Total Loss on a Salvage Title Car

[Dwarf]

Here is the story so far:

My parked Civic with a salvage title was hit by another car. The driver of the other car has accepted liability already and my insurance company did an estimate on the cost to fix...

The amount it costs to fix it is already greater than the value of the car.

However, the estimate that they did on the actual cash value was around $7K with a clean title. They had an appraiser reduce this value by 35% for the salvage title prior to the actual accident. He basically went and called up dealerships and checked what the value would be reduced by for a salvaged title compared to a clean title car.

I did my own analysis using Autotrader.com listings and got an estimate of $7.6K so I told the claims adjustor that this is my value on the car prior to salvage title in current market.

He said that his analysis was accurate and based on that, it should be $7K and after some discussion we finally agreed to $7.3K now or so.

Before I agree to the 35% salvage price reduction, I am wondering if it is a fair salvage price reduction or not? I did some Googling and I found that salvage titles are reduced in price by 20-50% so the 35% seems fair, but just checking with you guys if any of you have experience with this type of thing before...

 

[James Bond]

Doesn't seem too unreasonable.

 

[JDub02]

35% sounds reasonable.

before you accept it, make sure you don't get screwed. before the accident, you had a non-smashed (i'm assuming) vehicle. now it's all banged up. the insurance company should restore you to your prior state. i wouldn't accept anything less.

if you can get a replacement vehicle for what they want to give you, great. if the insurance company totals your car and never takes it, also good, depending on how bad it is.

just make sure you don't wind up worse off than you were before. insurance companies are really good at screwing people.

 

[AlienCraft]

Take the money and run.

 

[Farang]

Someone wants you give you $4800 for a salvage title? You are a lucky man.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Farang
Someone wants you give you $4800 for a salvage title? You are a lucky man.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Unfortunately, insurance is rarely enough to bring you all the way back to where you were before the accident. When my brother totaled our 1995 Honda Accord several years ago, we were able to buy a '96 Accord as a replacement, but it was much worse. The '95 had been driven extremely lightly by our grandparents and only had around 50k miles on it despite being ten years old. The replacement had been driven rather hard by its previous owners, had a few dents and scratches, some of the power windows were slow or got off track easily, and it had over 130k miles when we got it.

I'd just recommend not getting a salvage next time. What year was the Civic? How many miles did it have?

 

[halik]

Pretty much in the ball park,

Dealing with insurance on a salvage title car is a bitch. How much of a discount did you when you bought it with salvage title compared to clean-titled cars? If you bought it for $6500 when clean titled civics were going for $10K, then you're in a good spot.

 

[LTC8K6]

Billy mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is...