All Forum Posts by: Samuel Ksiazkieicz

Very nice addition Dion, thank you very much!!

I have been meaningggg to take an Excel course at a local college in my free time, this just reiterates how I need to.

haha not to be selfish but I'm glad to hear the date is getting pushed, mean I will be back on dry land!

Apparently I'm years behind on this craziness, but randomly I stumbled on this forum discussion the other day, actually when I was reading up on the salvage vehicle stuff.

Anyway, apparently in the mid 2000s, a group of enterprising individuals figured out that if they dropped a ton of credit card apps at the same time, the credit card companies would approve them before they realized what was going on and the hit on their credit score would be minimal. People were getting upwards of 200k of credit at a time, talking 15 or more credit cards. They would then take that credit and use the 1 year 0% balance transfers to put in a high yield savings account, which were paying over %5 back then, i.e. making 10k or more a year in interest before taxes.

haha I'm not advising for or against this, just thought it was interesting. Actually kind of surprised I didn't think of this when I was younger lol I can see myself doing something like this as a kid back in the day. Obviously this benefit is reduced now with the lower interest rates, but people are still doing it for the sign up rewards or to save money on higher priced debt like high rate credit cards or helocs.

A few links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App-o-rama
The grail of the app-o-rama peeps
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/632935/

Tim Delp / Courtney Rucker would you mind getting a little more in the weeds on this?
Tim, you guys are buying them prior to any repair work being done, are you picking them up at auction? Can you explain a little more your statement of "Salvage vehicles work generally at most price points of vehicles not just the low end prices"? Can you shed a little more light on the discussion further up about whether the more expensive vehicles are riskier due to it "taking a lot more damage" to cause them to be salvaged? If/when I do buy one of these, I intend to do it in person, with a mechanic I trust looking it over, care to expound anymore on what other "homework" you are doing?
Courtney, what sort of buying process are ya'll going through that you are buying these post-repair, and trust the quality of repairs being done on them?

Thanks Dion.
I figured there wasn't a black and white answer. This was more for my edification as I know general credit wisdom but little about more specifics. I didnt know that some lenders dont look at score at all though.

hahaha thats what Im talking about Courtney!
I am more interested in checking this out for myself. Just brought the resale point up because that is usually something people scream about.
Would you mind sharing a little more information on how you have gone about purchasing them. Where have you purchased them, who is repairing them, what sort of min discount do you look for, what sort of things do you do/look for to ensure you dont get a messed up one?

Theresa K. ha actually Im so new to this I dont quite know what you are talking about. What do these companies do? Process the paperwork to turn it from a salvage to a rebuilt title?

No kidding? Thats awesome, what teams did you travel with? My pops was head carpenter at Michigan International Speedway when I was a kid. We used to go ride our bikes around the track or pick up bags and bags worth of pop cans to get the 10cent deposit.
haha I was kidding about the Bentleys or Lambos, but I would be lying if I said I hadnt checked out a few 2008-10 m6s/650is for 20kish.
I know a little about lemon law, had a buddy go through it, but I didnt even think about where they sell them. Do they sell em at the same big auctions, Mannheim, IAA, Copart etc?
Thanks for the sites, search tempest is pretty legit.

Sam Craven first of all, you've got a bad *** first name.
Lemon law cars eh? I will have to put the ole Google to work and study up. Do you have any experience with them? Mind dropping any more knowledge on the subject, my internet is heinously slow on the boat.

Your point about taking a lot of damage is another argument I keep running into. I agree its something to be aware of but I dont think its that cut and dry. I'm no mechanic so completely shooting from the hip here, but knowing how much a new car, depending on the model, depreciates just from driving it off the lot, combined with the thousands of dollars it costs for replacement quarter panels, bumpers, trunk or hood, individually, plus $800ish per airbag, plus thousands for the labor, it doesn't seem that impossible to me. Also, different insurers have different standards for what gets a salvage title.

You bring up a good point, in some states theft recoveries are required to be salvaged, so there could very well be little to no issues with it.

Alright, the last part of the title was just a joke to get people to click on this post. The real reason for the post is to see if there are any of ya'll out there who buy or have bought salvage title vics.

Buying a salvage title car has intrigued me for years but I've never done more than pursue some auctions etc. Here is my thinking;

There is definitely risk. Sounds like the industry, and the used car industry as a whole has some really shady characters, e.g. people who "replace" the damaged vehicles deployed airbags with bags of packing materials or paper. And in the salvage world there can be stuff like cars with frame damage that is covered up or repaired poorly which could have obvious negative results if you get in an accident. Hence dont buy online and dont go without taking a solid mechanic with you. As a salvage/rebuilt (what it becomes after you repair the vehicle and get inspected by your state) title, it will be harder to resell due to the unknown damage your buyer will be buying.

At the same time there are possible rewards. From most everything Im reading online, you should expect to pay at most 70% of Kelly Blue Book for a salvage vic, even if it was perfect, up to 50% or more. My bank/insurer USAA also happens to be the bomb so they will both finance and insure salvage title vehicles. Everyoneeeee on the internet freaks out about the "impossibility to sell". Maybe Im way off, but that doesnt really concern me. 1. if its a good vehicle Im going to drive it for more than a few years. 2. Just like everything, you make your money when you buy, not when you sell, so if you make a good purchase, get a good repair job, I dont really see how it would be impossible to resell. 3. depreciation is one of the biggest costs of normal vehicles n I dont really see that being as big a factor with these as theyve already taken such a hit.

Any thoughts?

...but seriously, lets buy some $45,000 Phantoms and roll up to the BP Summit in style.