Copart and IAA Damage Codes Explained: What Each One Tells You
By James Dean · 10 min read · Updated November 11, 2026
Look up 2015 to 2022 Toyota Camrys that went to sale at Copart US this autumn, and the damage field alone splits them into very different cars. Those listed as FRONT END drew a median last bid of US$775 before the live auction. Those listed as NORMAL WEAR drew US$4,050. Same model, same years, a fivefold gap, and the only clue on the listing was a two-word label.
Damage codes are the first thing most buyers filter on, and among the least understood. Copart's own glossary lists 26 of them with no definitions. IAA uses a different vocabulary, with dozens of labels. Neither auction stands behind them. This guide explains what the codes say and what they don't, how Copart's and IAA's wording differ, and what SalvageAlert's records of more than 1.1 million lots show about each one: how often it appears, whether those cars drove in, what title they carried and what bidders offered.
What a damage code is, and what it isn't
Every Copart lot carries a primary damage and, often, a secondary damage. Copart's glossary says the codes "indicate known damage to the lot", and that the primary code "should not be interpreted to carry more significance than the other". In practice the secondary is often empty: it was blank on 55% of the Copart US lots in our data.
The same glossary carries a disclaimer worth reading twice. Copart "expressly disclaims the accuracy of damage codes", which show known or reported damage only and "may not be used or relied upon for bidding purposes". Its member terms (revised July 9, 2026) list "damage type" and "drivability" among the vehicle information members agree not to rely on.
IAA is just as clear. Its auction rules say a label such as "FRONT END DAMAGE" is "NOT INTENDED TO BE INCLUSIVE OR EXHAUSTIVE", and buyers agree not to base a bid on any information IAA provides, damage type included.
So a damage code is a starting point: someone at check-in saw where the obvious damage was. It doesn't tell you how deep it goes.
Copart's codes, from FR to WA
Copart's glossary lists 26 codes. Here are the ones that matter in practice, with how often each appeared as the primary damage on the 770,348 Copart US lots that went to sale between August 16 and November 10, 2026, and what we found on those lots.
| Code | Copart label | Share of lots | Run & Drive Verified | Clean-title code | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR | FRONT END | 48.9% | 62% | 11% | The classic collision write-off. Check the radiator support, airbags and frame rails. |
| RR | REAR END | 15.3% | 82% | 10% | Usually drives in, but trunk floors and rear rails hide damage. |
| SD | SIDE | 13.1% | 73% | 13% | Pillars and doors. Side impacts often deploy curtain airbags. |
| MN | MINOR DENTS/SCRATCHES | 5.6% | 77% | 65% | Often not an insurance loss at all. Two thirds carry a clean-title code. |
| MC | MECHANICAL | 3.4% | 41% | 68% | Engine or transmission trouble, usually not crash damage. |
| WA | WATER/FLOOD | 2.1% | 35% | 3% | Rarely clean. See our flood title guide. |
| NW | NORMAL WEAR | 1.9% | 73% | 75% | Worn, not wrecked: dealer trade-ins, fleet and lease returns. |
| HL | HAIL | 1.6% | 85% | 36% | The most likely to drive in. Title depends on the state. |
| RO | ROLLOVER | 1.5% | 21% | 7% | Roof, pillars and glass. Rarely economical to repair. |
| AO | ALL OVER | 1.4% | 25% | 11% | Damage on every side. |
| UN | UNDERCARRIAGE | 1.1% | 49% | 18% | Suspension, subframe, fuel or brake lines. Ask for underside photos. |
| VN | VANDALISM | 1.1% | 51% | 10% | Keys were present on only 74% of these lots. |
| BN | BURN | 0.9% | 10% | 5% | Plus BURN - ENGINE (0.3%) and BURN - INTERIOR (0.1%). Keys present on 29%. |
| TP | TOP/ROOF | 0.9% | 70% | 13% | Roof damage. Check the pillars and the windshield frame. |
| ST | STRIPPED | 0.2% | Parts removed, often after a theft. See our theft recovery guide. | ||
| FD | FRAME DAMAGE REPORTED | 0.1% | Rare as a primary code, but it appeared as a secondary damage on 1,586 lots. |
The "Run & Drive Verified" and clean-title columns come from Copart's own data feed. Run & Drive Verified is the status shown in Copart's feed, set at check-in, not a promise; 25% of all lots carried a "DEFAULT" status meaning they weren't checked. The clean-title column counts Copart title codes in its clean group, which our title codes guide explains.
The glossary also has a handful of rarer codes that are easy to misread. BC BIOHAZARDOUS/CHEMICAL (306 lots) means the car was contaminated in some way; Copart gives no further definition, so study the interior photos. DH DAMAGE HISTORY, PR PARTIAL/INCOMPLETE REPAIR and RJ REJECTED REPAIR describe a car's past rather than a fresh event: a car someone started to fix, or one returned after a repair was refused. VI MISSING/ALTERED VIN (119 lots) and VP REPLACED VIN (62 lots) are paperwork warnings before they are damage descriptions: check with the state that will title the car before you bid on one. CC CASH FOR CLUNKERS is a relic of the 2009 federal program. And UK UNKNOWN means exactly that.
What the codes tell you about the car
Put the drivability and the title together and Copart's codes fall into two groups.
The first is the insurance write-off: front end, rear end, side, rollover, all over, burn, flood. Between 87% and 97% of these carry a salvage or other non-clean title code. Whether they drive in depends on where the hit was. A rear-end car is far more likely to roll into the yard than a front-end car, because the engine and cooling system sit up front.
The second group is cars that were never insurance losses: normal wear, minor dents and scratches, mechanical. Between 65% and 75% of these carry a clean-title code. They come from dealers, fleets, lenders and rental companies clearing out cars they don't want to repair or retail themselves. That's why the repair estimates are so different. Across lots with both figures, the median repair estimate was 98% of the car's retail value on front-end lots but 31% on normal-wear lots and 69% on minor dent and mechanical lots.
Mechanical is the odd one. It looks benign on the listing, yet only 41% of mechanical lots were verified as running and driving. A clean title doesn't help much if the engine is the reason the car is there. Our guide to what "Run and Drive" means explains how little that status promises even when it's there.
Hail sits in between. It was the code most likely to drive in (85%), and how its title reads depends on the state. In Texas most hail cars stay clean; in Missouri or Kansas most are branded. Our hail guide has the state rules.
IAA speaks a different language
IAA describes damage in its own vocabulary, and it is much finer-grained. Where Copart says FRONT END, IAA says FRONT, RIGHT FRONT or LEFT FRONT. Where Copart has one SIDE, IAA has LEFT SIDE, RIGHT SIDE and LEFT & RIGHT SIDE. Its water labels distinguish fresh water, salt water and flood, and it has several kinds of burn.
Some of IAA's most common labels aren't damage at all. On the 289,474 IAA US lots in our data, the single most common primary damage was NORMAL WEAR & TEAR, at 26.6%, ahead of FRONT END at 26.3%. 92% of those normal-wear lots had no title brand. IAA also uses labels like REPOSSESSION, CHARITY and THEFT in the damage field, which describe where the car came from rather than what happened to it. At IAA Canada, CHARITY accounted for 1.5% of lots and REPOSSESSION for 1.1%. Our guide to Canadian lien checks and repo lots covers those.
The practical consequence is that you can't compare Copart and IAA share for share. A search for "front end" at IAA has to include FRONT, RIGHT FRONT and LEFT FRONT, and at IAA Canada plain FRONT alone covered 40.9% of lots.
Electric cars add risks of their own, from battery fires to manufacturer support. Our guide to salvage Teslas and EVs at Copart and IAA covers what to check before you bid.
Run & Drive, Starts and keys
IAA publishes the clearest definitions of its check-in codes. Its vehicle start codes page and auction rules say:
- Run & Drive: at check-in the engine started, with or without a jump, forward and reverse gears engaged, and the steering wheel turned one full rotation each way.
- Starts: the engine started, with or without a jump, and idled. Nothing more was tested.
- Stationary: the car "will not start, has engine damage, or was not tested upon arrival". A stationary car can simply be one nobody tried.
None of these is a warranty. IAA says the functions "are not guaranteed at pickup, and the vehicle may not be roadworthy". The same applies to keys and airbags: a key marked "present" was noted at check-in, and airbags marked "intact" only "appeared, in IAA's judgment, not to be deployed". IAA doesn't test them.
Copart's glossary defines its Keys field just as narrowly: "Whether Copart is in possession of the keys to the vehicle". That says nothing about whether the key fits or works. In our data keys were present on more than 90% of collision lots, but on only 74% of vandalism lots, 66% of rollovers and 29% of burn lots.
Where a car sits shapes what it is and what it costs to bring home. Our guide to the busiest Copart and IAA yards maps the market by yard, state and province.
What the codes do to the bids
The same pattern holds across popular models. For 2015 to 2022 Honda Civics, the median last pre-auction bid was US$625 on front-end lots, US$1,250 on rear-end lots, US$3,100 on hail lots and US$4,050 on normal-wear lots. For Ford F-150s it was US$1,650 front end, US$2,300 rear end, US$3,100 minor dents and US$3,975 hail, but only US$650 for mechanical. A truck with a bad engine draws less than one with a smashed nose.
As always with our data, these are the last bids recorded before the live auction, not final prices, and each code also carries differences in title, mileage and location. They still show the order buyers put the codes in: normal wear, hail and minor dents at the top, then rear and side hits, front-end collisions, and finally rollovers, fires and all-over damage. The title matters less than the code: our guide to salvage versus clean title bids found the same thing from the other direction.
Next to the mileage, every lot also carries an odometer status. Our guide to Copart odometer statuses explains what ACTUAL, NOT ACTUAL, EXEMPT and EXCEEDS MECHANICAL LIMITS mean, and what they do to bids.
How to use damage codes when you search
- Filter on the code, then forget it. Use the damage code to narrow a search, then judge each car from its photos, its title code and, if you can, an inspection.
- Read the secondary damage. On a front-end lot, a secondary SIDE or UNDERCARRIAGE changes the repair a lot. When it's blank, that means nothing was recorded, not that nothing is wrong.
- Treat "light" codes with care. Normal wear, minor dents and mechanical lots are often clean-title cars, but less than half of mechanical lots drove in, and the code doesn't say what failed.
- Search IAA with all its variants. Combine FRONT, LEFT FRONT and RIGHT FRONT, and remember that labels like CHARITY and REPOSSESSION describe the seller, not the damage.
- Check the history. A car with DAMAGE HISTORY, PARTIAL REPAIR or a VIN warning deserves a look at its past lots: SalvageAlert's free VIN check shows earlier Copart and IAA listings for the same car.
For the wider picture, our salvage auction statistics page sums up 1.2 million Copart and IAA lots: the most common makes and models, vehicle ages, values, repair estimates and pre-auction bids.
How we built this guide
The figures come from SalvageAlert's records, analysed on a copy of the database on November 11, 2026. They cover lots with a sale date between August 16 and November 10, 2026: 770,348 at Copart US and 21,867 at Copart Canada, taken from Copart's daily Sales Data feed, plus 289,474 at IAA US and 81,796 at IAA Canada from our lot index. A sale date means the lot went to auction, not that it sold. Bids are the last pre-auction bid we recorded, never the final price, and lots without one are left out of the medians. IAA US shows pre-auction bids only to signed-in members, so it has no bid figures here. Run & Drive, keys and title come from each auction's listing at check-in. Neither feed tells us whether airbags deployed. Repair estimates and retail values are the auction's own figures.
Copart's code list and disclaimers come from its glossary (updated November 25, 2025) and member terms (revised July 9, 2026). IAA's definitions come from its auction rules and vehicle start codes page, all read on November 11, 2026.
Questions and answers
- What does FR mean on Copart?
- FR is Copart's code for FRONT END damage, the most common primary damage: 48.9% of Copart US lots between August and November 2026. In our data 62% of those lots were marked Run & Drive Verified at check-in and only 11% carried a clean-title code, so most are insurance write-offs.
- What does NORMAL WEAR mean on a Copart or IAA lot?
- It means the car is worn rather than damaged in a specific event. Neither auction defines it further, but in our data 75% of Copart US normal-wear lots carried a clean-title code and the median repair estimate was 31% of the car's retail value, which points to dealer, fleet and lease cars rather than insurance losses. At IAA US it was the single most common primary damage label.
- What is the difference between primary and secondary damage at Copart?
- Both describe known or reported damage. Copart says neither should be read as more significant than the other. The secondary damage was blank on 55% of Copart US lots, which means nothing was recorded, not that there is no other damage.
- What does Run & Drive mean at IAA?
- IAA says a Run & Drive car's engine started at check-in, with or without a jump, its forward and reverse gears engaged, and its steering wheel turned a full rotation each way. Starts means the engine only started and idled. Stationary means it would not start, has engine damage, or was not tested. None of these is guaranteed at pickup.
- Can I rely on Copart and IAA damage codes when bidding?
- No. Copart expressly disclaims the accuracy of damage codes and says they may not be relied on for bidding, and IAA says a label like front end damage is not exhaustive. Use the code to narrow a search, then check the photos, the title code, the VIN history and, if you can, inspect the car.
