Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankM
I'm looking at a vette with a salvage title. Car had been fully restored with full documemtation/receipts then was in a barn fire. Needs a windshield to be road worthy, cosmetic damage was smoke and needs full strip and paint. Anyone ever deal with getting Ohio rebuilt title inspection and any gotcha's I should look out for? Car is priced fair for condition but no room for suprises with inspection.
Thanks,
Frank
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I don't know what your level of experience is with valuations of totaled vehicles-
You can't base the valuation of a totaled vehicle off of KBB, NADA, or any other "book" values- they simply don't apply. Totaled vehicles, even if they are rebuilt to appear and function exactly like a brand-new vehicle, really have no value beyond their per-pound scrap value and/or parts value. Their only real value, is whatever use you can get out of them.
As an example, I owned a vehicle many years ago, that I purchased brand new for about $11,000. When it was about a year old, with about 12,000 miles on it, it was hit by another car, and totaled by my insurance company for cosmetic damages (no structural damage). The insurance company wrote me a check for almost $11,000, and I immediately turned around and purchased the vehicle back from the insurance company for about $1,500. I repaired the cosmetics for not a lot of money, and continued to use it just like I had been before the collision, for years. Nobody could have ever looked at it and been able to tell that it was anything other than a nearly-new low-mile vehicle, but the flagged title meant that it basically had no value beyond whatever use I could get out of it.
This is ESPECIALLY important when it comes to insuring a rebuilt total- for example, if you bought a car that would have been a $30,000 car if it had a clear title, but you only paid $15,000 because it was a rebuilt total, and then it catches on fire and is destroyed, your insurance company might cut you a check for $3,000. They don't care how much you paid for it- they're only going to pay you what it was actually worth, which was almost nothing, because it was a rebuilt total.
Sorry to get long-winded, but I've seen people screw themselves pretty badly over cars that looked like a good deal to them.