Best Friend's Mom Totaled My Car

[woc]

Well... don't let time pass to not lose a friend. Little story; A highschool friend i know for many years, He's illegal as pot can be, and he needed a car to go to work, so I found a volvo station wagon at a yard, $1300 almost mint condition wuth 80k on it ( I know what a find ) then had the car in my name,+ tag and told him to go have everything registred with ins. He drove the car for 6 months with a tag reistered to a diffrent car, he stole a bycicle with the car registred to my name, and when I found out about it, I took the car back, and gave him the $1300 back ( after 6 months of misuse ) in my mind, I was really cool about it, not counting countless times i helped the dude, lived im my apartment for 4 months without paying a penny, smoked cigs and thew it down my neighbor's, shit.... anyways, guess what? the dude blames me for fucking him over, told all my other friends how i was an asshole! LOL well... I don't hold grudge it's unhealthy, but my point is... IF your friend does not love you enough to be able to overlook material problems, you don't need shitty people in your life, it's a win win situation, and you will most definetely get paid from the ins, and fix your car man, but do what others don't do, be the guy that talks to the ins pwoplw with an educated manner, and sound like you know what you are talking about, it all comes down to "negatiation" and adult manners with the adjusters. I worked for Ocean Harbor ins many years ago. good luck.

[anabolice30]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm feeling a lot better after hearing all of your stories with insurance. I do want the car to get fixed. The insurance company is closed for the weekend so I'll ring them up first thing Monday morning. Thank God I'm out on break.

[mkcman17]

When I got rear ended, the adjuster over the phone said "it's probably a total loss" . Insurance Company's are TOLD to say this. They love just writing checks for cars because then they don't have to deal with other expenses that may occur (needing to pull the frame or whatever) .

When I was dealing with the insurance (USAA in this instance) , they told
Me they needed to tow the car to the adjusters . It was a complete lie, they towed it to an insurance Auto Auctions lot where they ripped apart my center console to take all my spare change, and then prepped it for auction(removed my plates , cleaned out the car) Before I even settled with the Insurance company. I found pictures of my car on the IAA website and was about to go call the police. When I got my car back half the screws for the license plates where in the dash vents and the other half were wedged under the ashtray, where they started to short out on the cigarette lighter on the drive home .

Tldr DONT let them tow your car anywhere . Say you want them to come to you.

And I got $1900 for my car that isint that clean and had 253k on It at the time of the accident . Your car looks cleaner then mine did. If the insurance company has been notified. They'll contact you. And they can't give you a value of the car before they've even seen it . Say you want it FIXED. Tell them the damage isint terrible enough to declare it a total loss. You need an adjuster from their company too look at it.

WORST CASE SCENARIO: you call your insurance company. Tell them it was a hit and run and you know who did it. Give them douchebag moms name, if they admit to it your insurance will go after them and fix your car for you only paying like a $250 deductible. That's only if they start to dick you around.

DONT SETTLE FOR $1300. Your car is worth MUCH more then that unless it has like 400,000 miles on it .

1) most insurance companies use a points calculator for total loss that's accurate almost 100% of the time.

2) e30s total out very easily as shops don't want to get saddled looking for parts. This is the same for most 20+ year old cars.

3) tow companies are crooked by nature. More likely than not the tow driver took your change.

4) have your car appraised either through your policy's coverage or on your own. It will pay off.

5) an insurance company isn't going to make an offer without at the very minimum visually verifying the vins.

6) it doesn't matter if you want it fixed or not. The estimate is 90% of the time going to exceed 75% threshold of the value, so per-policy it will be a total loss.

7) USAA is a very good company. Be glad you weren't handled by cut-rate insurance as a third-party total.

[Hochspannung]

I'd say the best course of action here has already been mentioned.

Have the mother or father pay you the $1300, go buy parts and you and your friend can fix it together. They win cause their insurance premium doesn't increase and you win cause your car doesn't get the salvage title.

You'll have a good time wrenching on the car and you might even learn something.

edit**

I think the hardest part of the repair is dealing with the piece that runs under the grill and connects to both fenders. It looks like it could be bent back into shape fairly easily once everything is removed.

[mkcman17]

He might even be lucky with the core support. If you can get $1k from the other party cash, you can fix the damage for a couple hundo yourself, no salvage (pain in the ass) and save the mom a premium surcharge.

[lukeADE335i]

It'll all work out ok - especially if the insurance company is one of the more reputable ones. Take their cash and keep your car to fix. You'll find panel shops are much more reasonable for you than they are for insurance companies too. Case in point - recently I crashed my car and it looked similar to yours but the WHOLE front was gone, so both front guards gone, bonnet, lights, grille, valance, rad. support and it needed some chassis straightening. Having the front stripped, chassis straightened + reassembly & paint (I supplied panels) cost me $1600 cash. The panel shop said that if it had been an insurance job they'd have charged $5.5 - $6k (with them finding panels).

To the insurance company, it's a cheap car she hit & she's 100% in the wrong. While they never like paying out, they will be happier with that, than if she'd hit your new M3 in the driveway, where they'd be paying through the nose. I'd ignore the Dad from this point as has been pointed out, just deal with the insurance company.

Down here we have two different types of write off - structural & economic. Economic write-offs are not such a big deal on the title, as it just means the car was deemed uneconomical to fix by insurance, but it doesn't mean you can't decide to fix it. Obviously a structural write-off is a different situation - no one would go near a structural write off.

[NYSE30]

An insurance company will consider a vehicle a total loss if the cost to fix the vehicle exceeds 75% of the vehicles blue book value. Even if they total it and give you a certain amount they will most likely not even take the vehicle from you as its an older car, and you most likely wont have to give them any money back to keep the car. Your car has no significant value to them, they won't get much at auction for it in order to recoup some of their losses. if they take it from you they will loose more money just towing it and trying to resell it. It will though have a salvage title like someone else stated which is not that bad for a vehicle that is as cheap as ours. Lets face it its not a Ferrari. Rebuild it with used parts and enjoy it for many more years my friend. Pm me if you have other questions. I own a bodyshop.

[nando]

it's not always book value. they might start from there because they know they can low ball you based on it, but there's nothing that says it has to be book value.

[Eddie Lives On]

I can't go through everything right now but if I were you I'd tell the dad "I'll look look at junkyards and FS ads and round up the parts I need to make it straight again, which should cost about 400$, and you foot the bill, since you are responsible for fucking it up. No insurance bullshit and everyone is happy."

Good luck!

[G-Man]

I totaled my daughters 89 325i 5 speed a few years ago (and she still reminds me about it). Insurance paid me off and I was able to buy it back from the insurance company for $150. Then we parted it out (IE Stainless steel exhaust, motor and 5 speed, sport seats, etc...) . Bottom line, if your insurance company wants to total it (hopefully not), you'll be able to buy it back for a cheap price. Good luck on your insurance company battle, keep us posted on your progress in dealing with them.

G-Man

[Robotin]

we have the tools.... we an rebuild him...

make him faster, stronger...

[mkcman17]

Again, insurance does NOT use blue book value. Common misconception.

There will be a salvage deduction for retention, albeit nominal.

[LJ851]

bump

[Nick_S]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but I would strongly advise you to take a huge dump in your friends dad's sock drawer. He sounds like a massive boner. Good luck and I hope you get it sorted. Shitty situation.

[agent]

^ Agreed. He put you in a shitty situation, time to return the favor.