Autosalvagelist.com lists salvage, wrecked and project cars for sale plus we publish articles on the auto salvage industry. The salvage autos listed on this site are cars that have been involved in accidents or other incidents resulting in substantial damage to car.
Generally, a salvage car is a car that has been assessed by an insurer as being damaged beyond economical repair. The level of damage this involves does vary according to the economic value of the car, undamaged, along with many other factors. So a brand new fairly expensive car might be worth repairing with heavy damage where an older less valuable car might become uneconomic to repair with a similar level of damage.
The concept of Title simply refers to the documents held by the owner of the car to prove ownership of the car. Commonly know as the cars papers around the world. For cars that have not had to be declared a total loss by an insurer, they would mostly have what could be referred to as a clean title, with no branding or qualifications.
Clean title would require that the car had not been totalled, stolen, have no uncleared loans secured against it, have no ownership disputes ongoing, etc.
Salvage title: would generally be issued on a car that has been totalled , that is declared a total loss by insurers and not repaired or rebuilt according to the regulations obtaining in the state where the car is registered.
Depending on the regulations in force in that state, not all salvage autos can be returned to road use. Certain levels of damage result in wrecked cars being marked as irrecoverable and they must not be repaired for road use.
Salvage autos which are repairable may be returned to road use after be repaired to rigorous standards set by the various state DMV s. These Salvage autos generally have to satisfy tests set by the DMV to ascertain that the rebuilt car is road worthy. Such a car might then be issued a road going title which is branded “rebuilt”.
The kind of damage the wrecked cars listed in the auctions highlighted on this site have had varies widely. The damage includes accident damage, fire and flood damage. Those adverts marked salvage are generally for cars with a Salvage title, therefore such cars have been declared as total loss by an insurer.
In some cases, the title holder may be prohibited by law from returning the repairing wrecked car with a view to returning the said car to the road. This would depend on the level of damage and the State DMV regulations in force in that state, at that time.
Many of the cars are advertised as project cars. The term “Project car” is generally used to refer to a car whose restoration becomes your personal “project”. Returning toe wrecked car to road use or perhaps sports use becomes your objective in this project. Starting on a project car can be a very rewarding hobby or business as long as you’re prepared or at least , determined to see it through.
For cars that are beyond repair, the usual use for these is as spare parts to be used to keep other vehicles on the road. This is a fabulous use for wrecked cars as it is a fine example of recycling.
The economic opportunity for those prepared to deal in Salvage cars is considerable. People keep buying cars , people keep wrecking cars and cars constantly need repairing and plenty of attention. Essentially, where an individual or business restores cars to road use, they could be said to be selling their time, time spent in restoring the vehicle. Thus they buy the wrecks at very low prices , put in the hours to fix the wrecked cars, plus buy parts to replace those items that are too damaged. Result, a car with a rebuilt title which can be sold to customers. The price would be lower than an equivalent “clean title” car, but profitable to the seller where the final sale price exceeds material and other monetary costs plus a margin that pays for time spent.
For the buyer, they must ensure that they are fully aware of what they are buying. Salvage title cars should only be bought by those willing to repair the wrecked cars.
Rebuilt title cars should be acquired by those happy with the savings they’re making and who have confidence in the person or business that they are buying the car from and are fully aware of the different classes of car title.
