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The auctions I watch list the type of damage which caused the vehicle to be totalled. Most flood vehicles go for a fairly high price due to the lack of collision damage and the body parts that are available for resale by junk yards. You can theoretically rebuild 4 cars with one flood damaged car and the parts that are water damaged are not the ones that will sell quick when you consider warranties and the time it takes for the hard parts to wear out.
Sheet metal, front and rear clips, doors and center posts sell fairly quickly. The rest can take 10 years.
Maybe it's Virginia that has laws that require the auctions to disclose specifics that other states do not require.
With salvage cars being created in mass in areas where storms can created them by the thousands, you will see the insurance companies rent out whole airports, just for storage.
My rule is simple, I will know the origin of the cause of salvage and I will inspect the vehicle personally before purchase. The only time I ever broke that rule was when I bought my 94 Civic VX which was sold by a salvage yard after it was disposed of by an insurance company, and the damage was obvious. Virginia required me to submit an estimate of the cost of repairs and told me I could no bring in any other out of state salvage cars to be rebuilt.
In April of 2008 that VX had 27,492 original miles. It was totalled at 2 years age and sat inside a climate controlled environment for 12 years. It even had the original wiper blades that were completely useable and I ran it 10k miles on the 15 year old tires before I replaced them.
regards
Mech
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