Salvage Title Car Question
 

I was perusing the Internet want ads looking at cars I might want to own but can't afford as I'm like to do on occasion when I noticed some dealers, particularly on eBay but show up in other sites as well, that offer savage cars that had "light damage" and were repaired then offered for sale at a step discount.

For example, there was a 2019 CTS-V Carbon Black that supposedly had only the driver's side door replaced. Now, I always assumed a salvage title car had been totaled. There is no way a $90,000 car was totaled if all it needed was a door replacement.

When I contacted the seller, who has sold well over a thousand cars on eBay and has a good rating he said "A lot of people don’t like to fix their cars so they get paid in full from insurance.. that’s why has been in total loss because paid in full". He also sent me the "before" and "after" photos that showed the passenger door pretty well pushed in but no a lot of other damage (I'm guessing the airbags went off as well from the side impact)

Really? Is that an option in some states (this guy is in Michigan)? Just curious more than anything. I'm chalking this up to the too good to be true category but wanted to see.

Sounds like he wanted a new car and has a fiend in the "Adjustment Bureau".

They only had to replace the door after they fished it out of the lake.

That's likely the case.
Or...... some one must have had explosive diarrhea inside the car. Yeah you can hose it off but, it would always smell like shit.

depends on a lot of factors, but in my looking into it, i've found that many of the sellers gloss over facts, or use subpar parts to undercut the repair quote to make it worthwhile. high-dollar cars generally fall into this category, but if you're looking for a cheap runabout type car, they're generally less problematic with branded titles, as they had a low threshold to total loss status in the first place.

sure, it might have been 'just' a door, but if any of the door structure was compromised, it's possible that the insurance totalled it because they didn't want the liability of the structural reinforcement repair. airbag deployment definitely adds up liability and repair costs as well..

there are cases where salvage titled vehicles are entirely possible to repair safely and reliably, but it can take some careful inspections to be sure that it's done that way. imo, they require more due diligence than most other used cars, but on the other side, branded title vehicles are better in some ways that the damage incurred has a note on it.

this touches on some of those things, where people learned to trust the carfax, but then bought cars that didn't have a complete history:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/trus...8#.UbOr4_nrxyU

primarily, it comes down to the state insurance regulations-- depending on where the original accident/claim is made, the percentage that hits total loss status can be anywhere from 40%-80% of the current vehicle price. so a $10,000 car getting dinged in a parking lot could very easily be totalled with $5k worth of a replacement bumper cover, a fender, some paint work, and the labor to install it all. some guy buys the car back, does the all the labor for 'free', maybe pulls a favor for the paint work, and suddenly an official estimate of $5k of work becomes $1500 in parts...

Full of shit. My 16 CTS-V didn't even total when I was side swipped. Both doors and the front rh fender were replaced. The rear qtr was repaired and both bumpers blended. Front door was used and the rest were new oem parts. Most of the hit was the rear door, no airbags popped. Tri-coat candy red paint $$$ too. The car only hit 56% of its AVSC total value.


It isn't unheard of to have an adjuster over write a tad to total a car at a customers plea. However they are only capable of fudging a few grand not 20k+. Sometimes they do this on collector cars after the owner fights for value depreciation due to the wreck. This car shouldn't fit the bill though.

Yep, this is pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

I wasn't really interested in purchasing this specific car, it just struck me as "too good to be true". Frankly the list price wasn't anything to make me want to even consider a repaired car anyway, plus it was black, not a fan.

Now I'd love to own a 16 CTS-V Carbon Black in Red Obsession. Everytime I see one advertised I can feel the money leaving my bank account.

Yea absolutely on low end cars. My son's first car was a well used Volvo C60. Ran and looked great but it was 15 years old. He was rear-ended with only damage to the trunk lid and rear bumper, no structural damage. But, it was a $3K of repairs on a $5K car, according to insurance so it was totalled. We ended up making money on the deal because the insurance company gave a 10% bump for a totaled vehicle which resulted in us getting back more than we paid for the car.

Possibly stolen? My buddy bought a branded forester for his wife that was stolen, and a front control arm and fender replaced. I think if it is missing long enough and the owner is paid out it is branded.

Odd, it would never occur to me that a stolen car would get branded. For that matter a repairable car. If the car was stolen and recovered it would just be a transfer of title to the insurance company and they could resell it, particularly with no damage.

But then again, I'm using common sense and not law there.

Same thing to me would apply to what the vendor I talked to said. If car can be repaired to "like new" for a price that makes it marketable, should it really be a "branded" car? If the original owner repaired it, sure the CARFAX wouldn't be clean but it wouldn't be branded.

Not sure I see the difference.

That actually occurred to me but the vendor (who apparently specializes in these type of flips) had listings that specifically said the car had been recovered from flood, stripped, cleaned, inspected, etc, and they all come with a (albeight short) warranty. This included replacing all the carpets and seat covers.

None of the cars were submerged, as a"flood car" is any car where water reaches floor level.

Again, wouldn't buy it myself without some tremendous discount (like 50% off regular used price) but I've personally owned cars that had that much water in them because of stupid teenage tricks and, in the short term at least, they were fine.

Generally, if the insurance company pays out the total value of a vehicle then they brand it as totaled/salvage/etc. Doesn't really matter the reason just the fact that they paid out.

Also note that some insurance companies will not insure salvage/prior salvage vehicles even if they are repaired. They don't want the liability that something wasn't repaired correctly. For the insurance companies that will insure them they usually charge the same as a non-salvaged vehicle. But, if you have a claim, they can say the vehicle isn't worth the same as a non-salvaged vehicle and will use that as an excuse to pay you less.

Edit: just saw you were looking at a black one so not this car, but if you have a link to the car you were looking at post it so we can look at it too.. but for the purposes of this thread i'll leave my reply...........


This car?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2019-Cadill...%7C1000%7C2500

If so this should match the before pics..
https://en.bidfax.info/cadillac/cts-...0k0146131.html

Anyways, that car needs a door, glass, airbags, airbag computer, potentially seatbelts, some GMs won't run after an airbag popped but that auction said it started soo.. there's also possibly roof and qtr damage and there is undercarriage damage as well.

Also going to need work to the door frame which is EXPENSIVE to do correctly. The auction estimated that as a near $45k fix.

Keep in mind insurance companies will NOT take a chance with airbags. They won't put used parts in and restitch a seat. They will replace the entire seat. They won't reprogram the SRS module for $45 bucks, they will put in a new SRS module. Wiring often burns from an airbag deployment and while cutting/soldering new ends on is easy insurance companies again will not want to do that because it's a liability for them down the road.

And all that is how an expensive car gets totalled for something that would have cost a couple grand to fix on a car from the 90s.

Bolded the VERY critical part of your post...