Mike5215

My mom in upstate NY is looking at a 2012 Chevy Impala with 30k miles. It's being sold at a salvage yard and she's aware it's a rebuilt salvage piece. She's purchased two cars from the same place before and was happy with them. Previous cars were low value

tifosiv122

What's the question?

Atcpup

WTF YOU HAVE AN S....AND A WIFE TO F

KNBS550

Mike, is this the new you??? Asking about a salvage title car? For your Mom? A Chevy for CRISE SAKES???

Snap out of it!

Mike5215

Stupid app cut off half my post. Question is, how big a hit should a CarFax report swimming in red ink and warning icons and a branded title take off clean private party retail? He's at a $2k offset.

Seller claims no SRS but it was a left front hit hard enough to total a $13k car. I know there's a guy on here who can pull auction numbers by VIN.

Mike5215

I'm simply availing myself of this boards considerable resources to help my poor mom, who ATCPup repeatedly defiled, I might add.

wilassasin

Don't do it!!!!!

DaveW68

I would guess that a salvage rebuilt car that was done to quality standards would fetch a value of around 50% of book value. But you cannot usually get financing or any type of warranty coverage on it.

Oneworld

I might do it if I knew the guys who did the work, and got a heck of a discount.

1bad540

2k off no way!!

Mike5215

I agree. That is the recommended offset by CarFax. My brother is a 20+ year mechanic, said the repairs look good and the car drives like new. Car only has 30k miles. Probably because it was in a shop for a year.

Who's the member with the auction info? Was that ALX?

xxfightclubxx

ive bought and sold salvage title vehicles before. if she plans on just buying really cheap and selling cheap go for it. but no matter great something looks on the outside its never the same once its had a major accident. i wouldnt recommend buying it and keeping it.

alx

a salvage title means very little if anything if the car is repaired properly. some twisted frame cars are actually straighter than uncrashed once they leave the repair shop.

said that - salvage dealers/ repair shops like to buy at 1/2 off clean street price. then they spend some money to fix it. you do the rest of the math. on a $10k car i would offer 1/4 less than what a clean car would be worth.

Atcpup

What do you want me to run? I think I can still do that....

Atcpup

I can change some parameters like odo, style, etc.. Can also show you the actual transactions if you like.

xxfightclubxx

any car with a salvage title is alot harder to resell. try taking a salvage title car to a dealer and see how much they will give you as compared to clean blue title vehicle. ive sold tons of cars. every car ive had with a salvage title sold well below blue book value. even if the car was in perfect condition or low mileage. this is just my experience so far with selling cars and motorcycles.

Mike5215

Cool! Here's the info:

MrRat

Mike,
The problem is that this is the way she likes to buy her cars, and she found something she likes. If you introduce any change to that, then you assume some responsibility for the new outcome. Add to this that your brother had a look at it and it gets worse.
Still, it's your mother and she may as well profit from your knowledge and experience.
Way back in the Stone Age, I used to help out in a body shop on occasion. Assuming the shop has a laser frame straightener, knows how to use it, and is good with welding, a lot can be done. It's definitely more risk to buy a salvage rebuild car, there's a lot that generally ends up being skipped or repaired inadequately, but it can be done well too.
I've seen some really good work, the owner of the shop challenged me to find the body work on one of the salvage repairs he did in his spare time. I'm usually able to spot it, but couldn't find anything, he had clipped 2 undamaged halves of two different cars together and re welded at the factory weld points, so there was no bodywork, only a repaint. I thought that was pretty cool.

It could be worthwhile to run it by a body shop and have it checked.

Here's a sample listing from NJ.
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/cto/5392656927.html

From this it looks like they are selling it basically at retail.

Still if she just wants it and for her the price is right, maybe just let it go..

Atcpup

DaveW68

So it looks like it should sell retail for around $6-7k if the repairs were done in good order?

Mike5215

Thanks!

steveb9771

I would walk away unless information is available showing exactly what the original damage to the vehicle was and what repairs were performed. If the car was flood damaged, definitely walk away. Flood damaged vehicles can have hidden problems that show up a year of more later due to corrosion and damage to electrical and computer components tha are extremely expensive to repair.

Mike5215

Yeah, I ran a claims branch and I'm a licensed adjuster myself but I'm 1200 miles away. If I saw the original estimate that totaled the thing I'd feel better about it.

And yeah, flood cars are a nightmare. Not surprisingly, there are always a few insureds who decide they'd like their insurer to buy them a new car and deliberately park the thing in harms way during a storm.

I had a guy who did that on the Gulf but the area never really flooded, so he took a garden hose and filled the engine with (fresh) water and tried to claim it.

Nuru

50% of retail or less