Hmmm ... do I want my car to be totaled or not?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was in an accident last week. The good news is that no one was hurt and that is the other driver was so clearly at fault that her insurance company has already accepted liability. I have a rental car I’m driving around on their dime, which is a kinda nice treat all on its own.

But my car might end up being totaled. It’s not driveable and the dealer is working on a repair estimate now. I have a 2002 Mazda Protege5 with quite low mileage (still under 67K) and I really like it and it gets decent mileage (over 30 mpg). The Kelly value for one in good condition is $3300.

I don’t like the idea of buying a used car (I bought mine new), mostly because I don’t have the skills to assess whether I’m getting a good deal or not. Plus it’s just much harder to deal with picking among a zillion used deals rather than a much smaller number of used card.

And I hate to shop anyway.

2

If you bought new in 2002, you’ve had quite a few years to save towards a new car. You’re probably going to get around $3,300 for your current one. Just buy a new one now.

3

I’m sure I would have saved more, had I not been unemployed for 3+ years since, faced foreclosure and burned through every penny of savings I had.

4

As with most such things, the devil is in the details. What was damaged and how badly? Was the frame bent? Does the entire suspension need replacing? Or is the damage not all that bad but given the age of the car, parts and labor costs of repair add up to more than simply writing it off.

5

Did you airbags deploy? If so, you can probably count on a “total loss” based on your stated KBB.

6

If the cost to repair is more than the current value of the car, the insurance company will total it. You can choose to receive the full value of the car, let’s say $3,300 and the insurance company will take possession of the car and salvage it. Or you can keep the car and the insurance company will pay the value of the car less its salvage value, approx. $500. So you will get the unrepaired car and say $2,800. If you decide to keep the car, you will most likely have to get a new title to the car, as a “salvage title”, check your particular state’s rules.

The cost to get it drivable is usually different than the cost to repair the damage, which normally includes a lot of cosmetic repair.

7

I’ve never seen an insurance company use the Kelley Blue Book in determining a car’s worth. They have their own references that are considerably less than the KBB value. They will refer to the “Actual Cash Value”, or ACV.

In general, having the Insurance company total your car is a bad thing. They will not give you what you believe your car is worth. Or, put another way, they will offer to settle for considerably less than what the car is worth to you. Since your car is 12 years old, unless there is just minor body damage that needs repairing, they are going to total it since in their minds, your car is only worth about $2700 and just the paint job is going to take about one-third to two-thirds of that (depending on how much will need to be painted).

You might get a little leverage in negotiating the ACV if you check out Auto Trader and other sources of what your car is actually selling for. A lot depends on your location. I found this Auto Trader, which appears to be close to what your had in your OP. A lot depends on your local car market. For example, the one in the link was listed for $4900. In the NYC area, they are more like $2900.

Good Luck!

8

My 2001 Chevy Prizm was just totaled. A very large tree fell on it and squished it. I thought it would be worth about $1500 or $1800 as it had very high mileage. ACV turned out to be over $3,000, which was a pleasant surprise. However, much as I liked that car, it was not really a loss for me, since I had just bought a new car and was considering the old one a “spare” until I got around to donating it. That tree saved me the trouble of getting it donated. :slight_smile:

In about 1999, my 1992 Tercel was broadsided by a hit-and-run, probably drunk driver while legally parked on the street. I thought it was going to be a total loss but my insurance company decided to repair it. That car was never the same after the repair. It still ran (the damage was mostly on the door) but it just never felt the same.

9

Kelly values are bullshit.

Running some guesses thru Edmunds shows your car @
$2400 Trade in
$3080 Private party(this is about the same as KBB)
and
$4241 for Dealer.

Dealer is the price you should be getting as it’s what you’d have to pay to replace your car.

Dont accept their values. Research your car. get ads, etc.

10

Sorry, my comment was more about the costs about reseting the airbags than about how the worth of the car. IIRC from my last experience with this, the cost for that alone was in the range of $1000, per side.

11

That’s not been my experience. I’ve had two cars totaled. One caught fire - it was an old Ford Taurus that I was planning to sell. I had just taken it to several used car dealers and none offered me more than $1,100. I might have been able to sell it for $2,500 to $3,000 on my own. When it caught fire, it was totaled and the insurance company gave me a check for $4,000. Best thing that could have happened to the pile of crap - and no, I didn’t burn it.

More recently, my wife’s car was demolished when she was sitting at an intersection (not her fault, and thankfully she wasn’t hurt beyond some minor bruises). The insurance company paid at the very high end of dealer sale value (not trade-in or private sale), and they included an extra amount to pay for sales tax over and above the vehicle value.

As to the OP’s predicament, yeah I think the insurance company will “total” it. I would very likely take the money rather than try to salvage the car unless the damage is really only cosmetic with no structural damage. Since the airbags went off, I’d almost certainly take the money.

12

It really depends on what the damage actually is. When you’re driving an older car, it doesn’t take a whole lot to total the car and sometimes it really can make sense to try to get the insurance company not to total it or to buy it back from them afterwards.

Of course, another thing to consider is that if you did have any plans of selling it in the next few years, having a major repaired accident on the vehicle history is going to somewhat reduce the value and in some states even if you don’t take the total loss amount the title will still be branded which will result in a major reduction in resale value. But if the car is still in good mechanical shape and the damage is mostly superficial, I wouldn’t hesitate trying to keep it.

13

I forgot to address this part. You have a shitty Insurance company. I’ve had two totals in the last 3 yrs, in both cases I received more than I paid for the car.

14

FYI, i haven’t heard back from the shop yet – no real surprise because I was told Friday that half their staff was out for the holidays.

No one’s airbags deployed, probably because I hit her obliquely. My left front corner ran into her passenger door.

I’m certainly willing to forgo a paint job and minor body work. There’s a lot of scraping but nothing seriously deformed – for instance, there doesn’t appear to be anything that bent into an obstruction in the wheel well.

Another FYI, while I don’t know exactly what’s wrong, it’s something in the suspension and/or steering. The steering wheel is no longer aligned with the car’s wheels, and as I speed up, there is audible thump thump thump as well a fairly significant vibration. I only drove it home about 2 miles, but there didn’t appear to be any problem with the engine or transmission.

15

This is what a couple of people at work have told me – that their experience was a payout larger than they expected.

The liable insurance company is Cincinnati Insurance. Mine is State Farm, and my insurance guy tells me that the other company is reputable.

16

I totaled a car about a year ago. The other driver’s insurance company accepted responsibility and made me a ‘fairish’ offer.

I pointed out to them that my car, which I had bought new and just paid off, had some extra features that I wanted to be compensated for (leather seats, premium stereo, back-up camera, etc). The insurance surprised me by upping their offer a bit (maybe $600.00- I forget) and of course I got a bit for ‘pain and suffering’ (shouldn’t that be called ‘inconvenience’?).

I was worried that they would want to fix my car, too. If they had fixed it, I would have (unhappily) given it a fair trial by driving it and then decide if I wanted to trade it in for a non-wrecked car. I don’t know much about cars and don’t really want to know much about them. I’m not good at figuring out what is wrong with them and/or fixing them. For example, I looked under the hood of that car exactly twice in 5 years.

But they did total it, so I used the money to buy a Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) from the dealer. I have been very pleased with the CPO I bought. It was only a year old, comes with the company warranty, and was used as a business lease. It had about 22,000 miles on it but I got a great price on it and it is much, much, nicer than the old one I had.

Of course, I would up with a car note I hadn’t planned on, but with the good price on a CPO and a health down payment from the wreck, the note is not too bad.

I think the only mistake I made was I when settling with the insurance agent: Watch his or her math. The agent wrote out a figure for the car, the pain and suffering, and the additional for the extras like a traditional math problem with the numbers on top of each other, but when he added them all up, the final figure was what he wanted to give me as the total, and not the real total. It was kinda sneaky and I totally fell for it. I don’t know if this will format right and I don’t recall the exact figures now, but it looked something like this:
4400.00 car + 600.00 extras
+$6500.00 ps

10,000 total

He said he would get me a check ‘right now’ and I was tired of the whole process which took about three weeks and tired of sitting in his office that day. The next day, when I thought about it, I felt like he shorted me about $1500.00 but I had already dropped the check in the bank and he refused to return my calls after that.

Good luck to you. Having a wreck is a huge hassle and I’m glad you weren’t hurt.

17

Something to note: the insurance company will very likely try to settle for let than the actual value of the car. You should arm yourself with multiple sources and values. If they offer you $3000, don’t be afraid to tell them it had a full tank of gas, and you want $3045. :wink:

18

Well… I’ve pretty much settled the OP question in my mind … I DO want them to total my car. First choice would be a new car, second choice would be some kind of former fleet vehicle.

Except I don’t know whether I have the credit to make a deal. I was unemployed for a long time, was foreclosed on, had my credit cards shut down, etc. Now I’m out from under the foreclosure and have payment plans in place with the card people, but at best I’m sure I won’t qualify for any of those low APR deals that are being advertised.

19

Update – my car is in fact totaled.

I was really shocked at the payment offer they made – $5620, far more than I expected. I have accepted the offer.

20

I’ve worked in the insurance industry for almost 10 years as an Independent Agent, Claims Adjuster and now as a Premium Auditor and Fraud Investigator for Large Commercial policies. I can attest to the fact that Cincinnati is one of the most fair and ethical companies I’ve dealt with over the years. The same goes for USAA, Auto-Owners and AMICA. State Farm is commonly referred to as State Harm or Snake Farm within the industry…enough said.

Your best scenario will be if the car is totaled and you get fair settlement for it. Then you can purchase the car back for salvage value ($500 or so) and only have the repairs required to make it safe and legal to drive for now. If you choose, you can address any cosmetic repairs in the future when you can afford it.