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After the Johnstown Flood of 1977, Pennsylvania found itself in a bad situation when it came to cars. Insurance Companies paid out for a lot of cars damaged by the Flood, as part of the pay off, the Insurance Companies took the car. The Insurance Companies then put the cars up for bid, and people bid on them knowing they had been through a flood. The bidders then, instead of stripping them for parts, resold them as used cars. Pennsylvania, at that time, had no way to mark a car if it had ever been totaled by an Insurance Company, so each car had a valid Pennsylvania Title. People drive them and things would go wrong, engines would die, transmissions would crash, wheels would freeze up. All of this do to the fact that do to the flood, water had entered the engine, transmission and axles. It was a problem for several years after the flood. These flood damaged cars were being sold as if they had NEVER been in a flood.
Do to this problem, Pennsylvania changed it laws. Now, if a car has ever been "totaled" by an insurance company for any reason, the title must be turned in AND a new "Salvaged" title will be issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PENNDOT). Thus any buyer of such a totaled car will be on notice it had been damaged severely sometimes in its history. Now, some of these "Totaled" cars are usable, but many are not. The problem was prior to this change you could NOT determined if the car was in that class, or just a regular used car, traded in by its owner for a newer car. Today, in Pennsylvania you can still buy such "totaled" cars (I know one used car dealer that specialize in such cars, but sells them at a discount from cars that were never totaled). People buying them know they are taking a chance, but given the discount, it is often worth the risk. On the other hand before the change people purchased such cars thinking they were normal used cars and paying the price for a normal used car but getting something that had been determined to be worthless do to damages by an insurance company.
Most of these types of cars are flood cars, on the surface, such cars look good, but since cars are NOT design for under water usage, water gets into places in a flood that it would NEVER get into during a rain shower. Engines, Transmissions and even wheel axles (When I had a Jeep Wrangler, it was recommended that I never take the car deeper in water then the axles, for axles are NOT designed to keep out water except from rain. Submerged, water will leak into such axles and wreck the axle. Now, there are after market axles designed for such deep water use, but those are NOT even put on Stock Jeep Wranglers, let alone any other car on the market. Jeep actually recommends if the wheel is submerged that you remove the wheel and repack the grease in the Wheel right after leaving the water. This is true for ALL axles that I know off, EXCEPT some after market axles, and it was wheels and axles that were noted to go bad after the 1977 flood more then the Engines and Transmissions).
Just a comment about watching for "bargains" on used cars over the next few months. I do NOT know if the New England States have something like Penndot's "Salvage" title, I suspect they do for the Johnstown Flood Cars were a nationwide problem, but before I would buy any used cars I would check to make sure it was NOT flood damaged or otherwised "Totaled" by an Insurance Company.
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