Rebuild title - how much it worth?

Hello all: I am looking at a beautiful 2001 996, C4 (all wheel drive), which has the aero kit on it (and the package includes the part that makes the front light looking oval, like the usual 911s). The car has a relatively low mileage (55000 miles), and is in very good shape, both mechanically and appearance-wise. However, it had gone through a front collision in 2011, and had a $10,000 repair done to it. Moreover, the title is "Rebuilt". What is the fair price for the car; especially if one would have to sell it in say 3-4 years? I would really appreciate receiving your input on this matter. Cheers, The Car-nut!

$10,000-$12,000. Even if car was fixed flawlessly, the "rebuilt" title will always weigh the value down a lot. If you ever try to sell it, the "next guy" will be posting the same question on the forum.

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$10K repair doesn't jive with a "rebuilt" title. Someone is under reporting the cost of the repair or the repair was done on the extreme cheap is all I can come up with. My experience with my 996 Turbo is an encounter with a mule deer which damaged the front bumper cover, passenger side headlight, fender, scuffed the wheel, cut the tire, dented the front trunk lid, cost over $25K to put right. My experience with my 2008 Cayman S is the other driver's insurance company "exotic car" adjusters stopped adding up the cost of repair when the total reached $41K. This for a car that listed at $62.6K and which I bought new discounted to $50.6K. Might add my insurance company adjuster estimated the repairs to be around $16K... My usual advice is to give "rebuilt" or "salvage" cars a miss. For the average buyer it is just too hard to determine the quality of the rebuild or how well the car was resurrected from its salvage condition.

"Rebuilt" can mean a lot of things here in Texas. From hardly any damage to very bad. Insurance companies are totaling vehicles more these days because of high repair/body shop costs. I have picked up some great bargains at auction that were totaled by insurance companies. The most recent purchase I made was totaled because the turbo charger ingested water and stalled engine. The insurance company totaled it as "flooded". The water never made it past the turbo yet they totaled it instead of having it properly diagnosed. I rebuilt the turbo and ended up with a nice vehicle for peanuts. I have done this many times and have not had trouble selling them. As pointed out above, it may be a problem for some buyers, especially if they need financing. Detailed information about the damage/repairs, etc. does help.

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I really hate to agree with you, but I do. I guess the choice has to be made on if the car is more of a investment and you're looking for a pristine example of whatever you want to buy, or the car is a driver and it's going to be enjoyed on the road or track. I personally wouldn't pass up a good car with a rebuilt title, and then you have the extra benifit that (in the near future at least) nothing you can mess around with will hurt the value, so its' a green light to mod away and do what you want.

Absolutely. Myself and a few others were trying to buy another members GT3 that met this fate. Unfortunately the selling insurance company kept refusing offers to the point most of us gave up. Great info about it with pics and story about what happened to the car in the GT3 forum.

The typical discount here for "salvage title" cars is at least 30% ,up to 50% .

I agree with most comments here, but in my world, any vehicle with a rebuilt/previous salvage title is worth exactly zero. I don't care how good the story is, at some point an insurance company wrote it off as a total loss. I would avoid any car titled as such, especially a Porsche or other exotic. There's too many good deals out there on good cars. Too many horror stories, and too much 'splainin' to do. I hate stories, and most buyers do, too.

I was speaking from the perspective of buying them unrepaired, then repairing yourself. Some bargains are out there and some insurance adjusters do make mistakes. You just have to be careful when you buy.

I'm not sure you can just assign a discount based on title status. ....though agree it would be very significant. I would have a PPI done on it where they can really go over the frame and vital parts. Look for stress and other indications of real structural damage. I would make sure it's tight, seams together and gaps close. The horror stories are cars purchased that pull left or right and CANNOT be aligned. If it drives well go for it but I can't imagine it being considered as an investment as my guess is unless you bought it extremely well it would depreciate at a really quick pace.

I would happily buy a Jeep or other off-road/crawler with a salvage title if I'm going to use it for an activity where it may get damaged extensively. There are quite a few cars (Lotuses, Vipers) where any significant front-end collision will result in a "total loss;" if the rebuild was fully documented, I'd buy a salvaged vehicle to get into a car I really want that would otherwise be out of my price range. I nearly did this with an Elise - but then I got in and out of an Elise a couple of times and came to my senses.

Exactly correct! Thats how I bought another diesel to pull my car hauler and a Bronco for playing. Although I did do all the repairs myself.

Macster, you are usually on point with good info, but I disagree here. By 2011 the value of that vintage was already pretty low (30k at best). Most insurance companies start the totaling process around 1/3 the current value (and some will try wholesale value!) unless you fight them on it. Depending on that area it was done (e.g. labor rates) getting to $10k is not hard. A light pickup backing into your front end while parallel parking will do it if the manage to crease the frunk, punch a hole in the bumper, and scratch up both Xenon headlight housings will put you over the 10k mark. None of that is "OMG! Run away!" stuff. It would also not surprise me if the estimate that caused it to be totaled was much higher, but someone picked it up and fixed it cheap by not using brand new parts when they could pick up used pieces. Cheap doesn't have to reflect the quality of repair. Personally a rebuilt title means little in my opinion. Especially if they have good documentation about the accident and repairs. You're going to look it over closely anyway so if there were outstanding problems, you'll hopefully find them. Maybe the only difference it would make to me is that there is no way I'd buy a salvage car sight unseen and with out a good deep PPI.

It must be a strange day because I agree with both gnat and schnell in the same thread. In dealing with rebuilts/salvage vehicle you better make sure you know what your looking for. Did you know insurance companies are totalling very high end exotics these days as well as regular vehicles? I can only assume its because the owners have some type of replacement coverage, etc. The insurance companies have to do something with them, hence the auctions selling them. Mind you, Im still referring to pre repair vehicles. Keep in mind also that if someone else collides with your 996 and their at fault, the other drivers insurance company will want the least expensive way out for them. This could very well mean totalling your high mileage 1999 996 that suffered what seems like not much damage to you. I see many very nice un-repaired vehicles at auction and have bought many of them. Some were incredible bargains.

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Strange day indeed, maybe I should buy a lotto ticket... I have a close friend that owns a bodyshop and it's not really surprising when you understand it. Over the last 10 years he has seen a massive spike in totaled cars and it seems the higher the value the more likely it will be totaled. What's really scary is that $100k Range Rovers, Jags, and Porsches get totaled for seemingly minor damage. When I was by last month he had a top of the line RR that the driver hit a curb and it was being totaled. It wasn't a love tap as it ripped off the driver side wheel and did a bunch of damage to the front quarter, but it also didn't look like a total either. The problem is all that "protect the occupant" BS is great at saving the people, but means these new cars are one and done. You can't safely repair the frame like you once could and all the parts the manufacturer requires to be replaced cost a bloody fortune and require disassembling good chunks of the car. Between the parts and labor a "simple" accident in these new "safer" vehicles can be $30k or more before you blink. Hell my Cayenne got sprayed with some construction mess that required the whole car to be repainted and all the unpainted plastic and rubber parts to be replaced. Initial estimate was $5k, but even the adjuster said there was no way the supplements wouldn't bring it to at least $12k. Out the door it was $20k. If it had been a couple years older I would have been fighting over them wanting to total it.

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i totally agree - salvage/rebuilt/branded titles just aren't worth the headache

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I suspect this will be even more common as more car manufacturers uses more aluminum(i.e. Land Rover/Audi/BMW), high strength steel(Honda, Ford), and liberal amounts of CF(BMW) and the ratio of trained specialized shops remain low.

Just to echo some of the other comments, the more you know, the more comfortable you'll be. I was seriously considering a "rebuilt" 2002 Z06 'Vette. It was "totaled" in 2002 when it was only 3 months old. I was looking at it in 2015. So that's 13 years and 4 other owners on whatever repairs were made. No clue, no history on what was done. Just for the sheer frustration of it, I passed, and I'm happy I did. If I was going to keep the car forever (as we like to say), I probably would have bought it, but being pragmatic, I'll realistically keep a toy only 10-15 more years (I'm 61, and it's not the love aspect, but the ability to get in and out!). If I *knew* what was repaired, I'd have felt a lot better purchasing it. A few years ago, my wife T-boned a teenaged girl who literally pulled out of an intersection about 50' in front of my wife. Messed up everything in the front and right side. It was about 7000 damage on a 25000 car. Totaling it never entered the discussion. I asked the dealer about the reduction in value (it was a lease) and they said that as long as it was repaired properly, no issue whatever. One other concern: What if someone hits YOU? Their insurance company will look at it, say that their driver hit a rebuilt car, so they'll total it, but only agree to give a small fraction of it's worth (to you) because it was already totaled. Yeah, you could fight it in court, but again, it's the overall frustration at having to deal with it. Carl

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This is why you have your own insurance though. I will give the other party a reasonable chance to pay out of pocket if they wish, but I will NEVER deal with any insurance other than my own. If it goes to insurance I call mine and then when the other party's calls me I simply give them the claim number and contact info for mine. You are right that the paying company will do it's best to pay as little as possible, but you pay yours to fight for you and get as much as possible to "make you whole". Gieco tried to total our 996 on a $4k claim. Even more entertainingly they tried to do it after the repairs had been made. Their dispute was the final amount of the claim, but the shop submitted the numbers to them every step of the way and they never bothered to come out and do their own inspections. USAA wasn't having any of that though. Don't know or care what went on between them, all that is important to me is that the claim was paid and the car has a clear title still.

Folks: Thanks very much for all your input. I just decided to drop that Porsche off of my list. Thanks again. The Car-nut

Also, for future reference all insurance companies may not accept a car with salvage title.

Not sure about other states but in Texas once a pink "salvage" title vehicle is repaired, the owner applies for a blue/green "rebuilt salvage" title. There's no problem with insurance, etc. because the rebuilder/owner has to file some forms, affidavit, inspection, etc. showing how the vehicle was repaired before the state will issue the new title. I have not had a problem so far but not sure if others have.

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If I had to take a guess, I would assume the reason why insurance companies prefer to total a vehicle is liability. Let's say a damaged vehicle is rebuilt, something fails, and an individual is injured. The associated legal costs would dwarf any body shop quote.

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Could be, but I don't think so and I would guess that the cases of that happening when such repairs are done via insurance is low. As long as the repairs are being done by a reputable shop that knows what they are doing it should come out the other end as good as new. There are of course things that can be missed, but insurance totals a car over what is known and not what may be. Now when someone skips insurance is a different story as the likelihood of the work being done by a less reputable shop and/or corners getting cut goes up significantly.

I don't think repair liability would matter much to the insurer - they don't do the work. Geico claims the following three criteria for totaling a vehicle: * Damage to the vehicle is so severe that it can't be repaired safely; * The repairs will be more expensive than the value of the vehicle itself; or * The amount of damage is severe enough that state regulations require the vehicle to be declared a total loss. The insurer will total the vehicle when doing so is in the insurer's best interests - i.e. the cheapest way it can fulfill its obligations to the policyholder. I don't know the type of software they use for actuary calculation, but I'm sure it knows whether Porsche repairs typically exceed the initial repair costs calculated by the adjuster, and if so, by how much. If a model typically costs 50% more than the initial estimate, they'll push to total it. Whatever will allow the insurer to keep the most money is the rationale for the decision...

I bought a 2015 Lexus GS F-Sport with 2,800 miles in August for my wife. It was wrecked with 63 miles in April. Hit right front & damaged hood, right fender & inner fender, radiator,a/c condenser, headlight, etc. & drivers curtain,knee,& steering wheel airbags deployed. It seems airbag deployment tips the scale toward totaling a vehicle. I had been searching for a 2015 IS350 to replace her 2007 IS350 before the 2016's debuted the downsized engines etc. I saw the GS on E-bay in the color we couldn't find on a IS. Rebuilt title voids the factory warranty but it has the same engine as our IS & we never needed any warranty for it. The rebuilt car looks & drives like new, the inner fender shows signs of straightening & fresh undercoating. Otherwise there is no indication it is anything but pristine. Changed oil & inspected filter @ 3,500 miles. Bought & registered for a little less than a basic IS350 would have cost. Talked to my State Farm agent before buying, she said if car was wrecked again they would survey local comparable cars for sale & instead of averaging values like they normally do, they would base value off the lowest priced comparable GS-F.

rebuilt titles are not salvage titles. salvage has to pass state inspection to be converted to rebuilt title, and then no different from other titles, except the scarlet letter to potential buyers. THere seems to be a lot of rebuilt cars showing up around nashville... strange

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Nailed it...takata

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This may be the understatement of the decade. If you pop an airbag or two, regardless of the actual collision damage, it's going to be difficult to not wind up with a total loss. Sunset lists DRIVER AIR BAG - PORSCHE (996-803-089-09-J40) for $2,011.60. If you pop both front impact airbags - driver and passenger - depending on the car, you're looking at a new dash, new airbag cartridges, a new steering wheel cover (unless the cartridge comes with the cover), PLUS whatever damage was done to the car. If the seatbelt pretensioners were triggered, you may be looking at replacing all of that hardware. For the cars with the airbags built into the seats, the side of the seat gets ripped out when the bag deploys, so you're looking at a new seat or an upholstery bill plus a new airbag cartridge. There are places that sell "used" - i.e. undeployed airbags from junked cars, but there are also tales from the Interweb about them being filled with nothing. Me, I'm happy to buy a non-OEM oxygen sensor, but I think I'll stick to new, OEM airbags. Modern cars are great at keeping us alive, but damn, the bill gets big QUICKLY when the airbags start popping.

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It may not be to keep the insurance company free of any liability, but all parties involved. Mahines and money are disposable, humans not so much.

I think I posted the same thing, some just aren't understanding the difference.