Why should I avoid buying a car with a salvaged title?

Often times, salvage titles are given to vehicles that cost more than they are worth to repair, assuming they even really can be repaired. Often times a car with a Salvage title will have been involved in an accident that weakened the frame; even if “repaired”, it will not be as strong or safe as it once was. Even then, most places require a vehicle to be carefully inspected before upgrading the title to “Repaired Salvage” and allowing it to be registered.

Also, be prepared to pay cash since banks rarely finance cars with salvage titles. They are a huge risk with negligible resale value, so don’t expect to be allowed to use the vehicle as collateral as is commonly done with auto loans.

Lastly, fraud isn’t uncommon. It would be bad to have a crash and find out your airbags were replaced with stuffed newspaper.

Connecticut, 10 years ago, I had an accident and the insurance company wanted to “total” the vehicle. In order to re-register the car it had to go through a bumper to bumper inspection at DMV. I declined the insurance and paid out of my pocket the cost to buy used parts and cancelled the collision coverage (that paid for the used parts). The inspection at DMV had a 50 % failure rate. Items not damaged in the accident were the major cause of failure.

Have the car body and mechanical components carefully examined for evidence of flood damage or harsh treatment. I recently bought such a car but didn’t look inside the air filter: the intake manifold was full of dirt, the engine was shot. I had hoped to resell it after 4 or 5 years but the engine failed and I had to junk the car.