My '99 Camry was in a wreck, don’t have collision insurance, so I’ll have to pay for any repairs. The estimate to repair car is ~$5000 and the car is worth ~$5000. What can I do with this car that will be a good financial solution? Right now the car is sitting at $15/day at the wrecking place.
sell it for salvage and buy a non-totaled $5000 used car. This will likely never be like new. I take it was at least 51% your fault?
Sign title to the wrecking yard, and let them keep it. You can get a good undamaged used car for $5,000. No need in throwing good money after bad. Let this one go. $5,000 in damage, and it had to be towed is not a good sign for keeping this one.
First of all, get the car out of the $15 per day impound yard. Stop paying the fee.
Then, get another repair estimate. Maybe it won’t really cost $5,000 to repair the car.
There is no “good financial solution” to this situation. You need to minimize your losses. Be careful. What looks good in the short term may not be so good in the long term.
Not even close. Many things will start acting up if you fix the body damage. It will easily cost you $6,000 by the time you are done with it.
By not having insurance, you were the one on the hook for the loss. Nothing really to do but scrap it out, take your loss, and get another car. The exception would be if you are able to do the work yourself to put it back together for a couple thousand.
The Time To Make A Good Financial Decision Has Come And Gone. Move On.
People choose not to buy collision insurance. Usually this is done on older cars to save money. This should not be done on a car that you can’t afford to throw away if necessary. You must be able to take a hit on this one. As long as your savings by not buying collision insurance have surpassed $5000, don’t worry about it.
What can I do with this car that will be a good financial solution? Providing you made a good decision when “passing” on the insurance, this has already been realized.
Just curious, have you added your savings? Was it over the $5000?