Salvage title Mustang

personally, it isn’t worth it imho to buy a salvage title car for performance purposes. id rather find one that the motor blew out on or something and buy a used motor with low miles. in my eyes salvage title cars are for cheap commuters and nice cars that you won’t be driving fast in like a Benz, bmw, or an Audi. The Shops that do rebuilt title repair work are able to do it for a reason. Because they absolutely have to pump out shit repairs with hack techs that make 20-25 an hour to keep costs for them and the customer ddown as they are usually selling them as well. Personally, I’d prefer to buy it wrecked and be able to oversee the work. I’ve watched guys hammer out structural panels that have no business being repaired they’re so damaged.

mob and in regards to your question about the canned. It could be frame but usually it’s suspension replacement and a few whacks to the mount area in the right direction. If you don’t fix both the frame rails and the suspension mounting perfectly you will notice things at speed pretty dramatically, which is unsafe. you need to take precise measurements of the other side’s suspension to get the damaged ones in the right places.

 

Wait a minute, do you have the required 30 years experience in this stuff?
OP, this sounds like trying to buy a cheap track/race bike with a tweaked frame. In the end would you really trust it?

 

Ill agree with others, especially after seeing that pic. The frame is definitely bent, somewhere. Now...do you plane to cage the car? If so and you can do some of the panel beating yourself then maybe its worth it. The cage will stiffen up any issues with the bent frame/repairs, 5 or 6 point harness, seats etc. From watching some Youtoobs on cars/repair/rebuilds I learned you may see some bright off color paint markers here and there on parts/frame. thats the insurance guy noting damaged areas on the rails and such. Ask for some pics of the bottom , preferably on a lift, and see if you can see the buckles, waves and such in the rails. Or the paint marks.

 

Or you could just go the Gorilla way... buy a new one and take it to the Mustang version of Livengood.

 

Pretty sure there is no “frame” on a 2015 Mustang.

Is there some method to pull and tweak on the unibody to get things aligned?

 

My buddy used to do that shit but stopped after building some Mustang drag car (caged, crazy engine, full on drag suspension) that he thought would be cheap to fix and run.
Blah blah blah Hemi cars came out with more HP than he could get and almost as fast in times without even a cage or big suspension work and ended up almost as cheap in the long run.
I think he went back to getting one or two salvage titled Honders and Nissan to redo as commuters but swore off the salvage HP game.

 

to the lay people (I can see you are one of them, wanting to argue frame or not, which means you are not fully up to speed on the collision repair process, or the lingo).

when we are talking frame on modern cars, we are speaking of unibody STRUCTURE (unless we are talking about trucks, which have both, frame (real frame) and unibody (front upper structure, and cab).

and yes unibody cars still have "frame rails". you usually have 4 at the front, upper frame rail/aprons, and lower frame rails (the real structure of the cars suspension mounting points). they protrude from the firewall forward. at the rear you have 2 frame rails (usually) they run under the floor panel from just in front of the wheel opening area.

if you read cortez' responses (and understood them), he lays out needing a laser arm, or ultra sonic arm measuring system for specs, and a good floor or rack, frame machine to "straighten the structure", prior to repairing, or replacement of the "rails" or apron/rail assembly. without those, the hacks just pull with come alongs, until body parts line up, build it, and send it to suspension alignment (or not) then when it doesnt reach specs, and drives funny, dog tracks, wears tires, etc... they just say oh well, it was in an accident, with a salvage title... if you wanted it right, you should have bought new. then the builder, sales people, walk away from you, and you are left to settle it yourself.

like I said... YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! Ski

 

I wouldn't touch that car with a ten foot pole.

I damaged left front way less than that on a mustang,and the right rear buckled, just like Cortez said.

 

If you're going to buy a salvage, probably better to go with rear damage.

 

@cortezmachine - Thanks for the info. My brother had a Mustang GT that went for repairs in a GM auto body shop (Insurance company choice) after going through a fence. If I recall correctly, he wasn't allowed to see the repair progress until the body panels were already back on the car. The car passed all required inspections post-repair, but was never the same.

 

I have professionally fixed my daughters 1st gen WV rabbit that had left front corner lower than right one.
Chain from left corner of the car to bucket on my backhoe. Lifted bucket so chain is in correct angle, put car in reverse and dump clutch. Few tries and it was fixed

 

Thanks for all the info guys, especially Cortez and Ski! Yeah, I'm gonna go with my gut and pass on this one. I looked up the shop that repaired the vehicle and it seems like one of those Bronx hack garages, and while they might do decent work, it isn't decent enough to iron out that big a caster discrepancy. What's funny is the seller was showing me all the receipts for replacement parts/service done on the car and at the bottom of the stack was the alignment report. I don't think he wanted me to see that since he quickly shuffled it back into the stack until I asked to see it in detail. At least he was honest enough to present it and go over the numbers lol.

 

Probably a good choice. But at the right price, I'd probably still consider it as a fun, cheap, commuter.

 

i tried something similar on a gen 2 rabbit that i used a street light pole for to move the grill emblem back 15 cm. after a failed attempt to take that ice and snow covered right hander with the hand brake.

limped the car home and put a tow strap on another light pole right by my house. let's say, it did not work as planned. and the radiator was shot... after a couple of back and forths, my dad came running out asking what i was doing with the car, since he just had a webasto external heater installed that day and had an important meeting in Stuttgart the next morning. he made me run back to the site to pick up the front license plate from the crooked pole...

friend of his "fixed" it, but it took several weeks. engine was set back and all the good stuff...

took me another 6 years to destroy another car of his. A6, Autobahn, ice, ...

 

we call that the Tijuana special round these parts

 

You guys should see the video I got sent of this thing…

 

What thing

 

So other than opening and shutting the driver side door to make sure it works correctly, is there anything else that I should be looking for on this? Never bought a used car before, and have definitely never had an "R" title car before so flying a bit blind her. This will be for our current au pair and any future au pairs, with the expectation that my oldest (10) will drive it when she turns 16........so couldn't care less about resale.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplac...wse_serp:7c30ec0a-6c03-4bcc-b0ad-8145008fdc6b

 

That car won’t exist when your daughter turns 16.

Nissan isn’t known for its dependability. Get a ‘yota or a fucking Honda.

 

Ask them for the repair paperwork. It's always "just the one door" or "just the bumper".
It was likely the whole side caved in, so you'll want to ensure it was rebuilt properly.