A Honda CRV turned in front of me when I had the right-of-way. I hit the Honda head- on on the right read door. I was going slow enough so that the air bag did not go off in my car. The damage was to the bumper which is intact but at a slant as the Honda was moving perpendicular to the impact and to the hood, which is is slightly skewed. Otherwise no damage to the body. In February 2007, I did extensive service to the car at the local Subaru dealership. The mechanic said that I could get another 100,000 miles without major service. The 1993 Subaru Legacy has 129,953 miles on it. The accident was not my fault; the other driver has been cited. My claims representative made a comment that my car might be totaled and told me to take it to the collision repair place. The estimator said that the damage was not enough to total the car by their standards; but he didn’t know what the insurance company would value my car and thatI would get nothing for it for salvage. Last year, the carpenter working on my mother’s house backed into my parked Subaru and did $800.00 damage (cosmetic, no body damage) which the insurance company totally reimbursed. I am pretty much peeved right now waiting for the adjuster to call me and make me an offer. At this point, I do not want to total the car as I have kept the car in good condition and I am good driver. I still have my original clutch and no sign of slippage, besides all the work I had done on the car in February 2007. The collision repair place does excellent work and the mechanic said it would not be that much to repair.
Can you give me some advice?
Wait for the offer. It is negotiable and does not consist of a “last and final offer” by the insurance company. Make sure you know how much it will cost to retore the car. The collision repair guy should give you an estimate to work with, then add about 10-20 percent for unknowns. If the offer doesn’t come in a bit higher than that, then I wouldn’t do it. You should be able to take the insurance offer and at least break even with a decent repair job; it shouldn’t cost you any money.
Thanks. The collision repair guy said he wouldn’t total it as it wasn’t above 65% according to his estimates. He said wait for them to get back to you and call him and he would make an appointment to put it on the lift.
Any money you’ve spent on maintenance and service work is going to be a non-issue, unless you want a court fight.
They’ll probably offer you trade-in value at most so do not expect to get an inflated BlueBook estimate.
It may be in the 2000-2500 dollar range.
It may vary in your state but around here if the repair costs meet or exceed 60% of the value (real value) the car is considered a total) so roughly 1100-1300 dollars based on the above values would total it out.
Yes. I have been in discussions and have gotten the latest estimate. In this state it is 75%; however, I talked to someone at consumer services at the NC State Insurance commissioner and she said that they could total it out 65% when they add 5% to 10% in estimated costs over the estimate.