I drive a 2014 Lexus GS 350 all-wheel drive that has been totaled at least three times it has 160,000 MI and still running like a clock obviously you must ask your insurance agency if they'll give you a hard time ensuring it but if not and you can get a good deal why not get a rebuilt or salvage title
Assuming it was crashed and totaled are people having mechanical issues with crashed cars?
You got lucky
Most people don't know much about cars and even those that do may miss something critical. With salvaged cars you really don't know what you're getting yourself into or how much it may cost you.
Why? Because it is the automotive version of Russian Roulette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuevVVnWK-0
I’m against it because I don’t know what I am doing. If I knew what I was doing, I would be more open to salvage or rebuilt titles.
I just don’t want an endless money pit, and while there may be some gems, odds are that a salvage or rebuilt title may indeed be an endless money pit.
You can just bring it to mechanic and do a pre-buy inspection
there's only so much an inspection can reveal
@Gew: I could, but what’s the fun in that. I still wouldn’t know what I would be doing.
Salvage titles are like playing the car lottery: you pay a considerable amount of money for something that may or may not work tomorrow. If it works, you won! If it doesn't, you need to keep pouring money down the drain.
You can just bring it to mechanic and do a pre-buy inspection
As Rod Iron said, most people know little or nothing about cars. Mechanics know stuff most don't, and they may see an endless money pit before you notice what you're getting. They'll squeeze the pennies out of you slowly so you don't notice the bleeding. By the time you realize you've been had, you're down an even bigger amount of money... probably enough to get a vehicle in a better condition than the salvaged one. If your mechanic is honest, you'll probably get a "run away from that" right away.
The only way I’d be into salvage titles is if I already had a successful YouTube following that was profitable, and they followed me because I buy salvaged title cars and fixed them up.
Going back to basics here, but I remember talking to an engineer who said that metal hardens when it is bent or hit. So with a car that has been in a wreck, my first thought is "What parts of the chassis/frame have hardened up from the impact, and what if they're ready to snap or break?".
They say steel has a stress point as well - so unless you go past the stress point it springs back. But I'm pretty sure with the weight and force involved you can't gamble on that stuff. And I wouldn't even know if they were using a certain type of steel on the car frame.
The spring back concept you mention is known as elastic deformation. Google elastic vs inelastic deformation, cool stuff.
Another interesting concept is material fatigue. Basically if a metal is load & unload thousands and thousands of times, it ends up lowering its breaking point over a long period of time.
Back to cars, I wouldnt touch anything with frame damage for daily use.
We can't upvote replies can we? But thanks for that. I totally agree, say you do that moose maneuver thing (gotta wonder what pic Scotty Kilmer would use there) to avoid something in the road. Gotta wonder if the car would take it and if it's worth your life.