With more than nine million vehicles registered in countiesaffected by Hurricane Sandy, Experian Automotive is warningconsumers to be extra vigilant when shopping for a used car.

The firm said while the total number of vehicles damaged by thestorm is still unknown, preliminary reports indicate that thenumber will be fewer than that of past hurricanes such as Katrina,Rita and Irene.

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Additional research using ExperianAutomotive's AutoCheckdatabase revealed that 1.6 million cars andtrucks throughout the United States were designated as damaged byaccidents or severe weather, including hurricanes, tornadoes orflooding, in the first half of 2012, the company said.

Of those, more than 425,000 or nearly 27%, lost their damagedesignation, or brand, when they were retitled as clean in anotherstate, according to Experian Automotive.

Superstorm Sandy has increased the potential for more title-washedvehicles to find their way into the market, the firm warned.

“In the wake of any natural disaster, consumers need to beacutely aware that there will be damaged vehicles out there thatwill be cleaned up and sold to unsuspecting buyers,” said ScottWaldron, president of Experian Automotive.

With such a large number of title-washed vehicles on the roadtoday, Waldron said consumers need to arm themselves with as muchinformation as possible when shopping for a used vehicle.

Experian Automotive said it has launched a free online toolcalled Storm Scan,which will identify if a vehicle has suffered any major damageevents possibly caused from the storm, or whether the vehicle hasbeen titled or registered within the affected area in the past 12months.