeds at the yard, and the 2002 Econoline box truck. Photos: Lansing Police Department listings, via GovDeals.

The short version

Fifty-five vehicles, every one at $500 to start, all closing at 1 p.m. on November 10. One viewing, November 9, 11 to noon, at the tow yards named in the listings. Collision or abandoned, as is, keys and running condition unknown, mileage where it could be read. You get a TR-52L bill of sale at the yard, and a TR-11L, your license and $15 turn it into a Michigan title at any Secretary of State office, plus 6 percent tax on the greater of the price or the value, within fifteen days. Distressed vehicles go to a salvage title and an inspection first. Bring a jump pack and a scanner to the viewing, a trailer to the pickup, and a number you will not go past to the auction. The listings are on GovDeals and on UX Search, and the results will be in the Price Report the week after they close.

Sources: Lansing Police Department listings on GovDeals, read October 28, 2026; Michigan Compiled Laws 257.252g (public sale of abandoned vehicles; salvage title for distressed vehicles); Michigan Secretary of State, abandoned vehicle FAQs for owners, law enforcement and custodians, and the vehicle ownership page (title fee, sales tax, salvage titles and recertification); the UX Search sold archive.