Students who need cars usually turn to the used market, but because of Hurricane Katrina, the market may be more dangerous than before, said Thomas E. Betz, director of the University’s Student Legal Service.

Hurricane Katrina left more than 750,000 totaled cars in its wake, Betz said. Totaled cars have to be stripped for usable parts because they are no longer drivable. But, this process is not always followed, Betz said. Every time there has been a natural disaster, he said he has seen students buy cars that were supposed to be totaled.

“Back in the early ’90s when the Mississippi River flooded, there was a massive mess,” Betz said. “Insurance companies would pay money for the loss (of the cars) and take the cars and salvage them. These vehicles sometimes got auctioned.”

He said during that time he saw a number of students buy these flooded cars without knowing their past.

“Four weeks (after they bought the cars), the electrical systems and the computer systems would fail,” Betz said.

A lot of these cars end up sold at auctions or at used dealerships, Betz said. The cars are usually sold for well below their value, a sign to most consumers that something is wrong.

But the students usually hit the worst are international students because they are less aware of the pricing system and are more likely to fall for an unreasonably low priced car, he said.

Craig Detamore, a Champaign Allstate agent, said any reputable insurance company would total the car as the law dictates and that most of the flood-damaged cars come from private owners who decide not to have their car totaled.

“The rule of thumb is that any car that’s totaled out is totaled out,” Detamore said.

He said insurance companies incur losses from the cars but the majority of losses come from homes, something they cannot do anything about. The big companies hold reserves to cover losses.

The good news is that there are precautions anyone can take when buying a used car, Detamore said. Insurance companies report all claims to a database called Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. When a vehicle identification number is entered in the database, the claims that have been filed on that car appear. This is different from a report from CARFAX or other companies like it, which give a report on the title of a car; something that both Detamore and Betz said is easy to tamper with. The database report is the most reliable way to figure out if a car sustained flood damage without looking at the car, Detamore said.

There are also companies that allow someone to search the database for a report on a car, Detamore said. One of them is ChoicePoint. The service ChoicePoint offers, called ChoiceTrust, provides a reporting system for anyone willing to pay for it.

Dave Miller, owner of Gallo-Miller Paint & Collision Repair, at 501 E. Kenyon Rd., said there are some telltale signs that a car has sustained flood damage. If the bolts underneath the seat and on the inside of the door look rusted, the car may have been damaged, he said. Other places to look include under the front seats and in the wheel well of the spare tire for signs of water damage. It is hard to tell if damage occurred by driving the car, Miller said.

“Sometimes it can take months for actual water damage to really start showing up (while driving), so you may not notice anything,” Miller said.