I had an accident recently and liability insurance only. I have a 2001 Oldsmobile Alero. I was wondering if my car is totaled or even worth fixing? I was hit on the driver side in the rear. My rear wheel is caved in and rear passenger door is smashed. The car still runs but is not drive able. I was not able to get out of my car thru the driver door even tho it was not hit.
Is the Kelly Blue Book value for this rig less than $1,000? … I had to guess at some things about your car and the price I came up with is for my local market … but that was $400 to $900 …
Those look like expensive repairs, more than the car is worth … if you’re looking for support to get that Mazda roadster you’ve always wanted, you’ve come to the right place …
It’s not worth fixing. In my area, you can buy a solid Alero for $1200. You can probably scrap your car for $500. To be worth fixing, you’d have to fix it for $700. My friend had similar looking damage on a much newer Kia Optima. The body shop charged her $4500. I don’t think you’ll get that fixed correctly for less than the value of the car.
You should file a claim against the other driver’s insurance.
You shouldn’t regret not carrying comprehensive insurance on the car. Not paying those premiums for three or four years will probably save you enough money to buy a replacement car. If you total cars more than every three or four years, your insurance rates will be too high to make comprehensive insurance worth it.
That car is bent. It’s not just a few panels and the rear suspension; the floor pan is likely to be twisted. It is not repairable at any reasonable cost compared to its value.
The person did not have insurance. We were both ticketed as it was my fault I literally thought it was safe to cross the 4 way street making a left. I did not see the other car. I’m a very safe driver for the most part. I have accident forgiveness on my policy thankfully and I have to pay for traffic school so ticket wont stay on my record. The thing is ive put lot money into this car over the years and I can’t afford not to have a vehicle. Where i live I have no friends or family to help me out. I have had the car for 7 years and just recently put new tires, radiator brakes within the last 2 yrs. I just had the oil sensor and IAC replaced these past couple months. This car has been in and out of shops thru the years I’ve owned it. I know how much my vehicle is worth on the market. I knew not carrying full coverage on it was smart because they would probably of totaled it anyways. The tow place where it was towed to the lady told me she will give me till wednesday to give her the title. I was told by a body shop they probably wont give me anything for the car. Is this legal?
I have some savings for a basic new car but I want one with the latest safety features and that will be reliable. Speaking of Kia i’ve been looking at newer Optimas! The problem with me getting a new vehicle is I have very little income and it comes from disability. I have excellent credit but read its hard to get a loan if you have disability income. I need to try to find part time work if i’m able to do so as i’m not able to hold a full time job.
By bent do you mean the frame is bent? The floor pan is that like the under carriage of the car? Sorry if I sound ignorant I don’t know much about cars when it comes to the mechanics and such. I’m aware of my cars poor value unfortunately.
I had a Kia for a while. They’re good cars, though mine was on the basic side. I would never buy a new car if I were in your position. Get one that’s a few years’ old and has suffered most of the depreciation.
You are correct on this however I need a vehicle that is under warranty that would help greatly! I know its best to buy a new car at the end of the year because they discount the outgoing model year to make room for the new. The Sonata and Optima I read have basically all the same features just the design is different. As for the Mazda 6 i’ve given that thought too.
My other worry is the Kia’s not sure about the other cars but previous to the 2016 models they were involved in the Takata airbag recall.
As far as a car loan, try a credit union. You’ll need to open an account with them (probably) and they may be leery about giving a loan to a new customer, but in general credit unions are going to try to help you.
I have been with a credit union since 2010. They actually helped me build new credit when I had bad credit. Weather or not they would loan to me given my situation I’m not sure. What if a dealership has 0% APR for 60 months promotion going on?
The other problem I have is getting new car insurance with a claim on file. Geico does not offer Gap insurance so i’d have to switch providers.
My other option if I can’t get a new car is i’ve been looking into Enterprise Car Share. It seems maybe worth doing since I need a vehicle only on occasion.
You may get 0% for 60 months, but you’ll certainly have to make a down payment; the credit union will probably let you finance the whole thing.
My CU also offers–and your may too–a free service called Autoland which looked around to find the best price in the area on the (new) car I wanted and had it delivered to a CU branch near me.
My credit union would have sold me gap insurance if I had needed it, too.
Yes I’m aware i’d have to put a down payment down. I do have some savings. My CU has a site called True Car which you can purchase from and get a member discount and special financing. But its a nationwide site anyone can purchase from. The Autoland site you told me about I looked into it seems to be nationwide as well. I’m not sure if my CU would sell me gap insurance. I think if I switch auto insurance providers i’ll have a high premium because of the claim. I have accident forgiveness on Geico. Everyone i’ve spoken to about my car says its not worth fixing.
Ok, this is a weird backwater of terminology, IMHO. Your Alero is (well, was) of unibody construction, and as such has no frame. Buses and trucks are typically built using body-on-frame construction, but virtually no passenger cars are built this way anymore.
That said, I hear body shop people say things like “it’s totaled…the frame rails are bent” all the time when talking about unibody cars. As far as I can tell, they’re referring to major, otherwise-unnamed structural components of the unibody (as opposed to, say, the A pillars or the fender). “Floor pan,” as bob++ used it, is both colloquially accurate and technically accurate, IMHO. A twisted floor pan would be an enormous pain to cut out and replace, as would a “bent frame” on a body-on-frame vehicle.
A unibody car chassis has stiffening members (heh!) built into the unibody. These aren’t technically frame rails or parts of a frame, but I understand why it’s convenient to refer to them by that name. It makes things confusing for people who don’t know the lingo, though.
Sometimes these idiosyncratic terms can cause real frustration, especially in discussions with people who have only a shallow understanding of automobile construction. I once had an argument with an insurance adjuster over whether a fender was dented. He was accusing me of lying when I said it was dented. This confused me because we were both looking at the same photo, and there was an obvious dent above the rear wheel well. After ten minutes I realized that the adjuster didn’t believe that rear fenders existed, and that the portion of the body covering the back wheel could only be referred to as a quarter-panel. In his world, fenders (which he still called “front fenders”) enclosed front wheel wells while quarter panels (“rear quarter panels,” to him) enclosed rear wheel wells.
Never mind that using the term “front fender,” as this genius did, implies the existence of rear fenders. Also, sports cars often sport “fender flares” to cover wide wheels. People who know cars would understand what you meant if you said “quarter panel flares,” but they’d think you had no idea what you were talking about.
“Fender” is a slightly outdated term, but it’s nearly synonymous with “quarter panel” in most contexts. Frankly, I’d argue that a competent insurance adjuster should have understood what I meant in context. Part of the problem was that he kept saying (stridently!) “I don’t see a dented fender in that picture.” We were able to move on when he finally admitted that, while he saw no dented fender, there was a dented quarter panel in the photo before us.
The upshot is that your unibody car is, unfortunately, totaled. The unibody is irreparably bent, and you’re likely to hear “the frame is bent,” which essentially means “not economically repairable” regardless of whether your vehicle has a unibody. Also, insurance adjusters are often jerks who don’t know much about cars or driving.
I agree but I think you mean “collision.” Comprehensive protects against non-driving losses, like theft, vandalism, acts of God. Collision covers you if you have an accident and do not have a claim against another driver (i.e., your fault, or no-fault insurance).
Then what did the other driver get ticketed for? This might not be your fault, depending on the laws in your state. In some states the other driver would have been held at fault for failing to prevent a preventable accident.
This doesn’t make sense. The tow shop has no right to the title, unless they are offering to buy your car for scrap value. You can do whatever you want with your car, but if it’s not drivable it limits your options. If you don’t want them to keep it, then you would have to arrange to have your car towed somewhere else, which will cost more in money and trouble than it’s worth. But first ask them what they would offer you for salvage value.
No i have no way of knowing if the unibody is bent or not just from the pics, i’ve seen worse and yet the frame measured straight, ive also seen slightly bent that was perfectly drivable.
but the damage i see in the pic can be fixed.
Rim i would have spun to see it it is bent (probably is. but you never know)
You can get the entire rear axle assembly from a local pick N pull.
As no insurance company is involved, you can get that fixed.
You’ll need a replacement door and a replacement strut assembly (and a few small parts in the general area of that damaged strut.)
Parts should be available from wreckers as many other Alero must be beyond repair for other reasons.
You are absolutely correct. I meant to say that Sumatra5 didn’t need collision or comprehensive and somehow I got stuck on referring to comprehensive. Thanks for the correction.
We’ve crossed into IMHO territory here but it seems that you want a new car. You might want to think about what the least expensive option to serve your needs is. I doubt that’s a new car.
If you have money for a down payment, ask yourself how good a car you can buy with just the down payment money, saving a little for taxes and registration fees. If you shop around and you are flexible about what kind of car you buy, you can probably get a decent used car for $2,000 to $3,000. It might not be the fanciest or the most prestigious, but you’ll save money on financing and insurance. Set that money aside for the inevitable car repair and you’ll probably be far ahead.
0% financing generally comes with new cars. Do you really need a new car? If a used car lot offered me 0% financing, I would assume that the down payment they are asking for is equal to the value of the car and the rest of the payments they collect are just profit. I would never buy a car from a place like that.
The money you put into the car over the years is irrelevant. It’s a sunk cost. There is nothing you can do now to get that money back. You shouldn’t use the fact that you spent money on the car to justify spending too much to fix it now. The $1,200 Alero I mentioned above? It has tires and brakes too. So do lots of other $2,000 used cars. I would recommend finding one of those that doesn’t need thousands of dollars in repairs.
This also probably belongs in IMHO, but the car was towed away. You likely owe a tow charge for that. The car has also been stored somewhere. You likely owe storage fees for that, and they are probably accumulating daily.
How much do you owe in tow and storage fees? I don’t know. Did you sign a tow contract? If so, check how much you owe since the day it was towed there.
If you didn’t sign a tow contract, is it because the police ordered the car towed? If so, how much are the tow company and the storage lot allowed to charge? This is probably more money than you would have paid if you’d hired the tow company yourself.
So, you owe the tow company and the storage yard money. How much? Can you pay this amount and if you did, how would you get the car out of their storage lot?
If you can find a scrapyard willing to pay you for the car and pick it up from the tow yard in a timely manner, and if the car is worth more than the accumulated tow and storage fees, you might be able to sell the car for cash, pay off the tow and storage fees, and then pocket the difference. This will be aggravating and probably won’t net you much cash. If the scrapyard says they can pick the car up on Wednesday, you’ll owe two more days’ storage fees. If they fail to pick it up on Wednesday, you’re stuck.
If the tow and storage fees are worth more than the car, the tow lot might be telling you that they will be willing to take the title to the car to satisfy the fees you owe. This could make the most sense for you. If you want to do this, read the contract they offer you carefully. Make sure that the tow lot agrees in writing that signing over the title will satisfy all the tow fees, storage fees, and other fees and debts that you owe them. You don’t want to sign over the title and then have them come after you for more money because they didn’t get enough money selling your car to cover what you owe them.
If you have little income, a new car doesn’t sound like a great idea. You need an affordable, reliable used car. Best wishes getting something that suits your needs.
Do you not have uninsured motorist insurance? Check your policy. It’s usually part of a standard policy, and is very cheap. You can have it without collision insurance.
You should not admit fault, let insurance figure that out. And if both were ticketed, that suggests that the police thought the share of responsibility was not 100% your fault, as many states allow proportioning of liability (some do not).
“Totalled” in insurance terms means that the value of the car is less than the repair cost. It generally means that it will cost you to get it back, yes. And you probably have a deductible? I recommend shopping for a “new” (as in used) car.
