Date:         Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:01:18 +1300
Reply-To:     Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Andrew Grebneff <andrew.grebneff@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject:      Re: Salvage title
In-Reply-To:  <20031014054518.76243.qmail@web10002.mail.yahoo.com>
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>In the immortal words of Forest Gump, life is like a
>box of chocolates... you never know what your gonna
>get...
>
>The reclemation of a vehicle is only as good as the
>person doing the work.  I grew up in a restoration
>shop and the fact is in most cases you are buying
>something that someone wants to make a quick buck on.
>
>My dad still gets spun up when talking about how this
>is and that people don't want to spend the money to do
>the job correctly, yet will turn around and sell it as
>"good as new" to someone that doesn't know any better.
>
>Personally, unless I do the work myself I wouldn't
>touch a salvage titled vehicle, but that's just me.

There are folks out there who don't care about cars, and if they
can't be bothered with theirs they may just deregister it. I have
bought such cars; they often have things wrong with them, but if you
know what they are you may come out ahead, especially if you can get
it cheap. the body is the main thing. You can replace the trans,
engine etc... but a rusty body is on borrowed time, no matter what
you do (unless you dip-strip it).

A good body wth duff mechanicals is a potential repowering project.

A car however which has had a major impact is GOING to rust. The
seams will be sprung from one end to the other... it's only a matter
of time. You can't rustproof sprung seams, unfortunately.
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin, New Zealand
64 (3) 473-8863
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh & VW/Toyota van nut