'68 Coronet R/T wrote:I wouldn't even touch a car damaged like the one in your photo.

I would love to get into Salvage rigs but the prices are so sky hi on salvage at the insurance pools you cant make any money on them with a Salvage title as a bank wont touch a salvage title for collateral on a loan makes selling the car near impossible and forget getting market value for it. doesn't matter how good you fixed it.

But when you can get one cheap enough and its for your self why not you can save a bundle on a newer car.

Use to be able to rebuild cars for a decent penny but now in has made it hard to rebuild these wrecks. We still manage to buy wrecks and fix them but usually we get them right from the customer and avoid insurance companies labeling them as total losses.

I thought it was just crazys bidding them up so hi but your saying the insurance company's are causing the price jump at insurance pools?
I believe it Insurance company's are owned & run by unscrupulous greedy low life scum bent on profiting from ill-fortune of others and then get government to make laws saying you have to have insurance and pay them! First it was on our cars now are medical insurance.
So how long till they have a law made giving them rights to harvest and sell our organs when we meet an unfortunate accident?

Nice job Mike!! The Caroliner benchrack is one of if not the best frame rack on the market and their measuring system is second to none.I spent 6 years working on an old MKIV caroliner rack,their measurements were always bang on.I would like to see more pics as well.

20 years ago we used to do write off's all the time,it is just not worth the time and effort anymore.I saved a 2002 mazda protege for myself as it had super low miles and all it needed was a cowl/rocker section,door and fender for cheap and drove it for 3 years.In my area a write off will either be rebuildable or salvage which the latter means you can't fix it.All rebuilders have to be inspected and passed or they fail.I think this is a great idea as many hacks cobble them together and sell an unsafe car to some poor sap.

I started out as a vehicle rebuilder. I have rebuilt and sold over 500 cars in the past 10 years. The past few years I have transitioned over to mainly just repairing cars for others. I still sell about 15 cars a year but only Clean title wrecks and I only buy them if I get a great deal. I used to sell cars in 10 days or less but now I am running a 60 day turnover rate.

The whole economy for used cars has changed. With New cars be sold to people with bad credit and 0% interest there isnt much of a used car market besides Subprime and Owner Financing.

Thats lots of cars Mmooney,you obviously know what you are doing.I work with a guy who does the same thing to supplement his income.He only does cobalts,g5's,older sunfires neons when they were still worth doing.He did about 10 or so a month and average price in the $5000 area with about half of that being in the car.He does really well and usually has them sold before they are finished.If you specialize in a few models you can build up parts and be into them for next to nothing.

Yeah Caroliner is by far the best bench I have used. I have the vision3 measuring system and just picked up evo3 setup. Makes welding up structural panels simple. My boss buys the cars straight from the owner when they are towed in.

Jayson m wrote:Thats lots of cars Mmooney,you obviously know what you are doing.I work with a guy who does the same thing to supplement his income.He only does cobalts,g5's,older sunfires neons when they were still worth doing.He did about 10 or so a month and average price in the $5000 area with about half of that being in the car.He does really well and usually has them sold before they are finished.If you specialize in a few models you can build up parts and be into them for next to nothing.

Yea its better to specialize. Not only do you have a build up of extra parts. You also get referrals from people buying your car and less advertising because you can cross sell the same type of car easier than a different. I started out selling 94-97 Accord and 93-99 Camrys. Then I did 98-2002 Accords. Then I did 2002-2006 Nissan Altimas. Now I dont specialize. I just buy stuff that's sporty that I can get into it for about 50% of Private value fixed. I try to sell them Private first for about 30-45 days. If I havent sold it by then I just wholesale it to one of my dealer clients.

Its funny you mention Cobalts. I bought a 2010 Chevy Cobalt LT Coupe last year with only 58K miles on. Clean title and all for $1100. I put about $600 in repairs. Advertized it for 90 days before I finally dropped the price and sold it for $3400. I still made out ok. But what I sold it for versus the book price was nearly half. And it was repaired right looked great.

If you have money to owner finance cars the salvage car business would be pretty lucrative.