Car titles are weird. They’re pieces of paper that grant you ownership of a car, but not necessarily control over its fate. If a car gets damaged to the point where an insurance company says it’s not worth fixing, the title gets a mark on it, and you don’t really have any say in that. Can you still fix the car and go back to driving it? It depends where you are. In some places it’s easy; in others, it’s not possible at all. The whole system feels arbitrary, and it can be maddening when you find an otherwise nice example of a rare car. People can overcome the misadventures of their past; shouldn’t cars be able to, too?
Yesterday was all about overlooking former-owner shenanigans, as we looked at two Toyotas in generally good shape, but with a few yellow flags. The overall condition of that Camry seems to have won over the majority of you, giving it a frankly surprising win over the RWD Cressida wagon. It was the rust on the Cressida, wasn’t it?
And since a couple of you asked in the comments, I’ll tell you what my issue is with motorized seat belts: I don’t need them. I wear my seat belt religiously, unless I’m just maneuvering the car around my own driveway. It only makes sense to do so. But apparently that’s too much trouble for some foolish and stubborn people, so some folks thought it was a good idea to require complicated systems to make them wear one. It’s a bit of complexity, and a potential failure point, that I neither need nor want in my car, that’s only there because someone else can’t be bothered to act properly. It’s not the operation of the system that annoys me; it’s the fact that it has to be there at all. I don’t need to be reminded of other people’s stupidity every time I get in my own damn car, so I simply don’t even consider cars with automatic seat belts.
Whoo! Got a little soapboxy there for a minute. Moving on. If you’re looking for a specific hard-to-find car, especially within a certain budget, you’re probably going to have to accept some compromises. You might not find the color you want, or the right set of options, but it’s worth it to get That Car. But what if the best example you can find has a salvage or rebuilt title? Is it still acceptable? We’re going to look at two rare coupes to see which one you’re willing to accept as “damaged goods.”
1992 Lexus SC 400 – $4,750
Engine/drivetrain: 4.0-liter DOHC V8, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Bellevue, WA
Odometer reading: 197,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
No car category is more ostentatious as the personal luxury coupe. “Look,” it says, “I can afford to drive a big fancy car that’s just for me and maybe one other really special person.” It was only fitting, then, when Toyota launched its luxury Lexus brand, aimed at taking on the best cars in the world, that the lineup include a personal luxury coupe. And like its sister model, the LS400 sedan, the Lexus SC was just about perfect right from the start.
This is the SC 400, featuring Toyota’s 4.0 liter 1UZ-FE V8, a smooth and powerful engine that seems to last forever. You could only get this engine with an automatic; if you wanted a manual SC, you had to settle for the SC 300 with its inline six. This one is on its second owner, and just a little shy of 200,000 miles, with maintenance records going all the way back to the beginning. It runs and drives beautifully, according to the seller, and has had a lot of recent work, including a transmission rebuild, suspension work, and new brakes and tires.
It has also received some love inside, with a reupholstered driver’s seat and a refurbished gauge cluster. No annoying dead dashboard lights here. The seller also says the air conditioning has been “upgraded,” which I assume means a conversion to R134a. It’s a nice contrast to the poorly-maintained cheap cars we often look at. The seller really cared for this car, and it shows.
The salvage title was for rear quarter panel damage, which was repaired so well that I can’t tell which side it was on. And it sounds like it happened a long time ago, so any shoddy repair work would have reared its ugly head by now. As it sits, it’s a nice clean car that anyone could be proud of.
2006 Honda Insight – $4,850
Engine/drivetrain: 1.0-liter OHC inline 3 plus electric motor, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Odometer reading: 192,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
There are a few ways to make a hybrid car. You can connect both a gasoline engine and an electric motor to the same gearbox and have them work in harmony, like Toyota’s system, or you can not connect the gas engine to the wheels at all, and only use it to generate electricity, like the Chevy Volt or BMW i3. Or, you can make the car primarily still gasoline-powered, and just use an electric motor to provide a little boost, and restart the engine after shutting it down at red lights, like this Honda Insight. The advantage of this system, if you like to drive, is that it still allows the car to use an ordinary all-mechanical manual transmission.
The engine in the Insight is a 995 cubic centimeter three-cylinder, with a big, flat electric motor on the flywheel. That motor provides another 13 horsepower during acceleration, then switches to generator mode to recharge the batteries when you slow down. Stop at a red light, and the engine shuts off to save fuel, and then restarts as soon as you put it in first gear. I’ve never driven an Insight, but I’ve driven a Civic Hybrid with a similar drivetrain and a manual transmission, and while the auto start/stop is disconcerting, it really is a nice car to drive. I can see why these early Insights are still sought-after. The seller says this one runs and drives well, and its nickel-metal hydride battery pack holds a charge like it should.
The first-generation Insight is a two-seater, like the CRX and Del Sol before it, and despite being a hybrid, it still weighs less than two thousand pounds. That’s the Geo Metro school of economy: be small, be lightweight, and efficiency comes naturally. This one has air conditioning, and the seller says it works fine. Everything works, in fact, except the interior remote release for the hatchback, and an aftermarket cruise control system that a previous owner installed.
There’s no mention in the ad of the reason for this car’s rebuilt title. It might be important, however, because the Insight’s body structure is aluminum, which is trickier to repair than steel. It’s worth asking what happened, and who repaired it, just to make sure it was done to your satisfaction. It sure looks just fine, though.
Neither one of these cars comes up for sale very often, so if you’re dead-set on finding one with a clean title, you may be waiting a while. But if these are both as clean as they appear to be, I don’t think the title status should dissuade anyone from buying either one. As for the price, I kind of feel like they both should be cheaper, considering their title status, but again, they’re rare. If you want one of these, you have to be willing to pay what someone is asking. So which one of these seems worth it, branded title and all?
They both look really well taken care of. I always like the under the hood shots of cars in SBSD.
I’ll take the Lexus. Personally, I’d prefer an LS400. Back in the mid-90s I saw Bill Gates park himself in one at Tower Records at the bottom of Queen Anne hill in Seattle.
The Insight always looked weird to me. Something Ed Begley Jr. would drive. Maybe he did.
Two cars that I have considered owning at times. The Lexus can be manual swapped for perfection, and the Insight could be K-series swapped if you wanted speed, but it would go against the point of the car. I’ve had a 50mpg diesel before, and while it’s fun to be thrifty, it’s more fun to hear the purr of the V8. Life is short, I choose the GT cruiser with comfy seats.
That Lexus is such a nice example of such a great car that I can’t say no.
I ADORE the Lexus SC300/400. No question there.
The Lexus is pretty nice, and I’m always wary of batteries in old hybrids.
The Toyota Camaro for the win here.
I bet there will be a lot more branded title cars like this out there from their values being in the toilet and insurance not wanting to fix them. Both of those used to be $2500 to $3k not sure what’s going on there. That lexas looks super clean and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Better deals to be found on both.
If there’s a used Lexus, imma buy the Used Lexus.
Jeez, this is a really weird comparison. Do you want a luxury coupe with poor MPG? Or do you want the ultimate commuter coupe?
Really depends on what you’re doing with the car imho, both are great cars, and nice prices. If you’re commuting a fair distance, the insight would literally PAY for the SC400 in a few years.
Check it out:
SC400: combined 19mpg. Let’s say you drive 10k a year, but takes premium which is around $4/gallon. So to cover those 10k miles, you’d be spending $2105 on fuel per year.
Insight gets, worst case, 52mpg. Generally you get 55-60mpg. Let’s go with 55mpg, and it uses regular gas, which is $3/gallon. So to cover 10k miles, you’d be spending $576 on fuel per year, SAVING you $1529 per year.
So in 3 years of driving the Insight, you’d have enough money to buy the SC400 too.
This is how I do math to justify my insight, anyway. Thinking about selling it because I’m just not commuting/driving much anymore, but it is the ultimate lifehack to save money!
at 200K miles though, you really have to factor in parts pricing and your willingness to wrench on either one of these. the Insight I feel like might have the lesser parts base as they were designed to be thrown away anyway. Also if it has any issues with the hybrid battery, it might get at best 30MPG
I drove my insight from 180k to 300k.
In that time it’s needed control arms, wheel bearings, an axle, one temp sensor… and that’s it. It’s the most reliable car I’ve ever owned. I’d drive it across the country tomorrow without a second thought. Peak golden-era Honda engineering, man.
Imma try to be polite, but you really, really, really, really do not know what you’re speaking of. Without the IMA system they can get even better MPG on the freeway, usually 60+ is attainable, but in town the lack of electric torque make it a bit challenging to drive.
People have always shit on hybrid batteries too, “ohh so expensive to replace”, yeah well my battery is likely the original battery. They don’t really go bad, they just get out of a balance, so if you get a grid charger and then spend like $5 wiring in a bulb holder to build a discharger, you can keep it alive… like… sort of indefinitely.
Having caution about things you don’t understand is good, but randomly guessing at things like “with a bad battery it will only get 30mpg” is just spreading disinformation, bud.
Eh, I speak from experience. I was referring to the around town MPG on the Insight the battery does not offer much on the freeway, even when you kind of need it in the case of mountains or even rolling hills. When the insight my mother owned was a bit over 100K the battery started to lose it’s range. I am just speaking from the lips of the mechanic to me about what would happen when the battery failed to charge. basically at the time it would just end up being a lump you drag around until the battery failed enough to brick the car.
I’ve never gotten less than 52mpg, even when my IMA was non functional. Ever. 52 is the absolute worst.
I get the logic on this, and you’re absolutely right-if you commute. OTOH, like me, if you work from home, the only time you use the car is to go to the gym, or maybe get groceries or to the bar on weekends, then the Lexus is the clear winner. You’re not concerned about gas, because you’re not in it enough to make a difference. They both look pretty good for being in the vicinity of 200k, but that Lexus just seems like such a nice place to spend time in, if you have to be in a car!
I usually consider a branded title to be the kiss of death, but I’m not afraid of either of these cars. I voted for the Insight because it would be a fun project car, but I fully understand why so many people voted for the Lexus.
I’ll take the luxury version of the Supra.
Lexus. Gorgeous in 1992. Gorgeous now. I would like to apologize for being shallow. That’s a lie.
Both! I used to own an Insight very like that and have even perused that exact ad several times. But that Lexus is pretty tempting as well.
I personally found the 1st gen Insight comfortable enough, but I’m about one Torch high, so that may be a factor. Even went on an overnight camping trip once with my wife, that hatch can hold a goodly amount.for the size of the car.