I talked with the PO today. From what he had there was no "salvage" anywhere on the title. Of course, we've been waiting for a new one to come in because his was lost last time he moved so I guess we'll see what the new one says.

Yesterday I ran a carfax report on the car and it came back with lots of salvage titles issued. From the report, it looks like it was wrecked in 1990 when the car was 3 years old and rebuilt later that year. I can tell the car was involved in something long ago, but it doesn't look like it could've been enough to hav totalled it when it was 3 years old. I could put a picture or two up if anybody wants to see the front rails. All this does matter since the machine shop hasn't done much with the head yet and I'm really not too far into the car to get out.

 

Carfax is NOT a guarantee. It will NEVER replace a proper PPI, which, in my estimation, is a better measure of criteria for a prospective purchase.

Unless you are planning a full restore of a classic, the PPI should outweigh a Carfax.

A good salvage title is better than none-

Hell, even Mapquest is wrong these days..

 

I dont really trust them anymore...Carfax told me my car had a salvaged title after i had owned it for 8 years. It somehow happened when i switch to PA registration and applied for a special permanet Collectible registration to dodge emissions testing.

Chris- Good luck in your search. Whats it going to be for?
Later!
Erich

 

could have been stolen when it was three years old and wrecked. taking the seats and door panels off along with the radio together with the "minor" frame damage you see may have been enough to total it.

When I changed my address Carfax picked it up as a new title. I moved 1/3 of a mile! When I sold the car I ordered a new title from DMV which superceeded the phantom title which superceeded the title issued to me when I purchased the car.

Carfax is a good starting point.

Edit. I just looked up the ad for my RX7. I took the car off the road every winter. We bought the Aurora in both names. When I sold the Legend that had my judge plates and transferred them to the Aurora I had a brand new two year registration with no car. I then had the mazda insurance card put in both names and registered it in both names. carfax picked the change of names up as a new title.

I guess if a woman buys a new car and registers it in her name, gets married and then registers it in her married name, gets divorced and registers it back in her maiden name, carfax would pick it up as having three owners!

 

I never trust Carfax. They are wrong A LOT.

 

I've ran carfax on 7+ my and my family has owned and never found anything out of line with it, but maybe that's just me.

Personally I think it's a good service to have before buying a car, we've all heard the chop shop tales and other horror stores that are commonly found with used cars, Porsches certainly aren't exceptions here. Run a carfax, but as previously mentioned, have a good PPI done. That's what is going tell you what you really need to know.

 

Sounds to me like a trip to TxDOT is in order. I'm hoping that they can give me some info, but I have a feeling that they can't since I'm not the holder of whatever kind of title there is. A simple "yes, it was salvaged" or "no, it wasn't" from the state would solve everything. I wasn't planning on restoring it, just making it into a daily driver along with the Celica.

Once a car is titled as salvage, shouldn't any future papers document that? Down at the bottom there was a no-date "Junk Title" but in Tx it looks like TxDOT says you can't register the car again. Period. The car hasn't been owned by anyone outside of Tx, according to him and the report I got.

 

I've heard of too many horror stories about Carfax. It didn't catch that my car had been in an accident (not that I'm upset about that because I wasn't relying on Carfax anyway).

Now, for a REAL horror story, does anyone remember the story of the guy from WA buying an E30 M3 in FL? The car was a pure chopshop special and Carfax was totally wrong about pretty much everything on that car. But you're absolutely right, the guy absolutely should have had a PPI done from that distance.

 

Unless the accident, repairs, or whatever in question is reported to the state, or DMV, or whoever, it won't appear on Carfax. That's the problem, so many accidents and wrecks go unreported that sometimes it's almost impossible to find out, unless you really know what to look for. On the flip side, 85% of the time you could probably own one of these bad cars for a lifetime and be none the wiser.

 

That horror story didnt make sense George. The guy says he was screwed because the sun was shining and he didnt have his cup of coffee. then he says he is a mechanic of sorts and didnt notice the chop lines etc. It just doesnt make sense. It read like a novel.

I still feel bad for the guy.

I broke my rule of never buying a car without someone else with me and got screwed two times. The scary part is it was the two times i bought brand new cars.

 

I bought my 944 with a bent frame rail and parts to fix it. The previous owner didnt have insurance and gave up trying to fix it. I got it and put it back on the road by doing the repairs in my back yard. That wont show up on a carfax, but one look at the straightened frame rail tells anyone buying it all they need to know. In the end it may bend a bit easier if it gets hit on that corner again, but its a car that starts every day and runs down the highway straight as an arrow so I dont worry about what happened to it before.

 

Same thing here as Jay.
I smashed my car up good, about 4K in repairs not counting paint, bent the frame. Good times you know. Anyways, carfax never knew. DO NOT trust carfax!

 

Well I just got off the phone with TxDOT. Carfax was right this time, it does have a salvage title. I'm still looking at the 3 options - of course thoughts on this are welcome!:

fix it - It would be hard to find another one with paint/interior this good (not like it's mint or anything, but it looks pretty good), but I need valves and gaskets to make it run - timing belt failure. Around $400 alltogether, assuming no surprises pop up somewhere else. *knock on wood*
sell - it would make a good track car and papers don't matter to the buyer in that case. I find another one with a clean record and no head damage, life goes on.
part out - don't have the time for that

 

CARFAX: best example of GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT that I have seen yet. People tend to rely on it way too much - an easy example: they don't know the difference between klm and miles when reporting mileage updates and if the first input is in klms and then later reported in miles, they report SUSPECTED ODO ROLLBACK whereas it is a simple error from data collection.

As noted above, rely on a good PPI - just use Carfax as a first round screening