Rebuilt Title? Car Report Help. Should I buy?

PAROXSITIC

MEMBER
2003 HYUNDAI TIBURON
4 CYL
72,000 MILES

I live in Michigan, I am looking to buy a 2003 Tiburon. It has 73,000 miles and the seller wants $5500 for it. I convinced him to go down to $5000 from evidence from edmunds and KBB. Looking at the pictures, the exterior looks in good shape.

I bought an autocheck vechicle report, and it's located here: http://www.webpagescreenshot.info/img/287928-37201155132PM

There seems to be Insurance loss title or probable total loss record(s), Junk or scrapped title record(s), Rebuilt/rebuildable title record(s), Salvage title or salvage auction record(s)
yet there is 0 reported accidents on the report. I have limited knowledge of what a rebuilt title is, my problem is that the reports don't correspond with each other. First it was a total loss, now it's salvaged, and based on my limit talking with the current owner, it's never had any issues.

Can someone explain to me what's going on? What's your guess on what happened?

How much does this devalue the car? How will this add any additional fees in the long run? Will I have trouble getting this car insured?

Please let me know your opinion and what you would do in this situation.

1 Reply

JACOBANDNICKOLAS

MECHANIC
109,867 POSTS

If the vehicle passes state inspection, there will be no problem getting insurance. However, a reconstructed title drops the vehicle's value considerably. If KBB says the value is 5K, in reality I wouldn't pay more than half that for it (if it has an R title). That is my opinion. Where I live, we can get vehicles with an R title for around half the book value. But, keep in mind, you have no idea what happened to the car (for it to be a total loss, the damage had to be around 90% of the vehicle's book value) and you don't know if it was properly repaired. The resale on such a vehicle is more difficult too.

Keep in mind, the car may be properly repaired and run great, or there may have been damage to electrical components that can cause issues, the air bags may not have been replaced.