Coloradans will have a harder time repairing and selling totaled vehicles without harming their value and insurability under a measure that rolled through a state Senate committee with some bipartisan support Tuesday.
House Bill 1299 would remove an exemption to the state’s salvage-title law. Under that exemption, sellers of cars that are wrecked and rebuilt after they are more than six years old do not have to note that reconstruction on the cars' titles.
The measure would require salvage status to be listed on titles of all vehicles that have been damaged by collision, fire, flood, accident, trespass or other occurrence to the extent that the cost of repairing the vehicle to a roadworthy condition exceeds the vehicle’s retail fair market value just before the damage.
Members of the Senate Transportation Committee had to balance concerns about vehicle affordability with concerns about people covering up cars and trucks that may not be fit for road usage any longer.
The six-year exemption was put into state law in 1994 when many cars did not last much longer than that time frame. But the average Colorado car now is more than 11 years old, meaning a law change would affect 81 percent of vehicles being driven in the Centennial State.
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