When buying a used car, you may come across one with a rebuilt title. Rebuilt title cars can initially be less expensive than other used cars, often making them appealing to car buyers. But, sometimes, a rebuilt title car has been poorly repaired. If you are in the market for a used car, you’ll want to keep reading to find out what problems our readers say can happen when purchasing a shoddily rebuilt title car.
Melanie Musson
Problems with Alignment, Wiring, and Transmission
One of the most common problems with shoddily rebuilt cars is alignment issues. If the vehicle’s frame is bent, you’ll have alignment problems no matter how often you have the wheels aligned. Poor alignment leads to rapid and uneven wear on your tires. Your vehicle will also pull in one direction, making the driving experience feel squirrely.
You may also run into wiring problems. If the broken connections aren’t fixed properly, they’re likely to pull apart, and then you’ll deal with annoying issues like windows that won’t go down and power locks that don’t work.
You might even run into a significant problem like a crack in your transmission housing. You might overlook the issue during a test drive, but if you put your vehicle under a load or climb steep hills, you’ll start to see the transmission slipping. Then it’s only a matter of time until your transmission goes completely, which is a costly replacement.
Unstable vehicle
While a car with a rebuilt or shoddily repaired title may appear to run and drive fine when test-driven by a buyer, the stability might be compromised at high speeds. Additionally, if there is damage to an important structural component, such as the chassis, excessive vibration may cause parts to loosen over time. Water leaks also lead to the weakened structural integrity of rebuilt cars. An unstable vehicle is dangerous to the driver and other road users.
Cody Crawford
Kathleen Ahmmed
Insurance and Resale Problems
One of the biggest problems with buying a used car with a rebuilt title is that some insurance companies will refuse to insure these types of vehicles because, in most cases, they haven’t been rebuilt to the same standards as a new car may have been. For instance, the safety and other vehicle systems can malfunction, or even result in another car wreck. And, as you can expect, no insurance company wants to deal with such a potential mess.
Also, you will probably find it very difficult to resell the car because, while you may have carried out your research and understood what you were getting into, the next buyer may not be that confident. As a result, you may find yourself doing a lot of hand-holding and walking any prospective buyers through the ins and outs of the car.
Low Chance of Re-Selling the Car
One of the issues that can arise if you buy a shoddily repaired rebuilt title car is that you may end up spending more money than you would have when you purchase a non-shoddily rebuilt car. Another issue is that you may have difficulty finding an insurance company to insure your car.
If you decide to sell the car at some point, you’ll have a tough time selling it since people prefer buying cars with clean titles. Buying a car with a rebuilt title can be beneficial or detrimental. It’s impossible to get a middle ground here, so make sure you have someone inspect the car before you purchase it.
