Salvage title, minor damage
 

I've been looking at used Tundra's and a surprising number of them on Craigslist or FB Marketplace have salvage titles. The sellers typically state that damage was minor, fender replaced, no frame damage, etc. In my head it's hard to reconcile a 25-30K truck being salvaged due to minor damage. I'm under the impression if repair value exceeds vehicle value and it is deemed a total loss/salvage. What am I missing? Would you purchase such a vehicle with an inspection? I'm in CA if that helps.

Thanks!

I "think" repair cost only needs to exceed 1/2 the retail value to be totaled.

I was thinking it was 70%. Either way, I'd steer clear and invest more money in a better truck with higher resale value.

^^^ Agreed. If that price range I’d rather get a clear title vehicle. Unless of course you have to have it or don’t mind the financial hit when you resell it.

If it's salvaged private seller. One doesn't know if was put together right. Same with a shady body shop.


It has to be more than 50%. My 18 ram 2500 had 17k worth of parts thrown at it and only booked at 33k. Still never drives the same....

+1
Salvage titles are not usually bought by top tier repair shots. 'Bubba's Bumper and Fender' will find the cheapest way to fix it to sell. You may find that the air bag (they are NOT cheap) was not replaced and they wired it to not show a warning light.
The only way I would buy one is if I personally knew the person that did the work.

There is no “cheap” way to fix a tundra.

Small addition but I think you would agree

talk to your insurance guy before
considering ANY salvage title.

^^^zactly as some insurers will not touch those, or at least comprehensive.......

Thanks for the insights and information. Yeah, I won't be touching a salvage vehicle :--)

GPO - good for parts only.

I don't believe there is an industry standard %.

My insurer was 60%.

If I back into the neighbors car and dent a panel it's going to cost $1,000-$1,500 to fix and that's with no parts needed.

Yeah there is material cost like paint but 95% of the bill is in the labor.

So toss in some parts, even used which your insurer will try to use as much as possible and even "minor" damage starts getting expensive if a lot of labor is involved in replacing parts.

We all have had that frustration with auto engineers who seemingly only thought about how something goes together but never seemed to consider that it may at some point need to be taken apart.

Ask to see the repair bill.
I bought an M3 with a salvaged title and regretted it. Shoddy work and I had to sell it cheap to get rid of it.

I know of a couple/few folks that buy salvage vehicles, repair them, and then flip them. I assume it's a way for poor folks to get a "nicer" vehicle at a low price. My assumption is that they are probably rarely ever fixed well. I'd certainly not buy one unless it was some sort of toy that was going to be gutted and rebuilt or something.
I had a sister in law that bought a salvage. Her (at the time) husband told her not to buy it. She did anyway, and it eventually died and needed a new wiring harness because it had been a flood victim.

Holy crap, some of the comments above are dumb…

I paid $42000 for my tundra new in 2011. If it had a $30,000 accident claim in the first 2 years they would have fixed it. $30,000 in damage is pretty bad, right?

It’s worth maybe $10,000 now and a $9000 accident would write it off.

What I’m trying to point out is that a much less severe accident would result in a salvage title on my truck now than when it was new. At the end of the day, how well it was repaired matters more than if it has a salvage title or was merely in an accident not severe enough to write it off.

If a vehicle was poorly repaired at a insurance co reccomended (cheap) shop, it’s going to be worse than if it was a write off that was properly repaired.

One other thing to note is that a salvage titled vehicle has to be inspected by a licensed mechanic before it can be put back on the road, a vehicle fixed by a body shop that is not a write off but could be a major needs no safety inspection.

I've owned over 100 vehicles and I think that there was one salvage and it was a lousy car and a mistake. A high percentage of cars and trucks on the road have been in some type of collision somewhere along the way but salvage title is a different animal. If you want to know what it takes to salvage a vehicle, just browse Copart sometime...this is where the body shops buy the salvage vehicles to fix and then sell on CL.

It's completely possible that something was totaled from sheet metal damage only and fixed really well but I would want a great inspection by a body shop I trust before buying any salvage vehicle and the price would have to be ridiculous low.

There's this show on you tube,"https://www.youtube.com/@vehcor",buys the auction cars and rebuilds them,claims they are with good titles.

One other thing that totals out newer cars and trucks is when the airbags go off, takes its toll on the dash and wherever the bags explode.

35 years of driving and owning cars, I never dealt with a total loss until this past June.

My daughter was driving the 2013 Buick that I bought for $10,000 out the door in 2020. She misjudged an exit ramp and hit the curb on the outside of the ramp. Minor cosmetic damage to the driver side of the car and hitting a road sign tore off the rear bumper cover.

The fatal hit was in hopping the curb, the car only stopped when the inside of the passenger side front wheel hit the same curb and created a bunch of damage to the drivetrain and suspension on that side.

I was surprised when they totaled the car. It seemed like it could have been fixed with some fairly easy parts swapping.

The insurance company didn’t even bother inspecting the car, they totaled it based on pictures and a conversation with the repair shop.

More surprising was that they valued the car at $12,600.

Long story short, I wonder if the supply chain backlog hasn’t made it cheaper for the insurers to total cars rather than deal with extended repair times and the associated costs.


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