Another thing is, at least in my state, the law are written so that it is not your choice whether to total it or not. If the damage is greater than a certain percentage of book value, they must declare it a total loss. Whether you retain the vehicle or not, it will get a salvage title.
As to the strut question, I’m not saying they all go bad at 50k, but by 140k and 18 years, I’m guessing they are past their prime. I really don’t want to start a religious argument about manufacture recommendations, but for reference, check out this link:
That’s what I meant about starting an argument. They have a reputation as a quality company, if you can’t trust that, it’s a slippery slope with anything to do with a car. Who’s opinion do you trust? Why trust oil companies, timing belt manufactures, even the car manufactures themselves. They all want to sell you things too. Any maintenance recommendation is just that, a recommendation, and they should know more about shocks and struts than I ever will. It doesn’t mean that I will go out and change them at 50k, just that I know that statistically they feel that that is when handling/ride quality will begin to degrade. All I was trying to say was that a joyride in a stolen car with 140k on it may have been the last straw, but they probably weren’t in the best condition to start with.
I turn wrenches for a living, so I’ve seen all kinds of vehicles. Well maintained, poorly maintained, newer, older, pickups, cars, SUVs, class 7 and 8 trucks, etc.
I’ve not seen too many struts that were just plain tuckered out and scrap simply because they had reached 50K
I don’t have a problem with the company KYB, or their product. What I have a problem with is the notion that their opinion is gospel truth
I’m only talking about the struts, because you brought them up
Of course the joyride was bad news for the car, and it may not have been in the best shape, because it was old and had some miles
You can discuss those other things you mentioned . . . timing belts, oil, etc., . . . but that’s not what this discussion was originally about. And OP didn’t even mention that stuff
it’s interesting that you’re now changing your tune, if only slightly. Initially, you said OP’s struts were 150K overdue. Now you’re saying that you recognize that after 50K, handling has started to degrade
All manufacturers of replacement parts recommend more frequent replacement than the vehicle manufacturers. For example, Fram recommends 3k on its oil filters and 12k on air filters even though the manufacturers recommend 7500-10k on oil filters and 30k on air filters.
Thanks everyone for your help. I gave up my car yesterday for the $4k State Farm offered me. (Car was in beautiful shape and had been serviced the week before it was stolen) It needed a new transmission and front struts and who knows what else given it was driven very hard once stolen and pretty old to boot. I live in N. Calif. and I gather it’s a miracle it had not been stolen before. Since I don’t know much about cars, etc. and the potential issues seemed pretty endless, I decided it was best to move on with my life. I did shed a tear, though. Thanks again. Now I have to buy a car!
I understand your situation though. If someone hammered the car hard enough to damage the transmission there’s always the possibility of engine damage to some degree, suspension components bent, and so on.
At several dealers where I worked we got involved in the repairs of some theft recoveries and with several of them it seemed like it was one thing after the other.
One dealer had bought about 10 nice Volvos. Before they were even cleaned up for sale someone broke into every single one of them at night and ripped the stereos out.
Each one of them also had their own proprietary repair because some involved a pretty ho-hum radio install and others involved dash replacement parts and varying stages of wiring repairs.
