What a day! Bad accident on the way to get TT

bodyshop bob wrote:

TInmania wrote:

ugh wrote:

The insurance will give us 12,400 minus 1,000 deductible. Not bad for a 11 years old bare bone truck with only 70K miles.

I took my brake controller out while I was waiting for the tow truck. No way I would let that go. I got the rest of the stuff today.

Any chance you can buy your totalled truck from the insurance company? They will be selling it to a salvage company for a very low price. They will sometimes/often let you have it for the same price.

For the amount they are giving you there is a chance you can get it repaired for less. You could even come out ahead, especially if you know someone who can do the repairs or if you can live with some minor cosmetic damage. Their own repair estimate is possibly or even probably lower than what they are giving you, since they will total it if the estimate is 80%, give or take, of the book value.

Granted you will have a salvage title, but if you intend to keep it for a while it won't matter too much.





Michael

I'd advise strongly not to think about repairing a truck with a damaged frame unless you could find a decent used frame to replace. Typically, shops try to pull frames straight and depending on what type of steel that can cause brittle points. Best bet is to verify the offer price from the Insurance company (call your local bank and ask them what Fair Market Value is for your truck)and never try to accept the first offer. Point out that your truck has significantly lower mileage than the average truck that old. Ask to see the "comps" the Insurance company used to value your truck. How far away did they have to search to find three similar trucks? Make a very reasonable counter offer (say 10% higher) and see what happens. Worth spending a few hours in research before agreeing to the deal. Who knows, the Insurance company may have shot you a good 1st offer but you'll never know unless you do some homework.

Even if you don't repair it you can often make more by buying back the vehicle if it is still in rather good shape.

We got hit by lightning last fall in a 2010 Nissan Altima, about 30 minutes before Blythe, CA on CA-78 in the middle of nowhere (a very jarring experience--LOUD). The insurance company totalled it because the dealer immediately claimed it needed 6 computers to even get it to talk to them--and then who knows what was fried thereafter. I got 14,500.00 from Farmers after negotiating and I bought the car back for 1,000. The body was in perfect condition, aside from a dimple in the roof where the antenna was zapped by the strike.

I picked up the main engine control module (used) and when that was installed everything else worked. The cost for the antenna and body shop repair for the roof damage was under a thousand. Car was fine after that. Amazingly, even the radio worked fine. You would think that would have been destroyed.

Even if I didn't fix it I could have parted it out for more than I paid to keep it.




Michael