TBoned 2018 Toyota Corolla

Greetings,

Wondering if you guy’s have any idea by looking at the picture of my vehicle if it’s totaled or not? It’s worth about $18,000 I’ve had it 3 months and it has a little over 12,000 miles on it. I was TBoned on Friday. The lady ran the red light going probably 45 mph. May have to zoom in if possible to see the damage! IMG_0048

Thanks in advance!!

Yeah.

That’s totaled.

Tester

They SHOULD total it but they wont…Repairing it will be expensive but not $18,000 expensive…If she was going 45, you would be dead…Did the airbag(s) deploy ?

If you raise hell about it, they might total it, but it’s still going to cost you money…They will sell it at an auction, it will be rebuilt and somebody will end up driving it…

Well I’m going by what she said! She didn’t see the light and ran it. She thought she was going around 45. My airbags did not deploy, hers did. A picture of her car is attached. IMG_0049

From a mechanical standpoint I’d say it was a total. From a financial standpoint it may not be.

Every state has varying laws regarding this. Here in OK if the repair costs meet or exceed 60% of the vehicle’s actual value the car can be declared a total. Your state may be different.

Actual value means the actual loan value of the car and in all honesty it’s probably not 18 grand.

I suspect it won’t be totaled

And I’m only saying that because it’s a nearly new vehicle which is probably worth considerably more than the cost to fix

Update:

So I have just spoke with my insurance company (esurance) she opened the claim and entered all the info. The computer system they use told her that the vehicle could be repaired and she set it up to be towed in the morning to the body shop for cost to repair the vehicle. She said the vehicle would not cost more than the fair market value to fix the vehicle (how she knows this I have no clue.) But I’m not really going for it. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

How do you figure?

It’s not your call to make

Meaning them saying they can fix the vehicle based on a computer program they use!

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The Mustang is probably totaled, but your car is definitely repairable for way less than $18000. It doesn’t look too bad from the picture, and probably still runs and drives fine.

Camaro… :smile:

I suspect some chassis damage also because the front wheel appears to have a fair amount of negative camber in it. Once suspension parts start getting tweaked it’s difficult to tell where the damage stops.

Hey, hey, heyyy… not Mustang, the car is a Camaro. Mustang drivers cause enough accidents at Cars and Coffee, no need to pile on! :smile:

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“She didn’t see the light” = “She was texting”

Best of luck. I have to say I’m impressed by the apparent minimal-to-no passenger compartment intrusion on your car, considering the damage to the Camaro.

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I doubt they total it. You are using your inurance company, which is good. They represent you, and are not spending their money, as they will bill the other company. You might be out your collision deductible until the claim is settled.
The estimate will go up as they remove sheet metal and assess the damage to the unibody. My 1 year old Acura was hit hard in the rear and shoved into the car in front of it, then hit again. I went through my insurance carrrier and told them I would not be upset if they totalled it. They did. The adjustor got to 60% of repacement cost and quit writing, as there was still more damage.

The other driver’s carrier also will owe you for a rental car. My company paid for mine and added it to the bill they presented to the other driver’s carrier. The rental car cost can help reach the threshold of a total loss. Insist on new parts. Tell the adjustor you will have the car inspected prior to repair, by a third party, for a second opinion.
Don’t forget to file for a diminished value loss. If repaired “perfectly” (no such thing), your car is worth less than an identical car with a clean carfax. Could be 20% of retail value.
I hope that you do not owe more than they retail value of your car. With a 1 year old Toyota, that’s unlikely. Loan and lease agreements often include GAP coverage for the amount between retail value and loan pay off. My settlement was $3000 more then the lease buyout, so my wallet got fat.

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You can insist, and on a brand new car there may be no other option but for older cars, they can and most likely will, replace using used parts and they are within their rights to do so. The car had used parts when it was wrecked and they only need to make you whole so replacing with used parts is acceptable from a legal perspective…

i might ask toyota why the side air bags did not deploy

If the person suffered no serious injuries I wouldn’t question why the airbags didn’t deploy. It appears they did the right thing…and, it will cost less in the long run to repair the car than if they went off more proactively (not to mention chances of actually causing injuries to the driver when not needed). The door glass is still intact…although the body is crumpled up, it did what it was supposed to do and absorb most of the impact. Small price to pay for walking away…

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The other driver is ultimately liable for all your losses, not just your car. The cost of a temporary replacement, your lost personal property in your car, your lost income if any, and of course any injury you may have experienced. Even your clothing if, for example, you got a bloody nose and got blood all over your shirt.
Normally the property costs are figured out pretty quickly but the injury costs can be tricky, because they aren’t always obvious right away. Getting hit that hard can cause all sorts of injuries that aren’t even obvious to you for a while. When you work out the property losses be clear that you are not agreeing to settle anything about personal injuries until some time has passed and you know more.

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Good comments above. Let your insurance co deal with this, be careful not to sign anything too soon, hidden damage to your car and yourself might show up later.

Regarding the airbag, the engineers who design these are pretty clever. They have elegant algorithms that determine when to deploy the air bag. If the forces exceed a pre determined threshold the bags will pop. If the structure of the car can withstand the forces and still protect the occupants they will not deploy. Air bags can hurt you, the trade off is the accident can hurt you worse. I would rather get bumps and bruises from an air bag than a fatal blow with out them. In a non life threatening accident I would rather not get beat up by the air bag when the car can protect me. The designers have had years of experience and data to refine air bag operation.