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I am a new user from the Netherlands who is looking to buy a imported 91 C1500 stepside. I found a car to my liking and did a VIN carfax check on it and it came out like this.
It obviously means it was in a accident and got declared a total loss by the insurance company, but after that it has nothing for 4 years and then there is a emission test and then it was exported.
Is there anybody who maybe knows why there was a 4 year period of nothing and then a emission test? (maybe its a common practice or something i dont understand as an European)
And does total loss mean the car was wrecked beyond repair or the damage was to high compared to the repair costs and value of the car?
I did inspect the car here but i can not find any structural damage to it.
In other word maybe there is someone who has a lot of experience with vin reports and can tell me a bit about it?
Help would be greatly appreciated!
Last edited by Maikelo; April 25th, 2019 at 12:23 PM.
well look at the millage when the accident was reported. and its gone up 400 miles since then. 4 months later the insurance company sells it to a dealer, i dont see a dealer buying a truck with real bad damage. but then a couple hundred miles were put on it and then it was sold at auction. i know with these trucks if you have a front end collision you can bend the frame and the dealer will "total" the truck but it will be before the wheels so the alignment wont be an issue. but the cost to straighten the frame will be about 1/3 of the value of the truck so they total it
"And does total loss mean the car was wrecked beyond repair or the damage was to high compared to the repair costs and value of the car?"
Yes. A total loss means the cost to repair it exceeded a certain value of the vehicle. Example - my wife was driving our '10 Journey and slid on black ice and hit a guard rail. The initial damage estimate was $4,020. Vehicle was valued at $5,100. State law (Virginia) requires the insurance company to declare the vehicle a total loss if the cost of repairs exceeds 75% of the vehicles current market value (before the accident). So 75% of $5,100 is $3,825. Since the damage estimate ($4,020) was greater then 75% of the vehicles value ($3,825) the insurance company had to declare it a total loss. We did have the option of a) accepting the settlement and buying it back from the insurance company and repairing it ourselves or b) declining the settlement and repairing it ourselves.
Once a vehicle is declared a total loss it will end up with a salvage title. Most states do not allow a vehicle with a salvage title to be registered (issued tags). That's why once this one was repaired it was exported.
Thank you very much for your reactions much appreciated!
Only thing I don’t understand is why would they buy it in 2014 and leave it standing for 4 years and then export it? You would think they would buy it on auction and fix it up and sell it soon as possible.
Yeah, one might want to think that. However, some of these businesses that deal with repairing totaled vehicles are quite large and have hundreds if not thousands of vehicles they are assessing for possible repair or to ultimately be send to the local junkyard. I had to retrieve some items out of one our vehicles that had been totaled - missed it when it was at the body shop. Wife found where it had been hauled to and when I arrived there, there were literally hundreds of vehicles waiting to be assessed.
you have to think also at one point it was the insurance agencies car since they totaled it. from there it sits till they get "X" amount to make the trip to the auction worth the fuel millage. then it may sit there for a bit, once it sells at auction a smaller dealer prob had it sitting for awhile or tried to sell it or just drove it around (the reason why it accumulated 400 miles). then once it says "totaled" or "salvaged" on the title the vehicles value drops a huge amount. but ship it overseas and the price drop might not be as bad. but then that truck over here might be worth 2-3k maybe a little more over there but not here
April 25th, 2019, 12:21 PM
Could use some help with a VIN check
