Can we expect to see more salvage/rebuilt used cars in the future?

[macarose]

There will be fewer rebuilt vehicles sold in the United States because the costs of rebuilding a modern car has gone up dramatically due to the high cost of replacing safety systems, technological features, and electronics. What you're seeing now are the tail end of the less expensive vehicles to repair and keep roadworthy.

There will also be fewer salvage vehicles sold in the United States as crash avoidance systems improve and become more common.

Finally, I get customers from Kentucky and elsewhere. About 40% of my business is with out of state buyers. If you go on Atlanta's Craigslist and type my name, Steven Lang, you'll see what I have available. I have been a car dealer for over 20 years among other things, and everyone who has bought a vehicle from my dealership has given us a five star rating.

 

[Elkins45]

There will be fewer rebuilt vehicles sold in the United States because the costs of rebuilding a modern car has gone up dramatically due to the high cost of replacing safety systems, technological features, and electronics. What you're seeing now are the tail end of the less expensive vehicles to repair and keep roadworthy.

There will also be fewer salvage vehicles sold in the United States as crash avoidance systems improve and become more common.

Finally, I get customers from Kentucky and elsewhere. About 40% of my business is with out of state buyers. If you go on Atlanta's Craigslist and type my name, Steven Lang, you'll see what I have available. I have been a car dealer for over 20 years among other things, and everyone who has bought a vehicle from my dealership has given us a five star rating.

Are you thinking all of the totaled cars will be exported?

 

[Rmay635703]

Are you thinking all of the totaled cars will be exported?

Or recycled. Since cash for junkers the number of exported used cars has gone up exponentially.

 

[supton]

I wonder if we will start importing cars again. 25 years to for cars that don't meet our safety requirements? Imagine that, ships transporting cars that other countries could flip for a profit here, while buying cars here that we can't repair for a profit and shipping to countries that can.

 

[researcher]

Are you thinking all of the totaled cars will be exported?

That is exactly what happened with a family member's vehicle. It was totaled by insurance, I checked to see what happened at auction.. Buyer bought it online from the auction, put it on a ship, destination? Netherlands!!

 

[macarose]

Are you thinking all of the totaled cars will be exported?

No. Just fewer rebuilt here in the USA.

 

[tblt44]

Watch out for flood damage
I live in Florida and a lot of cars have been totaled after being flooded with Salt Water

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

There will be fewer rebuilt vehicles sold in the United States because the costs of rebuilding a modern car has gone up dramatically due to the high cost of replacing safety systems, technological features, and electronics. What you're seeing now are the tail end of the less expensive vehicles to repair and keep roadworthy.

There will also be fewer salvage vehicles sold in the United States as crash avoidance systems improve and become more common.

Finally, I get customers from Kentucky and elsewhere. About 40% of my business is with out of state buyers. If you go on Atlanta's Craigslist and type my name, Steven Lang, you'll see what I have available. I have been a car dealer for over 20 years among other things, and everyone who has bought a vehicle from my dealership has given us a five star rating.

What's the status of your reliability website? Any plans to update the data?

 

[macarose]

What's the status of your reliability website? Any plans to update the data?

It does get the data updated, although that page sometimes doesn't register it for some strange programming oriented reason. We do have about 5 million vehicles in the database now.

 

[97prizm]

A lot of write offs are ridiculous. Doing proper rebuilds is good for the economy, helps lower inflation and provides employment. Many shops do a good job of getting cars back on the road. It’s the bad apples that spoil it.

Don’t forget there is an entire sub economy operating in the USA and rebuilt vehicles are needed.

My parents dealt with this a few years ago. My mom was driving home from work and lightly rear ended a guy. It cracked the grille nicked the bumper but no airbags deployed no broken radiator. The insurance company instantly said it was totalled. My dad showed them and they calculated the parts cost. Low and behold it was repairable.

 

[97prizm]

Shopping for used cars has become sort of a dumb time-wasting hobby of mine over the last couple of years. I'm seeing lots of rebuilt cars. For many of them you can search the VIN and see photos from the salvage auction, and a lot of those photos show such minor damage that I would likely just keep driving it without fixing anything. I've read that insurance companies are quick to total cars in the $5K-$10K range for anything much more than damage to one panel, or for more expensive newer cars if anything in the front end safety sensors is involved. Logically, moving forward that would mean that an increasing number of otherwise functional cars will be sent to the salvage auction and then will hit the used market as rebuilt vehicles.

One local example is what started me thinking about this. There's a guy selling a rebuild 2008 Toyota Avalon with 130K miles for $4600. It has a rear driver's fender ding and paint scrapes down the passenger side but no obvious signs of a major crash when you look underneath it. I found the auction photos and it looked exactly the same in the auction as it does in the sale photos. It was described as "damage all over" as the primary reason for salvage. I don't think the seller did much, if anything to repair it yet he assured me it was a rebuild and not salvage title. KY requires documentation of work performed to issue a rebuilt title for a salvage car...I would love to see what that documentation looked like LOL.

Will the used market be flooded with rebuilds in the next 10 years as more complex new cars become uneconomical to fix?

Maybe it would be a good business case to start now but I foresee (If auto manufacturers will allow) company poppin up to update or install software to keep cars on the road. There's a guy in Boulder Colorado (Paul the quiet vegetarian as everyone calls him) started rebuilding and servicing battery packs on Priuses, volts etc when they started to age out or be out of warranty. Early on there weren't many vehicles to service but that has changed in his favor over the years.

 

[JHZR2]

It’s too expensive to do much work, even with cars getting more and more expensive to purchase. They still are on a glide slope to scrap value, and for as much as chest thumpers talk about keeping a car to 200-400k miles, most don’t. To many nagging issues arise.

 

[Tempest1]

Couple of years ago my mom's 02 Highlander (50K miles) got smacked in a parking lot by a lady that confused the accelerator for the brake pedal.... Thankfully, hit the passenger side of the car and missed all of the wheels and suspension. Driver's insurance totaled the car but we were able to buy it back and get it back on the road for less than the settlement.

Would be nearly impossible to replace with a like car for the settlement money. It looks nearly new and is well cared for.

 

[oil pan 4]

Shopping for used cars has become sort of a dumb time-wasting hobby of mine over the last couple of years. I'm seeing lots of rebuilt cars. For many of them you can search the VIN and see photos from the salvage auction, and a lot of those photos show such minor damage that I would likely just keep driving it without fixing anything. I've read that insurance companies are quick to total cars in the $5K-$10K range for anything much more than damage to one panel, or for more expensive newer cars if anything in the front end safety sensors is involved. Logically, moving forward that would mean that an increasing number of otherwise functional cars will be sent to the salvage auction and then will hit the used market as rebuilt vehicles.

One local example is what started me thinking about this. There's a guy selling a rebuild 2008 Toyota Avalon with 130K miles for $4600. It has a rear driver's fender ding and paint scrapes down the passenger side but no obvious signs of a major crash when you look underneath it. I found the auction photos and it looked exactly the same in the auction as it does in the sale photos. It was described as "damage all over" as the primary reason for salvage. I don't think the seller did much, if anything to repair it yet he assured me it was a rebuild and not salvage title. KY requires documentation of work performed to issue a rebuilt title for a salvage car...I would love to see what that documentation looked like LOL.

Will the used market be flooded with rebuilds in the next 10 years as more complex new cars become uneconomical to fix?

Yeah. My wife car is about to be on a reconstruction title.

 

[Hohn]

Totally speculative on my part, but I would venture that the decision to grant the rebuilt title is something like:

Meets equipment regulations + nothing shady to get from original (damaged) state to current state = approved.

In other words, if the insurance company wrote it off for damage which amounted to cosmetic but still road-worthy, one could probably just get it inspected and stamped rebuilt. The documented work performed stipulation is probably to make sure there isn't a resistor in place of an airbag.

I would imagine that the automakers would like nothing more than than to ban rebuilt cars in the name of public safety.

If it means drat, you have to buy another super expensive car, well then shoot, that's a price their willing for you to pay.

 

[Donald]

More severe weather means more vehicles flooded or damaged from a tree crushing it.

Flooded from the Mississippi is one thing, but salt water from the ocean would be way different.

I have read about damaged cars being shipped to India and other counties where a local mechanic fixes the car just enough to get it to run. You want air bags to work that's extra. You want the anti- pollution features to work, that's extra.

Probably AC or radio is extra also.