You need to know about titles. Learn why you should avoid SLVG or when to invest in SLVG title cars.

A ‘Salvage Title’ is often issued by states when a vehicle is damaged by accident, flood or theft. How they determine if a car should be labeled as salvaged is by calculating the cost to repair versus the current market value of the vehicle. For example:A car is worth $10,000 on the street if it was in OK running condition with no major damage. But instead, the car got into an accident resulting in over $7,000-$10,000 in damages. Now, that car is not worth for the insurance company to repair. They would just pay out to the owner what the car was insured for. Then, the car is marked salvaged and sent out to an auction for parts, or for a rebuilder to repair it, get it salvage-certified and back into the market and up for sale. Again, this may be associated with an insurance company declaring a vehicle a total loss.Sometimes, these severely damaged vehicles are rebuilt, and issued a rebuilt or reconstructed title. In many states, this requires an inspection from a certified salvage repair shop that issues a Rebuilt Certificate so you can get it registered and on the road again. To get a Salvaged Rebuilt Certificate, you need to have it inspected from a salvage rebuild inspector. Some body shops do this if they hold the license.This is something where, if you have the connections, you can get a certified slip for a few hundred bucks without even having your repairs inspected. This is where it can get dangerous because these salvaged rebuilt guys just do it for the money. A problem often occurs when a salvaged and rebuilt vehicle is sold in another state.Sometimes these so-called “salvaged titles” do not transfer to other states and the title automatically becomes a “clean title” which leads to unscrupulous sellers increasing their profit margin by using this method of “cleaning” the titles and fooling naive car buyers to purchase their so-called “clean tittle” car. From what I know, the only way to really find out about a vehicles salvage history on paper is to acquire a CarFax from CarFax.com or AutoCheck.com.

Clear Title

A ‘clear title’ means that the title is free of liens and legal questions as to ownership of the property which is also a requirement for the sale of real estate. This can also be called a “just” title or simply “free and clear”. Here are a few pictures of what a Salvaged Title may look like and a screen shot of Carfax.com and Autocheck.com if you want to do a check on a car.  Here’s where you want to get your car reports from to further investigate your vehicle if you want to. Just on a side note, I don’t really recommend buying and selling salvage cars. Maybe if you can get a really good deal on it and you KNOW EXACTLY what you are getting and plan to keep it for yourself, then it can be worth getting a salvage car. The only bad thing about salvage cars is, people are afraid of them and the resale values are horrible. carfax.com or autocheck.com