Buying Auction/Salvage RV's

My take is this.... To be a good match for a salvage titled RV to need to fit the following:

You need to be very handy and capable of refurbing/repairing whatever caused the salvage title assignment.

You need to be looking to keep the rig long term, as resale will probably not get you back what you paid plus what you sunk into refurbing it.

Then, just be sure you perform your due diligence, buy a rig that is repairable and go for it.

I have bought many trailers at salvage and auto auctions . Insurance is usually no problem unless you need to finance . Eyes open , most auto auction trailers will be bought at 50% of blue book . Salvage auctions , price will vary with damage and paper work . Not all insurance vehicles will have salvage titles . Many RVs are also sold for storage , watch the legal ads.

Also , in Florida and many states there are several kinds of salvage titles , salvage rebuild-able and salvage non-rebuild. Non -rebuild can not legally be put back on the road , but it is done , at your risk . Many will take a trailer and use the frame to make a flat bed trailer , I have done it ten or so times and ain't been to jail ,yet !

Dealers Report Problems

http://www.dealernews.com/dealernews/article/dealers-report-problems-two-new-auction-businesses

If you are considering doing this, I would strongly recommend doing a very thorough inspection in person. But obviously I don't follow my own advice and have bought several sight unseen. I try to get the best idea of the condition from the pictures but then decide on an amount to pay based on bad case scenerio where it needs significantl a more work than I expect.

I bought my first one on eBay auction. Description was pretty good although some issues. Price was decent.

I bought a repo from www.crankyape.com - description wasn't as good as I would have expected it to be better (several issues that I thought should have been mentioned weren't) but price was quite good.

I bought a bank repo from the bank itself (sealed bid auction advertized through Craigslist (i.e. the described the vehicle and said they'd take bids until such a date)). Much worse condition than I expected but my bid was a lowball so ended up paying pretty much what it was worth (actually re-sold it shortly after I bought it and made a bit of money but did spend some time picking it up and fixing some things and it could have been worse)

I bought a TX salvage 'non-rebuildable' from Craigslist last year (knowing that I would be able to register in a couple of states) from the garage that bought it at the salvage auction (they weren't able to register it in their state so were pretty negotiable on the price). Paid about 1/4 to 1/3 of market value knowing that I may never be able to resell it except for parts or maybe to a buyer in one of a few states that will allow registering (and even that could change) (basically I paid a bit more than I figured I could get parting it out even though it runs and drives and really only needed a gen, some electrical and a fair amount of bodywork). I had no problems insuring it. This is one that, IMO, probably shouldn't even have been a salvage (at the time of the accident it was probably worth $80-100k and I'd be very surprised if it would have cost more than $30k tops to fix back to new (I've spent maybe $6-7k to make it road worthy and safe but it still needs some bodywork), let alone 'non-rebuildable' (In TX, 'non-rebuildable' is used when it's just worth the value of parts and scrap metal). I've been told that it's very common for insurance company to make salvage or even non-repairable salvage simply to avoid any possible liability in the future (i.e. they don't declare a vehicle salvage, it's put back on the road and later involved in an accident and someone argues that it had sustained damage in the initial accident so should never have been declared safe for the road). In my case, the vehicle went through a guardrail (damaging front cap and generator was lost) and front wheels went into a retention pond (front wheels only, no water inside coach and rear engine and electrical components in rear did not go in water). A good portion of the body damage was caused by the tow truck when they took it out.