Often, the damage is more costly to repair than the vehicle is worth and the car is totaled by the insurance company. That may not be the end of the life of the car, however. Often, the car receives a salvage title and is bought by brokers who specialize in selling damaged cars. Many times, the car belongs to a fleet of damaged repairable cars that sustained various degrees of damage and so it is possible to find a so called damaged car with little to no damage whatsoever. Sometimes, after the insurance company sells hail damaged cars or accident damaged cars to brokers or dealers, they have the damaged cars repaired and after a vehicle inspection, the car is issued a rebuilt title.
Should You Purchase A Damaged Car?
People who buy damaged cars can often find a great bargain and, just as often, find themselves in a nightmare situation that ends up costing them a lot of money. So why bother? Because of the endless possibilities to end up with a darn good car while paying far below market value. It should be noted though, that if you purchase a car with a salvage title or even one with a rebuilt title that it may be almost impossible to get rid of. Therefore, the best buyers of damaged car sales are those who plan to actually drive the car until it literally falls apart. You cannot count on trading it in because almost all car dealers will not take them on trade.
If this is your situation and you can find one without too much damage or if you know something about damaged repairable cars and plan on working on it yourself, you can certainly find a good deal if you look. It is important, though, to deal only with reputable damaged car dealers so that you will be informed of the full extent of the damage. You should also seriously consider investing in a Carfax report, which will confirm if the airbags have ever deployed as well as if the car sustained flood damage or was in a car wreck. You can obtain a Carfax vehicle history report by going to http://www.carfax.com.
Some Damage Is Relatively Minor
Cars that have sustained hail damage are perhaps the best kind of damaged cars to buy. Part of the reason for this is because you can actually see all the damage so, in most cases anyway, you will not have to worry about internal systems being damaged. In addition, cars that have sustained hail damage can be easily repaired without the cost eating up your savings.
Beware Of Some Kinds of Damage
While some damage can be fixed without too much expense and trouble, there is some kinds of car damage that you want to be especially careful about. For example, while it is relatively easy to change out the carpet in a car that has sustained water damage from a flood, it is not as easy or as affordable to replace the electrical system, which could just have easily sustained serious flood damage. In fact, without a vehicle history report or an honest dealer, you may not even realize a car has been flood damaged until it is too late.
Other kinds of damage to be especially concerned with is air bag deployment. The concern here is that some unscrupulous dealers do not even replace the airbags, yet act as if they do. It is not as if you can see them; you merely trust that the airbags work but more than a few times, shady dealers have been caught stuffing the holes with rags, paper towels, and anything else short of an actual working airbag. Since airbags are expensive to replace, once they have been deployed, some people just try to get rid of the car without replacing them. This could have serious consequences if you were to buy a car with nonworking airbags, especially if you did not realize this.
Who Sells Damaged Cars?
Of course, not all damaged car dealers are unscrupulous. In fact, some of them have their own mechanics and they can afford to fix the damaged cars much more cheaply than an insurance company could. Remember, too, that some damaged cars for sale simply get caught up in an entire lot when a storm blows in and dumps a large amount of hail or water. Dealerships that have sustained a large degree of damage often take a total loss and then sell the entire fleet to a damaged car broker who then sells each car individually. Therefore, the potential is there for you to find an affordable car that has been damaged, especially if the damage is hail.
Worth noting, too, is that some states issue salvage titles when cars are merely stolen. Often, these cars end up in salvage or police auctions and even though they have a salvage title, there is nothing mechanically wrong with the car, that is, not the kind of damage that is usually related to a damaged car. Not all auctions are open to the public; some are dealer only auctions so check in your area to see if there are any car auctions that are available to the public. In addition, there are several websites that deal in damaged car sales and there are a few of them here.
To get a comprehensive list of damaged cars for sale, visit http://www.dealsonwheels.com. This site has an extensive list of dealers from various areas that have damaged cars for sale. If you want to do the work yourself on a damaged repairable car, you might find one you like at http://www.asalvageyard.com. Here, you can search by zip code and brand of car as well.
Another site that is particularly helpful is http://www.leaseguide.com. While this website does not sell damaged cars, they have a wealth of information about damaged cars and salvage titles so if you have any questions about buying a damaged car, you may find this site helpful.
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