ACV, repair estimates and the other numbers on a lot

A Copart or IAA listing carries several dollar figures that are not bids, and buyers routinely weight them wrong. Each comes from a different place, serves a different party, and deserves a different level of trust.

Actual cash value (ACV) / estimated retail

The insurer's estimate of what the car was worth the moment before the loss — essentially a used-car valuation with mileage and options factored in. It is the most useful number on the page, because it anchors what the fixed car might be worth, but remember whose number it is: insurers negotiate settlements off it, and it does not know your local market. Cross-check it against what clean examples actually list for near you.

Estimated repair cost

The body shop's or adjuster's estimate that justified totaling the car — written at collision-shop labor rates with new OEM parts, which is precisely why the car was totaled. A hands-on rebuilder with used panels routinely repairs for a third of the printed figure. So read it as a damage severity index, not a quote: a $4,000 estimate and a $18,000 estimate on the same model tell you a lot about relative damage even though you will pay neither number. When it is missing entirely, assume high, not low.

Using the ratio

The single most useful screen is repair estimate over ACV. Low ratios cluster around theft recoveries, hail and minor claims — the lots worth a closer look. Ratios near or past 1.0 are structural events. Our archive shows both figures on every lot that carries them, next to what comparable lots actually hammered for — and the hammer prices are the one number on the page that nobody estimated. Add the fee stackand your real repair number, and the listing's figures have done their whole job: telling you which lots deserve your time.