The Expert Podcast

So yes salvage titles are still a problem. And there's a lot of fraud with salvage titles and we'll talk about how that works So first of all what is a salvage title? A salvage title is a document that's issued by an insurance company When they have paid out a very high claim on the vehicle it doesn't have to be a total, but it has to be a certain high value claim. There doesn't have to be damage on the vehicle The car could be perfectly good. No damage nothing.

And it could still have a salvage title. The problem is once a vehicle is salvage. It's. restricted from going back on the road. And a lot of times dealers will try to sell a vehicle with a salvage title without disclosing it, or even private sellers.

They sell cars on Facebook. E-bay. Craigslist will try to pawn off cars with a salvage title to unsuspecting owners. And now you're stuck or you buy it at Copart with a salvage title. The problem with a salvage title is.

First of all you can't insure the vehicle for a comprehensive you can get basic liability but that's about it. The other thing is before salvage title goes back on the road and every time it gets sold, it has to go through inspection And they're going to go through that vehicle with a fine tooth comb. 90% of salvage title vehicles never get approved for inspection They don't pass inspection, even if it looks fine. There's things that are underneath the vehicle.

Airbag sensors, antilock brakes frame damage bent. Corrosion that fail The vehicle car might look fine but they don't go by cosmetics. put up on the lift and they go through with a fine tooth comb. The other problem is the value. It's estimated that the value of a vehicle that a salvage title is about 50% or 60% of what the real value is.

So. If you pay full price. You're getting ripped off or half your money. Unless you can buy a salvage vehicle for half price already fixed and you know it passes inspection. You're not getting any kind of a deal…

So what happens is a lot of these dealers. here's the sheriff for this county brought to our attention over the past year that some different dealerships are selling cars. Unsuspecting They might be a vehicle that's not ready to be driven but a salvage title. And it's easy to pawn that off especially with flood damage vehicles or recovered theft. There's not a lot of physical damage.

Even if it's a collision a lot of times you can put on new body panels and paint it and…it gets over on the buyer. Salvage title is more than just the condition It's the title history And that history will be with that car forever. If you run a national motor vehicle title information system search (NMVTIS) it'll show salvage for the rest of its life For that VIN number doesn't go away You can't wash it off You can't delete it. So. It's always going to be with your vehicle So even when you go to sell it, it's still going to show salvage for your buyer.

Don't rely on things like Carfax or bumper or those kinds of searches because they're not a hundred percent accurate Even if you read the small print it tells you that there could be errors. Go directly to the source There's a gov. records. Database that's called the national motor vehicle title information system And N V T I S, that has all these records And you want to check that more importantly you want to make sure that it is salvage if it's damaged because many of the vehicles that are paid insurance claims. Are listed as what's called parts only or junk.

And has nothing to do with the condition it has to do with the insurance company not wanting that car back on the road. So check every car out. Make sure that condition is good but also check the title because you don't want to end up with a vehicle that looks good on paper, but then you find out your title record is a branded or distressed title that you can't sell ensure finance or or even transfer to somebody else without disclosure.