Questions on a totalled car
 

My wife smacked up the front end of her 04' Jetta pretty good. Does anyone know at what point the insurance company will total it? It books out around $3500. My guess is it will cost at least that to fix it and they will total it. Is there any negotiating with them if they do total it? Do they pay mid book? Low book?

Thanks for any info.

My wife got t-boned in an accord I used to have and they totaled it and due to condition and low mileage I got back more then I bought it for. My ins. does something called fair market value not blue book value so I was ready to argue with them to try to get what I thought was fair and it ended up being more then I expected plus the registration was pro rated as well as the insurance for that vehicle. The fair market value was determined by finding like (similar) vehicles and determining a average market value. But I guess the question you should ask your ins. company is how do they determine the value of the vehicle. I printed several car ads with the intent of proving my vehicle was worth more then they were going to offer however I never needed that.


Our downside was we were sued by the lady who hit her a scammer for sure for 2 mil and it almost went to trial and we both had the same ins. company.



Good Luck and be thankful she is ok, cars can be replaced.

Just got back from the auto body shop. $4k to fix and they said they were under the "threshold" of totaling. At least I don't have to car shop for the wife right now. I never did like that Jetta, but it just won't quit running.

When my camry was totaled out they said the limit was 72% of the value of the car to total. This was a few years ago and I guess they had just changed that number. Not sure if it came down from 75% or went up from 70%.

When my wife wrecked our 04 jetta TDI, two body shops told me it was under threshold with estimates of 3-5k. Farm bureau adjuster looked at it and said he figured 7k to fix. They totaled it and pay me 1000 more than what I thought it was worth. Point here is body shops will bid low just to get the car in and then tell the insurance there was damage they couldn't see. Thus running the bill up past the threshold after the insurance company already owes them money. At this point the insurance may let them fix a car that their adjusters may have otherwise totaled. If you are happy with the car have it fixed and keep rocking. Otherwise push for them to send an adjuster to estimate it before you take it too the body shop.