2006 Toyota 4Runner SR5 - V6 - 9k miles

Seems strange that most salvage titles I've seen usually have super low mileage. Maybe because the car isn't in condition to be driven. Looks clean though.

You have to think that if it runs ok that its worth the risk. Just keep in mind you will only get back out of it what you put in it, if that. But if its a keeper for a while then pull the "lets have it checked out by a mechanic" card and if it checks out then you just got a sweet deal on a nice car.

Well, the body and interior look pretty good and original, which most likely means the salvage title is from water damage, most likely a fresh water flood. If that is the case, stay FAR away at any price. Electrical problems caused by water damage can be almost impossible to troubleshoot and fix.

I have some words of wisdom, salvage titles can mean many things and you need to look at the vehicle to understand what it means.

When you have a 20 year old car, worth 2k tops, a company will salvage it out for the dumbest thing as the cost to repair just about anything costs more than it is worth. In that instance, I would consider spending 1 or 2k on a nice looking older truck with a salvage title.


We are looking at a 2006 45runner with a market value of between 18 and 22k depending on location and condition and it has a salvage title. This truck only has 9k miles, which tells me a couple of things. It was either so destroyed that it sat somewhere for YEARS or it has a new engine, caused from a wreck or flooding, that only has 9k miles on. The insurance company will total a car when the price to fix reaches a certain point, relative to its value. Every company has a different formula, but what that means is, what ever happened to it was bad and caused the insurance company to walk away. It ALSO means that the insurance company did not pay to have it corrected, which means that someone did it on their own... probably for cheap. Insurance companies give warrenties for their repairs, and a shop doing insurance repair work usually goes first class on the repair. They have to, bc if they don't everyone gets pissed. When I take my totaled car back and have my buddy's shop down the street repair it, I am looking for cheap as can be.



EITHER way, when I see a vehicle that is worth serious money and is titled, that tells me that something extremely bad happened to it.


Walk away. I wouldn't pay 4k for it. Unless you can find out, exactly, what happened to it; it is in my opinion, too much of a risk.


Also. 14k for a salvage title is too much.

+! to what DC Runner said. Unless you can find out the exact history of it, the risks are way way too high. These deals can be like the drop dead gorgeous chick that you start dating, only to find out she has a hulking huge very pscycho ex-boyfriend that now wants to remove your head from your body.

I say keep on walkin'

I would stay away...I've driven lots of wrecked cars after they have been repaired so well they look brand new but they never drive the same...if it was water you will be replacing parts all the time

There are too many things it could mean...and many you won't be able to see unless you start tearing things down. I suspect it was water damage...If so.....it may be fine now...but it could be a nightmare down the road.

I agree with all of the above, but for a slightly different reason. If you are buying a Salvage titled car (and there are lots of reasons that a newish car can have a salvage title and still be fine) But once you have bought it, you will have one heck of time if you ever want or need to sell it... and the normal strong resale value that these trucks enjoy aint gonna apply to this one... This one will depreciate just like a tired beat up F150.

BTW I worked in the automobile insurance industry for most of my adult life and there are lots of ways to get a savage title on a perfectly fine car...

Years ago there was a fraud/theft ring that would steal nearly new cars, CAREFULLY strip the interior, wheels/tires, radio, and steering column. Even on a $30,000 car/truck that would easily total the car... They cut nothing, very carefully done... The would store the parts and then wait for the car to come up for salvage auction and buy the rest of the car for 5 cents on the dollar. Put it all back together and sell it "legit"

Insurance companies defeated these "gangs" two ways. First they actually started to put cars back together on their own, collecting parts from wrecks and selling the car "whole", then later on they convinced the DMV to add a new classification "Salvage - DISMANTLE ONLY" a car NEVER to be registered again. For a while there was a fair number of really nice "interiorless" cars hitting the "u-pull" yards.

Also, there are certain cars (mostly from Germany) that any tiny hit on the front, that triggers the airbags, and the car is an automatic total.

You will get another good deal somewhere else (with a peace of mind) Walk Away, while you can!

That 4Runner is going on 5-6 years old.

To put this in perspective, I was literally blown off the road in hurricane force winds with ice on the road when my 4Runner was about 3. It rolled onto its roof in a snowbank on the downhill side of the road, so the side curtain airbags deployed and the driver's side had some minor body damage, and the passenger side windshield pillar has damage where a small tree stopped it from rolling further down the hillside. The engine was seized, but I explained to the adjuster that I turned the thing off immediately, that it was just hydraulic lock from the truck sitting rubber-side-up for an hour or two.

The damage:
Right fender
Hood
Driver's door/mirror
Passenger side Windshield pillar (just a dent)
Side curtain airbags
Seat belt explosive jam mechanisms.

That was enough to total a 3 year old SR5 (with one of the better options packages) in excellent condition. They would've repaired it if they were certain the engine was undamaged as I said it was, but it was so close to the threshold that they wouldn't even pay a mechanic to evaluate the condition of the engine or why it was seized.

So there you go-- almost anything that causes airbags and those seatbelt charges to go off apparently puts repairs around $7k right there...add bodywork, painting, or frame straightening to that, it doesn't take much of an accident to become a total loss.

I bought it back from USAA for something around $6k less cash in the settlement, which is probably what they figured they'd net if they sent it to the salvage auction.

What I'd be most worried about on this Craigslist truck would be substandard repairs. Were all the airbags replaced if they deployed, or did someone maybe use one of those cheap eBay airbag/seatbelt refurbish outfits? Or, as others have said, was this truck involved in an auto-total incident such as freshwater flooding that might have delayed consequences?

You simply don't know. A salvage truck represents a large X factor and unless he is able to see exactly what happened, how would they know it was something simple or that it was flooded in the recent hurricane?

I am very, very suspicious of 9k on a vehicle that old. That means it sat around doing nothing for years, probably damaged or inoperable in someones garage.

If you run the VIN, it will show you what happened to it, whether it was wrecked, flooded, etc. I would not buy one either way however because you don't know how well they have been repaired. How do you know they put the airbags back in correctly. If it was a flood vehicle, it will have more problems than you will ever want to deal with. I have seen some vehicles that had minor damage though that the insurance companies totaled. But this creates a salvage title and in my opinion aren't worth 50% of the going value.

Run the VI through what??? And what will it show??

I think he means carfax and autocheck. What is shows is entirely dependent on what has been submitted. Different states have different rules, as do insurance companies.

It may show what caused the issue, and it may not. If we are talking storm damage, you would likely only see when the new salvage title was issued but not what caused.

Carfax or Autocheck. Most of the time, it will show the history. It's not perfect, but it's the only thing we have. I run it before I buy anything used, even from a dealer. It's worth the money. But they don't always catch everything. I personally like Autocheck better.