|
Wow, thanks for reviving this thread Rikx1M. It's been a fascinating read about how cars can be repaired properly. Glassoman seems to have stopped visiting the forum, his last post was more than a year ago. From what I can gather, Glassoman probably made this thread as a way to document the repairs that he has done, and prove that it was done properly, so as to justify the high price that he wanted for them.
His attention to detail seems to be very good, but at the end of the day, a heavily repaired car can never be as good as one that has been taken care of and has not been in a smash. I have a feeling that people's expectations of the price of an ex-salvage car are far too low for the cost and amount of effort of properly repairing a car. I mean, he bought those wrecks for about $20k and people only expect to pay $10-15k more than that for a completely repaired one! I can see that parts alone could easily be that difference!
However, at the other end of the spectrum, the price he was asking for was getting close to what a non-salvaged, accident free car is worth. This makes sense, because there is no greater efficiency than a mass manufacturer churning out cars, and the sum of the assembled parts will be sold for far less than the high markups for each spare part. This means there is very little incentive to repair a car to proper procedures, since it will never be worth it compared to just getting one that has not been damaged. In other words, it's highly likely that any car with salvage title would have had shoddy repairs done on the cheap to make it economical to sell.
I have a few questions though, that hopefully someone who's familiar with repairing cars can answer.
1) How long do manufacturers keep making spare parts, sheet metal bodywork(fenders, roof, bumpers etc), chassis rails, etc, after a car is no longer in production? Would it be a lot harder to repair cars when new body parts are no longer available? (I would assume you would then need chop up other donor cars)
2) Are manufacturers obliged to sell EVERY part of a car as spares? Is it possible in theory to complete build a brand new car from new parts? (I realize it would probably cost 200%++ of a new one due to parts price markups)
3) Is it inevitable for the joins to rust or weaken first over time (considering the heat-cycle of welding, impurities in the joins etc)
4) What are the key ways to tell that a car has been repaired (whether done well or not) and is it possible to hide it well? I want to know so that I don't get burned again buying a repaired car that has been priced as a mint car.
(I bought a car 10 years ago that looked great but turned out to have been in a big accident in the rear left. I only found out many years into the ownership when I pulled some of the interior out to fit some wires. The repairs were crap - all the welds and repair joins were rusting on the inside, including repairs to the chassis rail. The exterior looked fine, although some rust spots were starting after a few years. It was a used car that was brought into the country from Japan, so probably was repaired there and exported without being declared that it was a salvage title. Really sucks, cause I lost a lot of money on that. Car seemed to drive ok, although I never tracked it, which if I did may have revealed chassis problems.)
|