Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce
Not often you come out ahead when dealing with insurance companies, but good for him. My daughter had a chance to buy a rebuilt Fiesta for $11.4k but opted to go with a new one with a warranty. I've read of a few problems with the trannys and figured that one major issue would cut into her savings and the hit she would take when she sells/trades a rebuilt vehicle would wipe out the rest.
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The shop I got my Fiesta from is owned by a father (72 years old) and two sons and his daughter work there. The youngest is 48 years old. I have known and worked with them for 25 years. Occasionally I have helped them with electrical problems and once saved them from scrapping a Focus wagon they had rebuilt but would not start when cold. They took it to two delerships who charged them but could not isolate the problem. The crazy thing was they had another Focus in back of the shop that was not repairable but had a running engine that started fine cold.
It took me 14 hours, tried all of the service bulletin procedures from the local dealership, then I stopped reading all of that crap and started doing my own analysis. It was a returnless system and I finally lucked up and replced the fuel pressure sensor which fixed the car. They had sold it to a customer and given them their $5K back and were going to scrap the car for parts.
The old man painted my rebuilt Civic VX in return for my saving them from loosing the money they made on that car. When I bought my 11 Fiesta they gave me a 90 day warranty. I figured out the accent lights wern't working right and the dipstick was chewed up where it had been hit in the collision. The old man says, go grab another dip stick from one of the other cars, and his son pulled the console and found the plug to the accent light switch was not connected. They had never messed with any of the interior, no broken glass, no airbags had ever deployed. I dont think it had any frame damage and when they aligned it (4 Wheels) I got them to set the toe to the minimum spec (closest to 0). I'd bet the accent light plug was never hooked up at the factory
Unless you have a similar working relationship with a shop, it probably is not worth the risk to buy a rebuilt salvage vehicle. My buddies have done hundreds, maybe even thousands of them and some people have bought several cars from them, to let their teenagers drive so if they get in a wreck, it's not a brand new car that just got wiped out. The old man was a sharecroppers son, had 11 brothers and sisters, and moved out when he was 16 years old and worked in body shops ever since. Today he is worth a couple million or more and he still rebuilds one or two cars a week, one tough cookie.
regards
Mech