Can a $5,000 Fire Salvage Hellcat REALLY Be Rebuilt?

so there's this guy his name is Jose and he's really captivated the YouTube rebuild community because he bought a hellcat that was involved in a fire we're not talking about a little fire here looks like this car was sitting in a garage that caught on fire then the garage itself fell on the car damaging the roof the trunk let this thing is a complete disaster but Jose spent near five thousand dollars on this car and he claims he's gonna rebuild it from the ground up now a lot of people initially said well he's gonna get a donor car and swap the good bits into it but no he is claiming he's going to take this fire damage car really a fire destroyed car and completely rebuild it now I want to try and answer the question whether this rebuild project is feasible at all and while doing so I want to compare to the four other health cat rebuilds that are going on here on YouTube we'll grade each of these cars using a simple salvage scale one being the worst grade 10 being the best basically analyzing the rebuild ability of the car based on its purchase price at auction we'll begin with Condor builds 2015 Hellcat challenger out of all the cars we'll see they this one is the cheapest with the final bid price of fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars and I'm gonna get all the sale data from the website auto auctions i/o it's an auction data site you can check it out the link in the description box well as well as all the builds that I'll be covering today now pricing condition usually go hand-in-hand and that seems to be the case on this car this is probably the worst condition how cat we will see today the front end damage is very significant that front crash bar was pushed in down the center you can see it making a V which means that your front frame rails are highly compromised at this point the only acceptable way in an insurance company's mind to fix frame rails is to completely replace them all the way from the firewall forward which means removing the end removing the transmission moving the interior and drilling out these pieces welding in brand new ones that is very costly that is probably why this car was totaled immediately that weren't bad enough well you got quarter panel damage on it and the rear side in regards to repairing these frame rails a lot of times you see on YouTube somebody sectioning the rail so wherever the damaged portion is they go back to that they cut the rail off and then they weld in a section of a replacement rail and I think that this is an acceptable repair in certain cases generally when the rail isn't damaged very far back if it's only a few inches from the front bracket I do think it is okay to repair a trail but if it is closer to the firewall I think you're better off going and doing things the right way and replacing it in its entirety otherwise the rest of the car looks pretty good till we get inside and we see both of the airbags deployed that dashboard airbag is a major nuisance one of the things that turns me away from a lot of different salvage cars that I see is a dashboard airbag in the case of a deployed dashboard airbag a lot of times what you got to do is disassemble the entire dashboard and a lot of times they replace it because it punches a hole right where the airbag came out I love this specific car for parts because for $15,750 you've got an engine and transmission in it that would retail for $25,000 at least just being sold by itself however as a rebuild project it's gonna be pretty labor-intensive considering the extensive front-end damage that quarter panel hit and also that dashboard airbag deployed even though this car came in as the cheapest again I think it's an amazing price I'm gonna give it a Salvage score on our salvage scale of three out of ten this will require so much labor so many parts that it has the potential to get very expensive by the time you're done now let's move on to Alex rebuilds with his 2016 Hellcat challenger this car also has pretty severe front-end damage but it also has rear end damage doesn't look too bad but we could see the bumper is missing in the photos again both the steering wheel and the dashboard airbag deployed and with over 40,000 miles this makes this the highest mileage car out of the bunch it also has a manual transmission which is the only manual out of the bunch here since it seems most of these Hellcats were produced with automatic transmissions I would assume the manual to add a little bit of value to it besides the damage in the front and the rear there's a little bit of damage that extended onto the passenger side door and also looks like the rocker panel is off a little bit and when it comes to painted surfaces like this door you're already painting a lot of the car you're painting pretty much from the fenders forward in the front you're likely gonna repaint that rear bumper and now you've got a decent sized dent in the door which likely means you're gonna repaint that door at this point three-quarters of the cars in need of paint so if you do things the right way you're gonna paint the entire car that's exactly what Alex did and then turn amazing the painting can be very costly and of course painting an entire car versus painting a section of the car will increase your cost of rebuild considering the purchase price of this car a little bit over $20,000 it's higher miles the damage that was all over the car one thing I didn't mention earlier the roof was damaged on this car it had to be completely replaced there is a lot of work that Alex put in this car to make it right Alex did an amazing job on this car but before he began his repairs I would give the car a salvage score of three out of ten next up it's the goon squad Hellcat rebuild but I want to remind everybody that the salvage scale is simply grading the cars that we're discussing here it has nothing to do with the content creators their channels their personality or anything about them it is simply the cars I personally bought cars that would grade very low on this same scale it just gives context to the builds we're discussing here and I want to give credit to each and every one of these guys because I see their videos I've seen their talents and their skills and they bring different skills to the table that will assist them in their individual rebuild projects a lot of times I'll look at something and say I'm not interested in that but somebody else that has worked on that same sort of issue a million times well that could be right up their wheelhouse and that is the right car for them and they're gonna get out cheaper than maybe I would or somebody else would because they have that specific skill then be find a few guys participated in this as well in the comments section below using the salvage scale I want you to let me know what you think about these Hellcat rebuild projects that were going through right now remember the salvage scale is based on the rebuild ability of the car considering the price it's sold for at auction now let's move on to the 2017 Hellcat challenger rebuilt by the goon squad I'm fairly certain the goon squad have completed this car already by the looks of it you could see the front end damage compared to last few that we looked at is not as nearly as extensive even though the driver side frame rail here did have to have some repair work done to it the rest of it looks pretty decent we can see the apron where the fender would sit is completely straight front end is actually really nice on this car the damage extends past the front end it looks like there's rear end damage the real issue here is the quarter panel which was pretty severely damaged had to be cut out and replaced by vtune the guy that does a lot of their framework vtune is actually rebuilding a hellcat we're gonna talk about his necks again in the interior this car we got those two same airbags deployed must be something about Hellcats the way that dodge programs their srs system but it seems like in most cases both of these airbags are deploying this is the newest Hellcat of the bunch and only 16,000 miles you think it might sell considerably more than some of the other ones but at $22,500 it's right in line with the prices we've been seeing now the biggest issue I have with this car is the damage that is not just concentrated in the front and even though the front end damage isn't as severe as the other cars there's still a lot of money worth the parts that needs to be replaced there and then having to go and move to the quarter panel and cut a quarter panel out that's fairly labor-intensive if you're not doing it yourself a body shop charges a pretty good amount of money to do that not to mention you got to go and get the part for them luckily the Hellcat shares the same body as pretty much all the other challengers down to the v6 so these are parts that are readily available price of twenty two thousand five hundred dollars very fair on this car considering its age and if the car only came with that front end damage and even the deployed passenger airbag I'd be giving it an 8 out of 10 on the rebuild scale the issue is it's got that quarter panel and rear damage done right the hands of most professional body men this is where the project would probably go way over budget and cost more than the car would end up being worth when it was all said and done now I know we do these projects for YouTube but I still like the numbers to make sense when it's all said and done and with the all-around damage that deployed airbag and the frame damage in the front and I'm going to give this car a 4 out of 10 on the salvage scale our last Hal cat is the only charger of the bunch and it's being rebuilt by vtune at twenty four thousand six hundred dollars is the most expensive car out of all the ones we will look at today and from the photos and it's not starting off very good we see that the front corner wheel and suspension has been completely ripped off it but in stark contrast to all the other cars the front frame is as straight as it gets it even looks like the cooling system is all intact as we go around the driver's side looks pretty much perfect however on the rear bumper and on the passenger side there is very is damage ranging from just the bumper skin all the way down to the doors the interior has a side curtain airbag and the seat airbag that's been deployed in my opinion those are easier to deal with then a dashboard airbag the engine bay is a silver lining in this car it's pretty much perfect and with only 12,000 miles on it it's like new now one of the things we don't see very well in these photos here but vtune has made it very clear in the video that the roof was damaged on this car as well he recently just got done cutting the entire roof off the car and he made it look really easy it was amazing to watch the process of the roof being removed because you can see the actual structure of the car like a skeleton with its skin being taken off this car really appears to have a very sound frame with a lot of cosmetic damage now vtune being a body man will make this job look super simple but I could tell you it would be tedious trying to DIY this in your home garage this is a tough one it's got a lot of work but arguably could be the most sound car once rebuilt out of the entire group here unfortunately I grade really hard when the damage isn't concentrated in one area so I'm gonna give V Tunes car a 4 out of 10 on the salvage scale now it's time to round things back to the burnt Hal CAD mr. Jose's car better known as DIY gang here on YouTube now when I think of DIY I think of a suspension project or maybe a little paint touch-up maybe you take your stereo out of your car I don't think of a car that has been completely burnt to the ground but no worries with the power of YouTube some shop manuals and some good tools I think anybody can fix anything in their home garage but maybe not a hellcat that's been completely burnt to the ground there's a lot of issues with this idea of rebuilding a completely burnt car when metal is in a high heat environment like a fire it warps so the metal all around this car is going to be wavy the shell that he is claiming to be able to rebuild here is just not going to be structurally or physically straight now a friend of mine brought up a good argument he said that you might hear somebody said I had an uncle that did this to a 1957 Chevy but the difference is the thickness of metal back then 10 now the last time we were updated on Jose's cart was sitting on a frame machine let's see that somehow he gets a structure of this car settled which I can't see it happening in any realistic fashion yeah you might be able to make it look okay but up close I don't think we'll ever look right and again the structural integrity has been completely compromised by the heat what else is left that's good in this car if you were to give me this Hellcat that was completely burned what I would do it is I'd pull the engine in the transmission and then I call up a salvage facility and tell them to take the rest of it away just there's not a lot left all the wiring harnesses all of the modules in the car they're completely ash at this point what's unrealistic to go to a salvage yard even find a Hellcat and buy every single component in there because that's gonna cost you more than a used or even probably a new one would cost at the Dodge dealership now in my opinion there's very few ways to successfully resurrect a car that's been completely burnt to the ground but there's a guy who's done just that his name is rebuilder guy it's one of the channels I enjoy watching and he had two Subaru WRX is one that was completely burnt to the ground and another one that was in a flood that destroyed a lot of the car itself he took two of these cars combine them to one and had one fully functioning WRX at the end of the day as far as I understand by the time he's done selling all the remaining parts afterward it hardly cost him anything especially because a car has been burned to the ground a car that was in a really bad foot they don't sell for a lot at auction rebuilder guy is proof that you can resurrect a fire damage car but you're gonna do it in the body of another car again it just doesn't make a lot of sense and I'm having a hard time grasping the thought behind resurrecting this burnt shell here right maybe I've gone a little bit off the rails here and I'm trying to find one redeeming factor this car whatsoever I guess he pulled the engine I think it had an okay compression test and that kind of is to be expected with an engine like this but again going back to all the things that attached to the engine how about all the pulleys on the front that are melted how about all the wiring harnesses that connect to an wiring harnesses that at the dealership would cost you thousands of dollars from the parts department if you could see where I'm going it's not a good place and again this is not against Jose or any of his content or his channel this is against the car itself and the idea of rebuilding a car that was completely engulfed in flames I don't want to tell Jose to quit because he is convincing us that he's gonna be able to finish this but I see it taking a lot of time and way too much capital to ever be worth it usually when we rebuild a car we're gonna rebuild something that is either gonna save us money considering current market values or we're gonna restore something that is impossible to get back like an old vintage car a very special edition limited production car decided a couple times in this video alone you can fix anything with money and I know Jose could make this car won again but is it worth it absolutely not not in my opinion last thing we have to do is give DIY gangs hellcat a Salvage score I'm gonna score it even being the cheapest of the bunch a one out of ten there's no reason to rebuild this car the way it sits come in with that game plan like getting the spare flood car find something else that you're gonna be able to pull parts from and get it for cheap and you can be able to take two cars or three cars and bring them into one and have a ton of parts left over to be able to sell and make your money back I want to wish Jose good luck Jose honestly I am very skeptical that you will finish this car and the way that you say you'll finish it however that doesn't mean that I have been wrong several times before so if I'm wrong prove me wrong guys I appreciate you watching if you enjoyed this format let me know if we can get to ten thousand likes on this video I will do a similar one comparing all the Nissan GTR rebuilds that are going on here on YouTube if you're not already following me on instagram you can get the latest scoop on all the project cars I'm working on right now instead of waiting for the content to come out here on youtube just go right here click the link in the description box below guys thank you so much for watching today and I will catch you very soon gang game [Music]

Channel: Samcrac

Views: 1,476,574

Rating: 4.4174218 out of 5

Keywords: Volkswagen, VW, Audi, Jetta, GTI, GLI, Fast, Car, Automotive, Race, Broken, Junk, Salvage, Rebuild, Rebuilder, Money, Spend, Spending, Cash, Ferrari, German, Auto, Mechanic, mechanical, Repair, Fix, Lamborghini, Build, Building, Drift, Drifting, BMW, Mercedes, Benz, Fiat, Ford, Vehicle, Rich, MK6, Turbo, Turbocharged, Nitrous, Junk Yard, Scrap, resell, dealer, deal, wheel, wheels, work, import, tesla, Dominos, Domino's, Pizza, DXP, Chevy, Chevrolet, Spark, Corvette, C6, Jaguar, Focus, RS, RS7, MK3, R8, Porsche, 911

Id: EMv5FTJRyzQ

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 16 2019