The Buck stops here

Hi, In late November, I ran into a buck with my 2007 Camry at 70 miles an hour. Several weeks later, I got my car back from a collision garage in Wichita Falls(close to accident site) The steering wheel vibrates when the speedometer reaches above 60. I took it to a Toyota dealer and they put all new tires on the car and said everything else checked out fine.(balancing, alignment,etc) The steering wheel still vibrates although not as much. My social circles all say that once a car gets in an accident, it will never be the same. Is this true and also, is my car worth less as a trade-in if I can’t take it anymore? If it makes any difference, the car had 14K miles at the time.

My social circles all say that once a car gets in an accident, it will never be the same.

That can be true, at least in the physiological sense. Most of the time after an accident a car is different by that may be better or worse, but usually it is about the same.

The one thing that will be true however is the resale/trade value. That will be less. That does make sense because those cars that don’t come put so well then to be sold off.

It could be you are now looking for and finding issues that may have been there before and it could be that there is still something that needs to be corrected.

If you have a good local alignment/front end shop that would be a good place to start. I would try and get it corrected long before just selling it. You might also try by at Toyota.

Discuss the issue with your insurer. Didn’t they pay for the work? If you are dissatisfied, make sure they know it. I’m not saying that the collision repair folks did anything wrong, but as the deep pocket, your insurer needs to determine what to do. It is possible that they may declare the car a total loss. You should then be entitled to replace your car with another, similarly equipped, used 2007 Camry.