My sob story....

[mikeedler]

Seriously, if they want to play rough, lawyer up and then sue them for negligence/emotional distress. There's all kinds of shit you can sue for.

MERICA!!!!!

sad story, and I would bet you have already said alot more than needed to the ins. company. thell them you want 3000 grand for it. end
say nothing more than you have to.

[Pl3wA]

ale schujowali

[Roysneon]

Def. Worth fixing. Seems as though e30 parts are not too hard to find in your area, a used trunk and lights and even with a brand new valence you shouldn't be looking at too much in parts. Get body shop estimates then show them to the insurance co. Don't let them forget about you until you have money to fix it. It's a good platform to start with if that damage is fixed.

[smooth]

the section under the tails can't be replaced. it will always be punched in unless he has access to a top notch body specialist (and they don't come inexpensively). might bug someone might not but the worst of the damage is not just unbolting and bolting on another rear valence

[Cinnabar325is]

Sorry to see this!

FWIW, I'm nearly finished repairing VERY similar damage to my '89, except mine was hit on the passenger side rear corner. Cut out a donor rear corner from another car and weld it in.

Like I said I'm nearly done and it has gone very well and I think the end result will be very good. And I'm picky.

Besides, it would be a great learning experience.

Either way, I don't think that damage means the car has to be parted and trashed.

[smooth]

Maybe if you have access to a welder and want to experiment on your car you might think about that option.

But if you're going to pay someone to do it, source the parts to replace that rear end, and source the rest of the parts for the 5 speed swap, and then paint the whole thing when you're done (and all this time, effort, and money spent on a branded title) then you'll be ass up with no way to ever recover a fraction of what you put into it. If for some reason you absolutely love it and can't find a way to replace it then that might be a viable option.

But over here on the west coast where rust-free e30's (sedans of all things) are still plentiful there is very little reason to pursue an option like that.

[Nick's e30]

Sounds like you paid about 3k for it. Good luck with everything!

[jlevie]

The damage isn't that bad, assuming the trunk floor isn' buckled. It looks like the hit was up, so the trunk should be okay. An hour or two with a portapower, body hammers and dollys, and a new trunk & taillight should fix it. Well, and a bit of paint.

[Vtec?lol]

It's been 3 months since my accident with safeco and I still don't have a settlement.

Good luck.

[Spitfi-r]

Sorry for your "loss".
As someone whose spent a ton of time on my e30 recently I'd be totally devastated if this happened to me. So I feel your pain.

[TimKninja]

The damage can be fixed. It'll need to be pulled out. How are the rear quarter panels? Buckled at all? Rear doors close right?

As I said earlier go after those dirtbags.

[bastianshaw]

Once you establish liability and whether the accident is covered, you're entitled to what it will cost to replace the car...not the price you paid for it. The insurance agent can tell you whatever horseshit he wants to tell you but while you're waiting to hear back from them take this time to research what the price of similar condition and mileage e30's are selling for in your local market. You're also entitled to the total loss statement from them and evaluation documents they'll use to estimate the value of your vehicle when they make the initial offer. Personally, I wouldn't ask for that information up front because you'll be better off if they forget to send it to you.

Also, there seem to be a couple typos in your original post. It looks like you left the 1 off your initial purchase price of $1500 and the 1 off the engine and tranny price of $1450. Once you double check your "receipts" you should come out of the incident feeling more "whole."

i see what u did there nicely played

[CHITTY]

Insurance companies suck! My 89 325i was totaled in October 2011 and I still haven't been paid for it. They kept lowballing me with a $1000 offer, even though I had receipts for over $5k in parts alone. I was going to take the party responsable to small claims court, but I ended up lawyering up after my medical bills started to stack up.

It might be worth it to file a small claims in court against the aunt. If you win her insurance will pay you the amount you won in court. So my suggestion is to start doing your homework on what the small claims court will pay out (California is now up to $10k) and start the procedure. It worked on the last accident I was in and i never made it into court. Most people don't want the hassle of going to court so they will have their insurance company just settle.

Good luck, its a tough road but persistance pays off.

[nebulous123]

I can't be sure here but when the insurance person said "IF you get paid" she may mean from them directly. Since the mom or aunt (whatever) told the cops the kid stole the car (could turn out to be a stupid idea on her part) the insurance company may be looking to see if the kid readily had access to the car. If the kid did, the insurance company may not pay out...all depends if the kid is on her insurance policy.

Also you can call your insurance company...assuming the car actually insured. They can subrogate the claim. That means they pay you out based on what they think they can get from the insurance company and/or the lady who owns the car (roughly the value). But once you settle with your company, they get the rights to go after the insurance company and their insured.

You will get paid out, keep your head up.

[mother_russia]

So... Here's an update!
Insurance called today. Apparently, they haven't been calling me back because something happened to the old investigator and the new one wasn't smart enough to give me a call back? Not sure what the hell happened.
Anyways, I won't be getting a single penny. They said that the kid didn't have permission to drive the car and the aunt is just throwing him under the bus. I guess I'll just have to get this fixed out of my own pocket.