Copart and IAA sell most of the insurance write-offs in the United States, and together they are where the majority of Europe's American imports begin. This guide explains how a European bids, what the lot page shows, and the one thing it never shows: what happened to the car before this sale.
Copart operates domestic salvage businesses in Germany, Spain, Finland, the UK and Ireland. Searching "Copart" from Germany finds Copart Deutschland, which sells German write-offs; from Spain, Copart España; from Finland, Copart Suomi. Searching from France lands on Copart's Canadian French page. None of these is the US inventory. American lots are on copart.com, bought either through an international-buyer registration (Copart lists dedicated pages for buyers in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Georgia, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Belgium among others) or through a licensed broker who bids on your behalf. IAA works similarly, with brokers handling most European purchases.
The document the lot is sold under: clean, salvage, certificate of destruction, bill of sale and state-specific variants. A certificate of destruction cannot be registered anywhere as a road car.
Copart's codes: front end, rear end, side, undercarriage, flood, burn, hail, vandalism, mechanical, and so on. Two codes are recorded; "undercarriage" or "flood" as the secondary code matters as much as the primary.
Whether the car started and moved under its own power at intake. "Enhanced vehicle" lots ran and drove; "stationary" lots did not.
The reading at intake, flagged as actual, not actual or exempt.
Whether keys are present, whether airbags deployed (visible in photos), and the pre-loss value estimate that sets expectations for the bid.
Ten or more photographs taken at intake for this listing.
The current listing is a snapshot. It does not show whether the same VIN was sold at Copart or IAA before, what it looked like then, what it sold for, or whether it was repaired and relisted. It does not show the title brands a state applied after an earlier sale, the odometer readings recorded between sales, rental or fleet use, later accidents, or open recalls. Copart's own reports landing page sells a third-party history for this reason. A relisted car is common: a rebuilder buys it, the repair goes wrong or the margin disappears, and the car comes back to auction with a fresh lot number and a tidier photo set.
Both sell insurance write-offs, fleet and dealer cars; both offer international buying; both publish photo sets. IAA tends to carry more insurer-direct stock and publishes high-resolution image sets; Copart has the larger network of yards and the larger share of dealer and fleet lots. For a buyer the difference matters less than the specific lot's history. The VIN check is the same for both.
Clean, salvage, rebuilt, flood, junk. Issued by a US state, invisible in every European registry.
How it is checkedCopart and IAAI intake photos, damage codes and sale price, from every sale the car went through, not only the current lot.
How it is checkedReadings at US titles, registrations and inspections in date order. A reading below an earlier one is a rollback.
How it is checkedFor many lots, yes, with an international-buyer registration, though several states restrict salvage-title lots to licensed buyers. Most Europeans use a broker who holds the licences, arranges transport and consolidates shipping.
A salvage title can be repaired and re-titled as rebuilt after inspection. A certificate of destruction means the vehicle may only be dismantled for parts in the US; European registration of such a car is a customs and legal problem, not a technical one.
No. The lot page shows the current listing. Earlier appearances of the same VIN are in the auction history section of a VIN report.
Use the VIN printed on the lot page. The lot number identifies one sale; the VIN identifies the car across every sale and title.
No. Vektracer is an independent vehicle history service. Copart and IAA are named here to describe the auctions whose records a report can contain.
Enter the VIN to see which US and Canadian records exist. The preview is free; the report is $19.99, once.