I have this RX8 since new. Very well kept. Low mileage. Engine is top shape as well as car.
Got rear ended. Insurance of party at fault deemed my car totaled. Not because car is destroyed. ( trunk dented bad, but frame, suspension, everything is great aside fron trunk) but because insurance did not want to spend the money in repairing it.
I wanted my car repaired but insurance refused for financial reasons. Claiming repair would be 8K.
After ayear of arguing…(kept car in my garage. They wanted to pay me 6K for car and I would not accept that. Either fix it or pay fair market value. About 14K) …they finally paid me 12 K plus I kept car.
I got car repaired at reputable shop for 5K. Car is in great shape. Now that car got fixed DMV CA says insurance sent a salvage report.
I think that is malicious and wrong. There is no mechanical basis for a salvage title. This is not a mangled or frame damaged car. The reasons seem to be financial. Insurance Co should had repaired my car a year ago (accident happened 8:/ 2015) but they had me wait a year before doing anything.
So I want this wrongfull salvage tittle reversed. If I were to call the insurance Co requesting reversal will they fo it ?
I can get car professionally assesed. Yes. It had an accident but it is by far not a damaged car. Not damaged at all to the point of being dangerous.
Using financial reasons to deem a good car salvage when there is no mechanical basis to me is wrongfull and criminal
A salvage title is usually assigned when the cost of restoration (repair) exceeds or is close to the market value of the car. It has little to do with mechanical fitness, which only enters the picture if those items are damaged as well. Your insurance company should have some say in the matter as well.
Years ago I slid into a concrete pillar with my 12 year old Malibu which was in top mechanical condition. Because of its age the insurance just paid me the market value of the car. It was not economical to repair it.
I feel for you on this. You fought for your right to be fairly compensated for your loss. You got your money, kept your car, fixed it and moved on. If you are keeping the car, no problem. The salvage title should not cause you any harm. If you want to sell the car, now or in the future you have diminished value.
The System that was designed to protect consumers, the salvage title laws, screwed you over. This isn’t the best place to ask this question. You need a specialist lawyer to help you determine if there is any way to remove the “salvage” from your car title. A couple hundred in lawyerly advice on what, if anything, you can do might solve this.
Had you not gotten the $12k I’d be more sympathetic, but you got that money (only $2k less than the value of the entire car), and the car, and fixed it for much less. You’re sitting pretty, as far as I can tell.
Other than seconding texases post if you were wanting to buy a used car would you not want to know that there was enough damage to warrant a salvage title ( I would). Frankly you are not going to gain much and it appears you did well, move on.
Insurance companies determine a vehicle is totaled if the estimated damage exceeds the value of the vehicle. What was the estimated cost when you first had it evaluated??
It seems weird that the cost to fix it was so much lower than what the insurance company gave you for a settlement. That is not normal procedure.
As for salvaged title. I wouldn’t about it. You might take a hit when you sell it. But after a few years that amount will probably be insignificant.
Does your state let you possess the actual title document? Do you still have the original title or did you have to surrender it?
Were you issued a “revised” salvage title?
I’ve settled with insurance on 3 totaled cars, kept the cars, fixed them, and never had a title change. I only had to let my agent physically see and photograph the repaired vehicles in order to have collision insurance re-instated.
Titles never left my hands, nor ever came up in a discussion.
I sold each of the vehicles and never had a problem. CSA
There should probably be some type of exception for rare cars and those no longer made like the RX8. This isn’t a Malibu and isn’t going to be easy to replace.
That being said, I know some people who got sweet deals on some hail damaged cars that were mechanically in excellent condition. The bodies looked like it had been shot with a shotgun but they ran great. There was nothing unsafe mechanically or structurally with these cars but the cost to repair exceeded the value.
I respectfully disagree. The car was in a bad enough wreck that it apparently would have cost more than $12,000 to fix it. Future purchasers of the car should have the right to know that it was wrecked. Wiping the salvage brand from the title would eliminate their ability to find this information out.
Bottom line is that if I’m choosing between two RX-8’s, both identical in every way except that one was wrecked and then repaired, I’m either going with the non-wrecked one or I’m going to want a discount to take on the risk that something was messed up that the repair did not fix. I’ve passed many times on cars that seemed to be in perfectly good shape both on initial inspection and a test drive because I found a salvage title in their past even when the current title was not a salvage title (title laundering is a thing, and I run when I see it). I’d have probably been fine buying them, and would have gotten a more expensive car than I should have for what they were asking, but I wasn’t willing to take on the risk.
As others have pointed out, “totaled” does not mean “dangerous.” There are plenty of salvage-title cars out there that are perfectly safe to drive. All it means is that the insurance company chose to pay a cash settlement instead of paying to repair the car.
OP accepted the cash settlement. If OP did not want a salvage title, OP should have continued to fight to get the vehicle repaired.
Put another way, OP already sold the car for $12,000, and got to keep the car. He then spent $5,000 to restore the car to its previous condition, which means he came out $6,000 ahead. He does not now get to turn around and sell the car again for full price - the insurance company already bought the diminished value portion of the car sale from him, and it’s not reasonable to expect to get that money a second time – it’s nice when it happens, but it’s not nor should it be a requirement.
Very true! The insurance company has paid for the loss in value of this car. The only reason this might be a lousy thing for this car is the RX8 may one day have collectible value. There is somewhat of a cult following for the Mazda RX-series and not that many were made from the start. This isn’t just the standard Malibu, Camry, or Accord after all!
I don’t disagree with this point but “wrecked” doesn’t mean the same as “totaled” which is applied to receive a salvage title. A salvage title is a line that is crossed with larger amounts of damage. That is subjective, at times, much like this case. Salvage catches cars in cases like this one where it clearly wasn’t “totaled.” I think that is a big difference, especially where “totaled” in say Boston or Chicago with their high labor costs would not be totaled in say New Paris, Ohio where labors costs are lower. And Salvage clearly is diminished value to the owner. A CarFax registered accident and repair may also mean diminished value but certainly not as much.
In the OP’s case, that line was crossed to salvage. Unfairly? That seems to be the case. Can it be un-done legally? Don’t know.
Hmmm. If you had collision coverage, you pay your deductible, your insurance pays for the repair, and then your insurance company goes after the other company to cover their losses and get your deductible back. No need to deal with the other company for a year. Of course then you wouldn’t have made $6000 on the deal but would have saved the aggravation. I guess once you took the $12,000 and got the car back, the DMV is simply reporting that it was salvaged, which it was. Would you rather have them lie about it? Maybe you want them to stamp it “salvaged but in good condition”?
It probably varies state to state, or over time but where I have lived, the action of totaling the car is them paying you money and you surrendering the title. They are actually buying the car from you versus paying to have it repaired. This is when the title gets branded. If you buy it back, this is two title transfers (reassignments) and you get the branded title.
I was just recently looking for a specific vehicle that is no longer in production. Almost all of the available ones were previously totaled repairs. The re-issued title here is branded with “repaired” after it has passed the state safety inspection. There is no way to undo that branding and I agree with the persistence on the title so future buyers are more likely to be aware of the history.
You are completely missing the point. Most of us want to know as much as we can before buying a used vehicle. If there was enough damage that an insurance carrier wanted to not repair and avoid the risk of unseen damage pushing the repair costs beyond reason we want to know. Also it is possible that complications could arise later even after expert repair.
Tying safety and financial costs together does not work because they are two separate things. Most states will have a repaired salvage title vehicle inspected before reissuing new registration.
While it may have been frustrating to deal with this you actually came out pretty good. As I said before just move on and pick battles you have a chance to win.
I did not look into getting my car totalled and get 2 cervical discs damaged for money.
I endured a full year driving my jeep with no a/c nor heater just because.
I had this car from new. First owner. For me to get a car like mine, Low mileage, one owner, A+, would need 16 to 18K.
And that would had been nice a year ago ! Not 12 mos after.
I chose to fix my car because after evaluation it was evident no major damage hapoened to frame, suspension, steering, electricals etc. I did not do it to keep money in my pocket like I were to win lotto. What was I supposed to do, after being hit, a year w/o my car, take the 12K, put 4K of my money and get exactly were I was a year ago ?
I wanted the Insurance Co to repair my car. They refused. For financial reasons. That is the problem. Being the victim here, the law should give the victim the option to have the car repaired or not. This should not be a desition to be made by the party at fault because then it happens what happened. Party at fault pays whatever they want.
I am not opposed to having a check on the registration. A check that would let others now car was in an accident.
But a salvage tittle is something else according to the DMV.
Car is deemed unsafe. Insurance costs go up. Smog requirements on yearly basis. These are technical reasons that do not match the financial desition taken by the insurance Co.
If the Insurance Co were to repair it, then thrre would be no salvage tittle.
Ask your Motor Vehicle Bureau (or whatever its called in CA) and your insurance if there’s an appeals procedure. Don’t get optimistic, because it’s a purely economic thing and because a car’s history cannot be erased even if the resultant damages are completely corrected. But ask anyway. And post back. I for one would be interested in knowing the answer.
The reason an insurance company desides not to repair a car is financial. Not because there could be technical issues hidden after repair is done. That would be an issue with an “unrepaiable” vehicle. Which us not the case.
If the car were more expensive the insurance Co will repair your car rather than not.
But if the car is not that expensive then the Insurance Co will care less.
That should be a desition for the owner of car damaged not an insurance Co 's
If the vehicle is an expensive one or not the iwner of vehicle damaged should select option. But in current law the perpetrator and his insurance Co dictate the rules if the game.
A check on registration indicating car was in an accident is fine.
Salvage tittle for a car that went through a very bad unrepairable or very damaging accident or fire, flood, etc is also fine.
But a car that is repairable and had no structural nor serious damage aside from cosmetic does not deserve to be salvaged just because the law allows the Insurance companies to opt for the easy out. Easy out meaning not repairing the vehicle.