Anybody have experience with buying cars with salvage titles? Need another car in the family, and saw a 2009 Rabbit w/33,000 on fleabay for $8,950 with a salvage title because it was stolen and wasn’t recovered for 3 months. Many photos, and it looks spotless. Equivalent car with clean title probably around $15,000. I would need to register it in PA where I live. My insurance company says they will cover no problem, but will value ‘appropriately’ if it were ever totaled, etc.
Since we tend to keep cars around for a long time, I’m not concerned about resale value. So any other negatives to consider?
In MA the state police does an official inspection, costs much more and is more thorough. I have a friend who rebuilt a corvette with salvage title from another state, car is complete but is still working the paperwork after a month and a half.
Sometimes the salvage title is a result of settlement with a dealer / insurance auction . My friend bought a corvette with slight axle seal leak , that was the cause for the salvage title .
Its worth getting a mech. to do a pre buy inspection .
If the car is clean (have it checked…) the only problem is insurance and you already covered that.
I’ve bought several and repaired them, if you know exactly why it’s salvage then you’re OK.
Only time it went wrong was when I bought a repaired salvage van, it was stolen a week later and the insurance only wanted to pay half the value saying I had no proof it was repaired. Took a while to sort out.
Thanks for the opinions. My older son is a service tech, so he’ll go with me to check it out. I went ahead and pulled the trigger; now have to figure out how to get to Brooklyn this week to pick it up.