Reconstructed, salvaged, rebuilt, titles

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Penstarpurist

Penstarpurist

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Hoping you can help me understand. So, my son wants to buy a Subaru wrx car. The turbo AWD car. He works for Subaru now. Anyway, he sends me listings multiple times a day for these cars. Its amazing how much these cars are worth for cars that are 10/12 years old. And the volume of modifications done to them. And I'm assuming vastly owned by a younger crowd. Which I think is what leads me to my question. Most of these cars, or a very strong portion of them have salvage, reconstructed, or rebuilt titles. Cause they are all getting wrecked. Some say, only minor damage, others say more. I don't usually buy cars with titles like this, so I'm asking. Does this greatly affect the value? Cause these cars are anywhere from $7k for a wagon to $30k or more for one 10 years old. What's the deal with the DMV on transferring a title like this? What do the insurance companies say about this? I tell my son he doesn't need a car like this. But he is an adult now. Has a good job and works everyday, and will be paying the payments and insurance.
 
Value is lower for any car that was totaled & rebuilt / reconstructed.

Then you also have to wonder what repairs were needed & how well were they actually done?
 
Worth less, if he gets into a accident in a "salvage" history vehicle, the insurance company will only pay a percentage of what they would for a non salvage car.
 
You can insure them, but any factory dealer will not take them on trade, around here they sell for about 25% of what a clear title one goes for.
Try finding a Viper with a clear title, its like a unicorn. I think all of them have been wrecked.
 
And I can tell you from experience, a Subaru without a check engine light on is also a unicorn. Those things have abysmal emission and miss fire issues
 
replicaracer43 said:
And I can tell you from experience, a Subaru without a check engine light on is also a unicorn. Those things have abysmal emission and miss fire issues
Click to expand...

Lets not forget at every 60K miles the check engine light comes on, you switch the red and blue wire under the dash to make it go off for another 60K, and then it comes on again.
 
these kids race, beat , wreck and rebuild them almost on an hourly basis. they are right up there with the rest of the hondas and Acura **** boxes that change owners weekly. it's his money though , live and let learn.
 
Yeah. I told him, that if a car has x-value 20k and 120,000 miles and it's been in a wreck significant enough to be totaled. Its probably more than a "minor accident".
 
Thanks to NMVTIS, that brand will follow that title FOREVER.

In some states, full coverage insurance will never be an option. And your resale drops, as mentioned previously.
 
Then again, many here have far more into their cars than they will ever be worth.

Advise the kid of the risks and then let him have at it. If he learns something from working on the car and has some fun with it...good enough. He’s young and experiences like this are what created
people like us that still have a complete enthusiasm for the hobby.

His future may well be filled with self-driving cars and those who know the hobby of old cars will be rare.

Let him become one of the rare ones.
 
Bulldozer said:
these kids race, beat , wreck and rebuild them almost on an hourly basis. they are right up there with the rest of the Ford, Chevy and Mopar **** boxes that change owners weekly. it's his money though , live and let learn.
Click to expand...

Fixed it.

Sound familiar?

It was said of many of us in the late ‘70s and Early ‘80s.
 
In the 90's thru 2005 I use to buy and rebuild salvage vehicles. Here in Fl. there is a auction called Sadiso where wrecked,stolen recovered, donated, etc vehicles are auctioned. There really was no rhyme or reason as to which autos would be sold as "Rebuildable tittle" or "Salvage" or "Certificate of Destruction". I would see autos with very little damage be non rebuildable, and then you would see some mangled pile being sold as rebuildable? The insurance companies determined this and the mind set most times would be that they paid once on it as being totaled and they didn't want to ever pay on it again so they would deem them Salvage or COD. But they due sell way below what the value should be.
 
SGBARRACUDA said:
In the 90's thru 2005 I use to buy and rebuild salvage vehicles. Here in Fl. there is a auction called Sadiso where wrecked,stolen recovered, donated, etc vehicles are auctioned. There really was no rhyme or reason as to which autos would be sold as "Rebuildable tittle" or "Salvage" or "Certificate of Destruction". I would see autos with very little damage be non rebuildable, and then you would see some mangled pile being sold as rebuildable? The insurance companies determined this and the mind set most times would be that they paid once on it as being totaled and they didn't want to ever pay on it again so they would deem them Salvage or COD. But they due sell way below what the value should be.
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Roy I did the same thing here in SC...I bought my cars at Sadisco starting in 87 as well. Here in SC you could rebuild a salvage car and get a clean title from the state. In ‘96 they did away with state inspections and after that they stay salvaged no matter what. I like you...could not understand why a car that only needed a fender and strut assembly would be non rebuildable while one that looked like it was hit by a train would be!!!

I’ve been an insurance adjuster for years now and I still don’t get why these carriers do have this!
 
Ddaddy said:
Then again, many here have far more into their cars than they will ever be worth.

Advise the kid of the risks and then let him have at it. If he learns something from working on the car and has some fun with it...good enough. He’s young and experiences like this are what created
people like us that still have a complete enthusiasm for the hobby.

His future may well be filled with self-driving cars and those who know the hobby of old cars will be rare.

Let him become one of the rare ones.
Click to expand...
I like this line of thinking. I guess really all he can do is live and learn. And definitely carry with him the desire to fix up old cars. Which in a few decades will be these Subaru type cars.
 
I'm on my 5th Subaru. Not because they ever had ANY PROBLEMS, I just buy em cheap, fix em up and sell em for profit.
I've been driving subarus for 12 years, never once had and issue with one.
My latest is a 2007 WRX Impreza, it's a great car.
With the WRX you really want to find o e that has not been messed with mine was a one owner car with zero mods. If it's been modified I would stay away, that is a car that some kid beat the **** out of.
Subaru holds its value and have a great crash safety rating.
My mom now owns one, my sister has one, my cousin has one, great cars.
 
My son was just reminding me that he is on the Subaru scholarship program and is going to be trained by them to work on Subarus. And that he gets 50% off any labor rates for work he does have to pay for. Though I'm sure he will make friends there with skills to show him if he doesn't know it. But I agree wholeheartedly that the best one to start with is stock. I told him if it was me i would get a wrx wagon. Way cheaper, same drivetrain and 99% are stock and have a clear title. But he says I'm old and wagons are not cool no matter what drivetrain.
 
Penstarpurist said:
My son was just reminding me that he is on the Subaru scholarship program and is going to be trained by them to work on Subarus. And that he gets 50% off any labor rates for work he does have to pay for. Though I'm sure he will make friends there with skills to show him if he doesn't know it. But I agree wholeheartedly that the best one to start with is stock. I told him if it was me i would get a wrx wagon. Way cheaper, same drivetrain and 99% are stock and have a clear title. But he says I'm old and wagons are not cool no matter what drivetrain.
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That is OK. The older he gets, the more he will realize he is just like his dad! Happened to me.
 
I think you need to help him find the right car. The search is part of the whole adventure and you can be a part of it.

Teach him that you don’t save money on a cheap car. You know how to tell a car that’s been taken care of and one that hasn’t. The hard part is finding the one that wasn’t beaten and without stupid modifications. Most importantly when the right opportunity is there teach him not to hesitate.

This is so similar to finding a cool 60s or 70s car in the 80s when they were just used cars.

To answer your question: I’d stay way from any of these questionable title issues.
 
I SOOO miss my 1987 wagon, that was a great car. 5spd manual with 2 speed transfer case and you could sleep in the back!

One thing to note is stay away from the 2002-2005 2.5L. (Bugeye) body, they had issues with cracking heads and blowing head gaskets.
 
I'm glad he at least runs the listings past me for my opinion and feedback. He is now looking at some stock, lower milage one owner and adult owned cars. Some anyways.
 
Finding a WRX that was not owned by some ritch kid and is not modified is kind da like finding a four leaf clover. They're super rare but they do exist...
 
I got mine for 2,500. It had a rough idle that Subaru could not figure out. The dealership told the owner it could be the turbo or may e the ECU. Dealer wanted 5 grand and could not guarantee that it would be fixed. So they just dumped it.

Turned out it had a dirty air filter and dirty mass air flow sensor. It cost me 20 bucks for the air filter and 8 bucks for a can of mass air flow sensor cleaner and was fixed....
I cant believe that the dealer techs did not even check the air filter.. as soon as I saw it I knew that was the issue...

Good deals are out there you just gotta be ready to buy when they pop up.
 
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I've owned several rebuilt vehicles and 2 salvage that I've "Rebuilt"..

One rebuild was an 05 Magnum Hemi RT that was labeled as a flood vehicle when the air intake sucked water into the motor while driving through high water. Rod through the block.. Boom! I put a Mopar short block in, custom grind cam, decked/ported and polished the heads, 2800 stahl shorties and a Zex kit. Was my daily for several years.. Ran 12s in the 1/4! Fun car. I probably broke even on that one.. maybe a little ahead after some trading. But I didn't pay the going rate of $20k plus at the time (07) for it when I bought it either.

Another I rebuilt was a Mini Cooper S Convertible that was my Mothers. Tree fell on it, damaged the convertible top frame, some glass and hood... Insurance gave her $12K, bought it back for $2300 and invested another $1500 back into the car to get it back right. Easy fix! Sold for $7500

I've also purchased Rebuilt vehicles but won't buy without proof of history. I want to see damage pics along with repair pics. My current Jeep Wrangler Unlimited is rebuilt. It was reputable shop that did all the work. They don't repair things.. they replace with OEM. New frame, front axle etc.

My Mothers current CTS Premium is rebuilt.. bad *** ride right there. She absolutely loves it! 18k miles on it when she bought it

The way I've explained to people is like this... yes, the resale will be lower than normal but you're buying it cheaper than normal. So the money is all there, it's just on a different scale. I've never had any problems with insurance and have always ran full coverage on my vehicles. I've only had a few comp claims in 15 years but never had any issues there. Now if one were to get totaled, I wouldn't expect to get full blown value.. but that's cool.. I didn't pay full blown value either. It may not be for everyone, some locations may be different.. But it works for me
 
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