No not sold “for parts” but sold as a total loss/salvage vehicle. Before Russia got stupid there was a Russain guy who posted on YouTubehis bringing back “totaled” BMWs and other luxury’s back to life; seems common in Eastern Europe

Though the insurance company let me get all the crap out of my oldest son’s car when he totaled it (I was the registered owner), but since it was a non-techy car, I didn’t even think about trying to turn it on and clean out any data.

I’ve watched some Copart auctions on their site, and there are a lot of bids from Mexico that I recall seeing. Though plenty sold in the US, too. 

Zoom?

Interesting to know, thanks for sharing!

generally speaking, once a car is totaled by the insurance company, you no longer have access to it.

They end up in huge lots in many mexican cities where they get some spit and shine, their odometers altered and sold with no questions asked. For some reason they’re called “chocolate cars”.

Not all salvage cars are inherently unsafe, particularly when the claim of total loss isn’t damage sustained from a crash. Flood, fire, theft, and a range of other situations can result in a total loss and thus a branded title.

Even crashed cars, though classified as totalled, but not suffer from issues that would…

“Total loss” just means “it costs too much to fix”.

Yes so easy in a total loss vehicle

A bunch of drag queens should volunteer to get the kids to school, for free at that.

This is why you gotta wipe out all of your accounts before selling anything electronic. Usually a factory reset takes care of it.

You expect Tesla to be competent in customer service? hahaha

Every Friday when I’m heading home on the interstate I see a caravan of about 4-5 “tow” vehicles (rigged caravans or other non-typical tow cars) each towing two wrecked late model vehicles. They are always heading South. In my head, it’s a game of Jeopardy, “These vehicles are headed for which Central American country?…

I think in this case, it’s less of that, and more of if Tesla received a report that the car was totaled (since they can remotely do so much), remove the previous owner’s info/account/etc., as they no longer need it or have the vehicle.

So long as the Tesla is now fighting the Russians this is a cool story.

I mean... did people really think that cars made for a certain market stayed within its borders when there’s a world wide market for cheap partially damaged/unsafe cars for the road?

It’s trivially easy to get a salvage title, legit. Getting that “washed” by registering it in a state that doesn’t title older cars is easy. 

When I was in Afghanistan the place was filled with RHD Japanese market cars and heavily used European trucks