Salvage title doesn’t mean it can’t be driven. It means it’s been “totaled” by an insurance company.
When I lived in Seattle, everybody said, “Don’t ever buy a salvage title car”. Then I moved to rural KY where the cost of living is much lower, but cars are still just as expensive.
“Everybody” drives salvage title cars here. In fact, when I bought my 2004 z71 silverado, I tried to get the loan through BECU (boeing credit union). They don’t even do loans on salvage title cars. So I went to my banker here and asked him if they did loans on salvage titles. His response was, “We’d better. My truck has a salvage title.”
One of my buddy’s sons rebuilds them for a living. In the 8 years I’ve lived here his facility has gone from one building/shop to five, and he’s working on the sixth as I type this.
“Don’t ever buy a salvage title car”
In our area, salvage cars are sent to the Missouri scrap yards for parting out. Instead, they will cobble together two or three wrecked ones, repaint them and send them down into Arkansas where for $50.00 they can get a nice clean title, showing it had never been wrecked and “Only driven to church on Sundays by the salesman’s grandma.”
I had a wreck, 49 years ago in which my car was “totaled” with front end damage then bought by a scrap yard.
A few days later, I drove by and saw the entire front end laying in the scrap pile, and another front end from a rear damaged car placed on the car.
Same for a pickup truck I had 25 years later.
Our company had the plant manager, for company use, buy a brand new car off the lot. Several months later, I walked by, and the sun hit it just right, and I noticed the trunk lid and rear quarter panel were just a shade different in color.
I notified the boss, who then had our Maintenance men look at it and found the trunk and quarter panel had been built up with BONDO and repainted. This “Perfect” new car had sometime in the past been wrecked.
I’ve seen some real junk heaps on Ozark roads.