What is Salvage Title?
A permanent brand on a vehicle's title showing it was written off as a total loss, usually after a crash, fire, or flood.
A salvage title is one of several brands a state or province puts on a vehicle's title or registration to show it was written off because of collision, fire, or flood damage, or sold for scrap. In most of North America, the brand is mandatory when an insurer or owner declares a vehicle a "total loss," which typically means the cost of repair would equal or exceed the car's value. The exact definitions, and the percentage of value that triggers a total loss, vary by jurisdiction.
Title branding has two goals. One is to discourage theft: if a wrecked car kept a clean title, its VIN and paperwork could be switched onto a stolen car of the same make and year and sold as rebuilt, and the lower value of a branded title cuts the profit out of that. The other is to warn later buyers. Badly damaged cars often end up at auctions and on dealer lots, and while a properly repaired and inspected car can be fine, a poor repair can leave the frame, body, or key systems unsafe.
There's no single national list of brands. What most US states call "junk" may be "salvage" somewhere else. A salvage brand is the one that can change: in many places it's replaced by a "rebuilt" brand after the car is repaired and passes a structural inspection. Other brands are permanent and follow the VIN to other jurisdictions with similar laws. A car registered in a dry state like Arizona with a salvage title for saltwater damage can be a red flag that it came out of a hurricane zone.