What is considered a junk car?

The term is thrown around quite often, you hear it all the time in conversations or when you get upset when a car doesn’t perform as well as it should, but what is really considered a junk car? A lot of people picture a little rusty orange car sitting on the lawn or in the driveway, I mean, that was the first thing that came to mind before I became so thoroughly familiar with this field. It never occurred to me that anything beyond that mental image could be called, let alone considered, a junk car. Just an old separate “thing” that served no purpose to anyone at all, look, I still can’t get that image out of my head, but in many people’s eyes a car can be considered junk due to numerous different reasons or conditions.

In addition to the image ingrained in my mind for a long, long time, a car that just doesn’t work anymore is considered junk by many as well. You could probably imagine a person kicking the tire of their car because it stopped working in the middle of a highway. Is it the car on the side of the road because the transmission started grinding and just broke down, or the radiator just blew because something caused the car to overheat, or the car in the driveway for some weird reason that just doesn’t seem to want to to start. Also cars that have been in accidents can also be considered junk, especially when they seem beyond repair.

In general, any car that has little or no value to its owner is considered a junk car. Whether the car is inoperable, crashed in an accident, or the cost of repairing a broken-down car exceeds the perceived value of the car’s owners, it is considered a junk or salvage car. In addition to people’s perceptions, many states also have the power to declare a car junk, salvage, rebuilt, etc. Typically, this happens after a car has been in an accident and an insurance company sold it to a dealer because the total amount of damage and cost of repairs was more than 75% of the vehicle’s current value. Most people don’t know this, but when a car is purchased from insurance companies, it’s considered totaled, and most if not all states will be declared junk and marked with a junk, salvage, or rebuild title. And getting a car with this type of title registered in many states requires a separate anti-theft inspection on top of all other state requirements, which is not a fun task at all.

I hope you found this article helpful and found out how many people, businesses, and even states can view a vehicle as junk, salvage, or rebuilt.