Salvage or Rebuilt title? What’s the difference?

There is a lot of misleading information about salvage and rebuilt title cars, and their value, big companies are not interested in letting people know the truth. but you should know that Salvage and Rebuilt is not the same. Salvage vehicles are those that someone have applied for a salvage title in their State, in other words: something must have had happened to the vhehicle to become salvage. a salvage vehicle can never become clean title again. A salvage vehicle can be rebuilt! but before you drive a rebuilt vehicle on the public roads, you must apply for a Rebuilt Title. in Texas there are to types of rebuilt titles: one that allows you to drive it in public roads and another one that will not allow you to drive it. For the firt type of rebuilt title, you have to present a Rebuilt Vehicle Statement, formerly known as: Rebuil Vehicle Afidavit, a title application and the vehicle state inspction. if you do not ge it inspected then you will have a title only, without registration, this you can’t drive.

Rebuild process of a salvage car

Here you will learn the repair process of a salvage vehicle and see how is been transformed into a rebuilt vehicle. i will show you and explain why things are done like that and what happens if is done wrong. In the picture above you can see some tie downs that hold the car attached to the frame machine, this is also to meassure the frame, to rebuilt a car properly the frame has to be straight. if you ever buy a car check for the marks that this tie down clamps make, that way you’ll know if a car has been in a frame machine before, if it has, then look closely for any hidden damage. if you buy a car and later you discover that is wearing tires unevenly that means that it has suspenssion damage or the frame is bent.

Upper structure rebuild precess of a salvage car

As well as the frame, the upper structure is very important in the rebuilding process of a salvage vehicle, the bodywork performed here is also called structural work. as you can see in the picture a special device is on top of the car designed to square the roof of the car. at this point of the repairs is very important to make sure that the windshild fit properly, and the doors aligns to the perfection, otherwise water can leak, or having wind noise when you drive,

Disassembling process of the salvage

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Salvage cars disassembly process

Removing the damage body parts is very critical because if this is not done correctly the structure of the body can be compromised, cars nowadays are made with safety in mind so they have what is called crush zones this is designed to absorb the inpact in case of an accident, if this is modified in the repair process then safety is in geopardy. but this information is not only for rebuilt cars if you have a car being repaired by a body shop and they don,t know this your safety is at risk.

Rebuild process, Quarter panel installation on a salvage car

Not every bodyman or Body-tech can do this kind of work, thats why many sites sugests people to stay away from salvage or rebuilt cars, preventing people from saving a lot of maney, but after you see this complete salvage repair pocess you will be knowledged enough to make a god judgement whether to buy a rebuilt car and save thousands of dollars or avoid them completely. remember I’m not sending you to buy the first rebuilt car you find. Be wise.

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Painting edges on a salvage vahicle

painting edges before we paint the whole car is a process by wich we can acchieve the best results. if the whole car is painted at once there is a chance for dust to go all over the car at the time of spraying the paint.

Preparing a salvage car to be painted outside

Once we have the door jams and the edges painted we cover wahtever is painted with masking paper to prevent overspray to get into those araes. as you can see in the image above

Priming a salvage vehicle

Here we start to prime the ouside, actually this is sealer not primer, the sealer is to allow an even coat of color, since the sealer is sprayed to the whole area to be painted, no shades are seing, and the paint adheres better.

applying basecoat to a salvage car

As you can see the first part to be spray is the roof, that’s because the overspray tends to go down so any overspray may go to the hood or the trunk lid but that really don’t matter since we are going to spray next, it would be counterproductive if we spray the hod and the trunk firt because when we paint the roof, the overspray will go down to those parts and will create a rough effect in the finish.

In this picture you can see this salvage car completely cover with basecoat. As you can see there is no shine because there is no crear applied to it yet. we’ll se that in the next picture.

Salvage vehicle completelly painted

Now every step of the painting process have been done. The only thing left is buffing it and put it back together.

Every corner has been taken care of

Chevy Cobalt taken to the pinacle, after being in the deepest stage of destruction,

Perfect shine

We can now say, Buy a rebuilt car with confidence at Bass Collision.

I hope this will help you to make a good desition and save money next time you bay a car.

remember this car remains Salvage until you apply for a rebuilt title and tetle is granted.