dadi,
I think that HB hasn't done his homework. As you point out his guesstimate of the value of his vehicle seems very inaccurate. This leads me to wonder if his guesstimate of repair cost is also off. Posting for advice while spouting meaningless figures will lead to bad advice. He needs to get the "blue book" value. There are web-sites that do this. He needs to get some repair estimates. There are repair shops that will gladly do this.
Dave M.
His estimate of the value MAY be pretty close. It may be a badly clapped out and beaten to death POS that really is NOT worth fixing, and he's hoping to come out ahead. Just the hassle of having to buy a "new" vehicle, to some people, is worth $500 or more - so the clapped out POS could be worth more to him than the truck is really worth.
Not terribly likely scenario, but quite possible.
Happens all the time. I had a '67 Skylark, knew it up and down, and it was the best tracking car I ever had. Body wasn't perfect, big deal, that's why I got it for $500. Drove it a couple years. Kid hit it while it was in front a house we were partying in on New Year's Eve. Had to chase him to his house because he took off. His dad took care of the insurance. I got book, $600. Wasn't happy about that at all. Paid $1400 for a '74 Dart, cheapest decent car I could find quick, but it wasn't half the car as the Buick.
Good point, but U-Haul knows they have some liability in that they did not instruct the renter on the pecularilarities of the truck.
To go into more detail, my truck was parked and the U-Haul parked next to it. The driver of the TWENTY-TWO foot-long bed U-Haul was evidently unaware that the ass-end of his truck stretched beyond the rear wheels, I'd guess, ten feet. So when he tried to leave, by driving straight ahead and cutting sharply to the left, the tail of his truck swung to the right, scraping my vehicle, removing the rear-view mirror and folding the driver's door. It got the bed, door, and front quarter-panel.
I have learned much from the comments you folks have offered. It's said to a man with a hammer, every solution involves a nail.
I can see where I wanted to rush off to court (having done so countless times) when there are other, perhaps better, tactics to employ.
Once again, thanks to all who earnestly tried to help; it was much appreciated.
So what did you do after you dropped out during the first semester?
If you really did (heybub story telling and all) you should get your $35 that you spent for tuition if a simple under $1,000 damage situation presents such a conundrum.
Sounds like you never read a "heybub" post before?
Had a real nice 1981 Corolla wagon.Catalytic converter overheated and burned the floor mat, console/shifter, and corner of the passenger's seat. The Insurance company wanted to write it off and give me $2000. I said nope, but give me the car and $2000 and we'll call it square. After a couple of hours they said "ok" and gave me a cheque. I paid about $300 for used shifter/console and used carpet (right side only - the left side of the one in the wreckers was damaged) and I put the rest into the "car replacement fund" and drove the corolla another 3 years.
Mother-in-law had a little Mustang coupe - california car with a baked paint job. Her son had bent the rear fender, and they had not gotten around to having the insurance repair it when the wiring harness for the air conditioning (california installed aftermarket) went up in smoke - found out it was because the second cooling fan motor had shorted - and the insurance company wanted to write it off because they didn't want to get caught having to replace a whole wiring harness. They said the car was in rough condition - bad paint and body damage, so they were only going to give her $1500 for it.
I told them they were already on the hook for the body repairs, and it was otherwize in good shape with low mileage etc - I said I thought the car was worth $3200 to replace, and a paint job was under $1000, so the car should be worth $2200. They offered $2200 and the car - I drove it home from Windsor to Waterloo, rewired the AC, replaced the fan motor, fixed the bent rear quarter and repainted it and had over $300 left over when it was finished.
In 1980 I was driving a ?66 lay-down Rambler. An Ambassador 990. I was a broke college grad and about to move out of town for a job. To me, the car was priceless.
A few weeks before i was leaving town, a repair shop was doing some work on the front end, broke a part and couldn't find a replacement that was in any better shape. One day I stopped by to get an update and they told me the car had been stolen. When I reminded them that it wasn't drivable, they just shrugged and said "Yeah, it's pretty strange."
Two days later the police called and told me the car was about a mile from the shop and that the front end was all smashed up. I could be wrong, but it looked to me like someone had backed a tow truck into it. I even checked the repair shop's truck to see if it had green paint on it. No such luck. I had my suspicions but I couldn't prove anything.
Anyway, the Ins Co deemed it totaled and gave me $600. They could care less what I thought the car was worth or what my situation was. What was I going to do with $600 and no car? I ended up putting the money towards a rental, drove to my new town and rode a bicycle for a few months while I saved up for another car.
Uh, thanks for asking. After I COMPLETED law school, I got hired as an adjunct professor of mathematics and computer science by the University of Houston. After one semester there, I went to work for seismic data processing company, then opened a couple of bookstores. Eventually I started my own small software company and today, some 30 years later, am still as happy as the day I struck out on my own.
I figured, correctly, that as long as I was going to work for a fool, that fool might as well be me.
My case was a bit different as I more or less set the value of the car.
It was (is) a 1973 Fiat 124 Spyder, bought new in Honolulu. I live in Florida now and in 2000 the wife and I were driving down the middle lane of a divided highway when a guy pulls out to cross the road. Fine and good but he stopped in the middle of my lane. I couldn't change lanes, cars in both, so I did what I had to do...I hit him.
I had been doing about 50, managed to slow to maybe 30 and veered a bit to the left so I would hit ahead of the driver door where I was aimed. It bent in his wheel well, pull it out and he was good. However, the Fiat front end was pretty shot.
I don't recall what State Farm wanted to give me - they wanted to total it - but it wasn't enough so I found a duplicate car on eBay listed at $4500 for "buy it now". That's what they gave me: $4500. Plus the car. I bought a California car for $900, shipped it to Florida for $600. The CA car was a
1974 - a year newer - and the engine and transmission were less than great but the body was excellent and were the same as mine except for the bumper and I had a spare of that.We drove both cars to a body shop and they took the front clip - radiator, both fenders, hood, gril, etc. - from the CA car and put them on mine. Charged $3,000. That shot the $4500 insurance money exactly.
The parts car is sitting "out back" under some oak trees, busily rotting away. My Fiat is sittng in the garage. It needs an alignment but other than that it is pristine. I drove it home from the body shop but not since. Why? Because the body shop tool a year - a YEAR! - to do their thing and in the interim we had purchased another car. We really have no need for two cars and I really should sell it (they sell now for $5500 - $18,000, mine is maybe a 9-10K car) but I keep it for auld lang syne...that was the car of my best days and we have been through a lot...I've driven it on unguarded gravel roads in mountains with sheer cliffs...down stream beds...all over Mexico; I've suffered through multiple damages caused to it over may years by inept mechanics; I drove it every day for 27 years. I kinda miss it.
Which is pretty much the same thing. If the vehicle is only worth $2,000 and it would cost $4,000 to fix it, they will typically only pay the $2,000, just like they would if they were paying for it under a collision policy. That puts you back where you would have been without the accident. Actually, you'd be a little better off, because if it were your own car, under a collision policy, a typical deductible of $500 or $1000 would apply and you'd only get $1,000 -
You can go to court, but the court's concept of making you whole is pretty much the same. If the truck was only worth $2000, as shown by credible sources, that's what you will recover. The insurance company may be willing to kick in some additional money to avoid going to court, but if it gets to court, the rules apply.
I suspect that if you get aMaybe if it only exceeds the value of the vehicle by a small amount. But they're typically not going to pay $5,000 to fix a car that's only worth $2,000.
Get their offer in
And better make sure that documentation includes blue book proof that the car is worth more than they are offering.
I've learned from my lawyer sons that most disputes are settled without going to court even when lawyers are involved.
One son did help me when my car was totaled and drivers insurance company was dragging its feet. Letter from lawyer can work wonders. Also resulted in a settlement higher than book value for pain and suffering sort of thing.
The bottom line on this is insurance settlements for an older totaled car is "usually" is a net loss for the car owner. Your post reminded me of what happened to my son's car. Story time. It was a late 80's Cutlass with 3800 engine. He was commuting from Chicago to Champagne while attending U of I. Christmas break I had it at my mechanic to fix some issue. Great mechanic in Niles, IL. M&N Repairs. Very low crime area. Wayne, the head mech and owner calls me the day before New Year's and says the car is ready. Told him I'd get it Jan 2nd. So I go there, go right inside, but I didn't see the car. It's an old gas station with room to park about 8 cars outside without interfering with the tow/plow trucks. So he hands me the keys and I pay him the charge. He's standing there smiling at me while I wait for him to tell me where the cars is. Finally I say, "Where's the car?" He thinks I'm joking, so I repeat it. He thought I already picked it up with spare keys. Took a bit before he realized I really hadn't picked up the car. In the 25 years he had the garage, a car had never been stolen. He said the car was there during the day on New Years Eve, so we knew it was taken that night. Reported the theft to Niles PD, and a couple days later they called and said it was impounded on the far south side of Chicago. Surprisingly, it had no damage. Not even the ignition. Think it cost about a bill to get it out of the pound. No sympathy there. A few days later on the way back to school in the car, my son gets pulled over by the State Police. He's cuffed and taken to the local jail for driving a stolen car. Took some phone calls to clear that up, and I had to show up at Niles PD to get them to correct the records.
"dadiOH" wrote in news:kh7ddd$pdo$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
[snip of interesting tale]Nice story, but you overdid it here:
I call bullshit. A FIAT??? Every day for 27 years? No way in the world.
Neat. You worked that well. Did the body shop charge include a paint job? No rust? I can't imagine a 70's era car not rusting out where I live.
On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 06:32:53 -0600, "HeyBub" wrote in Re Re: Insurance qustion:
It's amazing how many lawyers find happiness after *leaving* law. I believe there is a lesson to be learned there.
Yep. Take the 1500 and if they won't give you the truck, buy it back for the 'book' as adjusted for damage.
Harry K
Harry K
I bought a used extended caravan for 900 bucks, had it some months and found a valve was going bad:( Didnt know what to do about that......
Van got rear ended:( Because of its age it got totaled for 1400 bucks. They didnt ask if it had any mechanical problems, and I didnt volunteer any info, Insurance also paid for my wifes lost day of work, she had to come get me.. and a small settlement for pain and suffereing like 500 bucks, I hurt but didnt go to doctor.. Oh and a rental car for a weekend getaway since my wifes car was having troubles. I almost felt guilty for the rental:(
At the time we were really broke so the extra money came in hand and I was glad I didnt have to worry about the bad valve.......
later I bought another van......that was far better than the one that got totaled.
Having any injury changes the equation dramatically. The insurance company is going to be a lot more willing to settle the whole thing for a couple thousand, even if it means paying more than the vehicle is worth, because an injury case can potentially escalate into a lot of money.
Oh and a
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