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Nov
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Virtually a half million automobiles were demolished by 2 of this past season’s largest hurricanes, Katrina and Rita. A number of these cars may not have received much apparent damage but they were totaled nonetheless due to water, mud, and waste which flooded engine bays and the inside. Damaged vehicles are meant to make their way to the junk yard for scrap, sadly some underhand parties are gaining a hold of the car titles and turning around and selling damaged automobiles to the general public.
Read on to find out more about this problem and what you can do to steer clear of being stuck with a vehicle that’s sure to be a lemon. Let me just say this: it’s not illegal for weekend mechanics to purchase a salvaged auto, correct it, and sell it to you. What they must divulge to you is this: you are purchasing a salvaged car. This is where almost all of the issues begin: the devious suppliers aren’t sharing this info. Only twenty-two states require that the titles of flood damaged automobiles [which were totaled by insurers] be stamped with that info. So, if you live in any one of the twenty-eight other states, be highly wary about purchasing any used automobile [check your local laws to find out which group you belong to]. One organization is doing its bit to help fight the difficulty.
The Nation’s Insurance Crime Bureau [NICB] this past summer and fall sent groups to flood damaged areas in influenced states to work with local police authorities. What the groups did was attempt to catalogue all the flood damaged autos and enter that info in a database, which is accessible on the internet. Vehicle consumers must invest in getting an automobile history report from an independent company, eg Auto Fax, as a backup source to determine info about a vehicle.
Though the info supplied by these sorts of firms isn’t necessarily one hundred pc correct, it can mostly exhibit whether a car has been salvaged, reconstructed, is a lemon, or has been flood damaged. Some guarantee their info so check the individual contract / agreement before you use their services to see what recourse you would have in the event a lemon sneaks by them and you purchase one. So, how will we know for certain that there’ll be problems? Well, if Hurricane Floyd is a measuring stick then the potential for crime is large. In 1999, virtually eighty thousand automobiles got damaged by Floyd and taken off the roads due to hurricane damage. About half that number were fixed and resold, many to trusting buyers. You do not have to be a victim, so get informed.
If an auto is priced well below book worth that may be a huge clue a problem exists, however do not depend on price, instead do a little analysis first before purchasing your next used auto.