Car Totaled?

Jim M

The lady told you this because she is officially correct from the shops prespective. When a shop or an insurance adjuster do an estimate they have to take in effect the age and miles, make, model and year of the vehicle to determine a value at the time of the accident. Any shop or estimator draws the line @ around 75-80%. Meaning the repairs the car would need in the shop exceed 75-80% of the cars value. You can save money buy getting parts yourself and or even fixing it yourself.

So on paper I would also agree that your car is totaled. But in your prespective it can be fixed.

todd

thell always say that you can just bust the headlight out and thell consider it totaled best hing for you do do would be to loook around at some junkyard adn do a lil surfing on ebay or craigs list and you can get the parts for it alot cheeper and then it wouldent cost that much to just have somebody install it and paint it

tQUEEN

first of all let me tell you...GREAT choice in car!! old school Cadillac devilles are the best! but ne ways back to ur question...there is no way that you totaled it! you probally messed up the alignment or shifted the panel...but the best thing i can tell you is go to a garage or somewhere you can trust & ask them to estimate the cost of your damage.

EDIT: && todds right... after the garage tells you what needs to be replaced go to a junk yard to get your parts & bring them back to the garage to fix it for you... its soo much cheaper than the garage going out to order the part! i did that when i shifted my panel.

â™¥ Uwish â™¥

Have you filed a claim with your insurance company? If yes I can't imagine you would have collision coverage on a 1989 vehicle.

However, if you do, and the vehicle is considered a total loss, your insruance company will pay you the actual cash value. And due to the age, you will probably keep your vehicle too. Then you can repair or do what you want.

There's nothing fishy going on there. The shop cannot just keep your car. If the insurance company totals your car and they keep the totalled vehicle, it would be sold at auction.

Fred C

Dealers and body-shops do not write vehicles off. Insurance companies do. You have merely been given an opinion by somebody at the shop, based on her experience.
It doesn't mean you can't work something out to keep the car and get it repaired.

Scott H

It's a 20-year old car! Take the money and run.

mbrcatz

Nope, it's fair. I can buy an 18 year old Caddy for under $2,000.

Talk to your agent. Assuming you have collision coverage on it, you can negotiate keeping the car with the insurance company - they"ll just deduct the salvage value from your check.

And delete the collision and comp off your policy, also.

Jifr

Hiya:

Did someone say you were going to lose the car? That's the part that sounds fishy to me.

It's YOUR car. Someone can not take it from you - even if it is a total loss.

It is MORE profitable (and desirable) for the bodyshop to repair the vehicle. If it is repairable for $2400...that's $2400 in their pocket rather than $0 or the salvage value (which is probably not a whole lot at all)

If it's a total loss and the insurance company pays you for it - you can STILL keep it. You would have to request to retain the salvage. They would deduct the amount of the salvage from whatever they paid you.

Depending on what state you are in you might have to get a salvage title and wouldn't be able to drive the vehicle on the roads legally until you had it inspected and the title restored. (in some states, if it is an older vehicle, you might not have to) If you do - you will end up having to come out of pocket to get the vehicle road worthy. If you can get it road worthy without paying for the appearance damages...it might be worth it but......Are you one of those people who would or wouldn't mind driving around in a beater car?

Bottom line - you don't have to lose the car.....but you should consider the consequences. Goodluck.

~jifr!

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