Buying Advice - '99 Integra, Salvage Title

It's only a '99. You are right. It wasn't very old when this incident
happened.

 

Call your insurance company with the VIN handy. Carfax is not 100%
reliable.

 

What's "p.n.o"?

 

You are right, it seems, as far as California goes anyway. Ontario, Canada
rebrands a recovered Salvage as "Rebuilt".


Out of curiosity, I dug this up:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr13.htm

which should help the OP in his determinations. It says that a car returned
to the road is called a "Revived Salvage Vehicle". It does not say if the
Salvage certificate is then replaced with a proper ownership.

An excerpt from that page:
"What Do I Do First?

"Be sure you have bills of sale for all the major and minor parts used in
the reconstruction of your vehicle. These documents should identify:

* The part purchased.
* The year, make, model, and Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the
vehicle from which the parts were removed.
* The name, address, telephone number, signature, and driver license,
identification card, Social Security card, or Federal Employer
Identification number of the person from whom you bought or acquired the
part."


Sounds like there ought to be lots of documentation somewhere.

 

planned non-operation. it may be just a california thing, but the state
dings you a fee just for keeping the car non-operational unless you
completely de-register.

 

The resultant Certificate of Title is always branded with some obvious
wording. My vague recollection was the word salvage, but recent reading of
these pages makes it seem like that isn't the right word.

As someone else noted, lots of the kiddie cars have huge amounts of add-on
body parts, so a car that was totalled might be "just fine" after all of
the body panels are replaced with fiberglass, or plastic. That and the
fact that lots of these cars a re abused anyway means that a salvage title
isn't a big drawback in the right crowd. Of course a crooked frame might
not be a big drawback either ;-)

 

I had a car given to me. It ran, but it was in just generally awful shape,
not saleable, and the owner was a co-worker moving out of state. He
couldn't find the title or registration, althoguh it had a current tag.
He applied for a replacement title. I got a form back from the state of
California indicating that title was non-transferrable because he had never
transferred it into California correctly.

Digging around, I found an old registration under a seat. It was clearly
branded "Title is not transferrable" in bold print. If I'd seen that, I
wouldn't have taken the stupid thing. It graced my driveway for months
before we finally got a duplicate title from NJ, who initially didn't want
to issue one because they showed title had been moved to California.

Argh. Eventually, I didn't want it either. It didn't run anymore when I
finally donated it to Agape Village, the only agency I could find that
would even take it. I was about to park it on the street and let it get
towed away.

Anything other than a clean title transfer is a royal pain.

 

That's a pretty funny story, in a "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" sort of
way.
Wasn't funny at the time, I'm sure.

 

This is (I think) my 1st post here; Cars are SALVAGEd if the cost to
repair is more than the worth of the car. It might not actually be an
accident.

TBerk

 

Um, wrong. Doesn't have to involve catastrophic accidents to be labelled
salvaged.

It could have been stolen and the insurance company wrote it off (usually after
30 days) and recovered it partially stripped. It could very well be in perfect
mechanical condition.



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