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SalvageAlert has been a monitoring tool since it started: saved searches across IAA, Copart and GovDeals in Canada, the US, the UK and Germany, with alerts when something matches. This is the part the tool could never be — the place where you find out whether the car is worth bidding on, what it will cost to land, and what breaks when you try to register it.
Who this is for
People who buy damaged vehicles at North American auctions and do something with them: import them, repair them, part them out, or resell them. Whether that is one car a year or forty.
The hard part of this business has never been finding the car. It is everything after: what the damage really is, what the shipping actually costs this month on that lane, which document the registration office will refuse, and which "shipper" not to send a deposit to. None of that is written down in one place, in any language.
What is already here
- Auctions — how Copart and IAA fee schedules actually work, reading a lot sheet, and a Q&A channel for "should I bid on this?" where answers can be marked as accepted.
- Shipping — inland transport, ocean freight, customs, lanes and forwarders.
- Conversion & registration — the biggest gap on the internet, and where most of our writing effort is going. Lighting, speedometers, individual type approval, emissions, and a full playbook per country.
- Parts and Repair — sourcing, bodywork, EV and hybrid work, airbags, coding.
- Business — market data, starting out, taxes, and a channel specifically for scams.
How we write the reference threads
Every guide posted by the SalvageAlert account carries its sources as links at the bottom and the date the figures were checked. Where something varies by vehicle, by year or by region, it says so rather than picking an answer that is right for one reader and expensive for the rest.
Where we cannot verify a number, we leave it out. A guide with three sourced figures is worth more than one with twenty confident ones, and a single wrong customs rate would be worth less than nothing to you.
Those threads are written by us and signed by us. Nothing on this forum is attributed to a person who did not write it, and there are no invented member stories here — the first real post on a forum is worth more than a hundred fake ones.
Your account already works
Your SalvageAlert login is your forum login. The first time you post you pick a username, and that is the whole of it.
What we would like from you
Corrections, mostly. If a figure in one of our guides is out of date or wrong for your country, reply and say so with a source. Those threads get updated and the update is visible.
And the follow-ups. If you asked something here and then did it, come back and say what it cost. That is the post that makes this place worth reading.
Sources
Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.
#1(edited 2 times)
- Version from Sep 22, 2026, 1:39 AM
SalvageAlert has been a monitoring tool since it started: saved searches across IAA, Copart and GovDeals in Canada, the US, the UK and Germany, with alerts when something matches. This is the part the tool could never be — the place where you find out whether the car is worth bidding on, what it will cost to land, and what breaks when you try to register it.
Who this is for
People who buy damaged vehicles at North American auctions and do something with them: import them, repair them, part them out, or resell them. Whether that is one car a year or forty.
The hard part of this business has never been finding the car. It is everything after: what the damage really is, what the shipping actually costs this month on that lane, which document the registration office will refuse, and which "shipper" not to send a deposit to. None of that is written down in one place, in any language.
What is already here
- Auctions — how Copart and IAA fee schedules actually work, reading a lot sheet, and a Q&A channel for "should I bid on this?" where answers can be marked as accepted.
- Shipping — inland transport, ocean freight, customs, lanes and forwarders.
- Conversion & registration — the biggest gap on the internet, and where most of our writing effort is going. Lighting, speedometers, individual type approval, emissions, and a full playbook per country.
- Parts and Repair — sourcing, bodywork, EV and hybrid work, airbags, coding.
- Business — market data, starting out, taxes, and a channel specifically for scams.
How we write the reference threads
Every guide posted by the SalvageAlert account carries its sources as links at the bottom and the date the figures were checked. Where something varies by vehicle, by year or by region, it says so rather than picking an answer that is right for one reader and expensive for the rest.
Where we cannot verify a number, we leave it out. A guide with three sourced figures is worth more than one with twenty confident ones, and a single wrong customs rate would be worth less than nothing to you.
Those threads are written by us and signed by us. Nothing on this forum is attributed to a person who did not write it, and there are no invented member stories here — the first real post on a forum is worth more than a hundred fake ones.
Your account already works
Your SalvageAlert login is your forum login. The first time you post you pick a username, and that is the whole of it.
What we would like from you
Corrections, mostly. If a figure in one of our guides is out of date or wrong for your country, reply and say so with a source. Those threads get updated and the update is visible.
And the follow-ups. If you asked something here and then did it, come back and say what it cost. That is the post that makes this place worth reading.
Sources
Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.
- Version from Sep 22, 2026, 12:27 AM
SalvageAlert has been a monitoring tool since it started: saved searches across IAA, Copart and GovDeals in Canada, the US, the UK and Germany, with alerts when something matches. This is the part the tool could never be — the place where you find out whether the car is worth bidding on, what it will cost to land, and what breaks when you try to register it.
Who this is for
People who buy damaged vehicles at North American auctions and do something with them: import them, repair them, part them out, or resell them. Whether that is one car a year or forty.
The hard part of this business has never been finding the car. It is everything after: what the damage really is, what the shipping actually costs this month on that lane, which document the registration office will refuse, and which "shipper" not to send a deposit to. None of that is written down in one place, in any language.
What is already here
- Auctions — how Copart and IAA fee schedules actually work, reading a lot sheet, and a Q&A channel for "should I bid on this?" where answers can be marked as accepted.
- Shipping — inland transport, ocean freight, customs, lanes and forwarders.
- Conversion & registration — the biggest gap on the internet, and where most of our writing effort is going. Lighting, speedometers, individual type approval, emissions, and a full playbook per country.
- Parts and Repair — sourcing, bodywork, EV and hybrid work, airbags, coding.
- Business — market data, starting out, taxes, and a channel specifically for scams.
How we write the reference threads
Every guide posted by the SalvageAlert account carries its sources as links at the bottom and the date the figures were checked. Where something varies by vehicle, by year or by region, it says so rather than picking an answer that is right for one reader and expensive for the rest.
Where we cannot verify a number, we leave it out. A guide with three sourced figures is worth more than one with twenty confident ones, and a single wrong customs rate would be worth less than nothing to you.
Those threads are written by us and signed by us. Nothing on this forum is attributed to a person who did not write it, and there are no invented member stories here — the first real post on a forum is worth more than a hundred fake ones.
Your account already works
Your SalvageAlert login is your forum login. The first time you post you pick a username, and that is the whole of it.
What we would like from you
Corrections, mostly. If a figure in one of our guides is out of date or wrong for your country, reply and say so with a source. Those threads get updated and the update is visible.
And the follow-ups. If you asked something here and then did it, come back and say what it cost. That is the post that makes this place worth reading.
Sources
Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.