Please help, Car was in an accident

[mrcrazybutt]

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[CrimsonRockett]

You're coming out $4200 ahead with your insurance company.

See what their insurance company is willing to pay for the car. Show them what 97-98 S14's are going for (autotrader, craigslist, etc) and go from there.

The damage appears to be mostly cosmetic.

Obviously repairing the car back to OE spec will cost significantly more than going with overs (Chargespeed for that OE look).

[Mitsubayati]

looks like you just need a new door and overs. get the most out of either insurance company, buy the car back, invest the money in a door, the chargespeed overs and a paint job. pocket the rest. end of story.

[mrcrazybutt]

looks like you just need a new door and overs. get the most out of either insurance company, buy the car back, invest the money in a door, the chargespeed overs and a paint job. pocket the rest. end of story.

Thanks for replying guys. I guess my question is, Do i have the right to have both insurance look at it and come up with a number and I get to choose which insurance will pay for it?

[silviaks2nr]

It will cost more than that to fix whether you weld on a quarter panel or do overs. You still need a bumper, fender, headlight, and door. A decent paint job is $3000 and you can't not paint the whole car .

You should be able to get them to 6 or 7k at least.

[Kuma]

Ask a lawyer, most of them do a free consultation.

[mrcrazybutt]

How much does insurance usually sell cars back for?

[turbo2nr]

Go though INS. Try for the body shop to keep the estimate below 5500 or else the car may get totaled out. Good luck I hate to see a clean s14 get hit..

[jorge1190]

You can go through the other insurance compan . As a claimant you will have more pull because they did the damage. I'm an insurance adjuster.

[japslapsilvia]

Why is your insurance company even involved? i could understand a Hit and run, or hit by non insured individual, but if you were hit by a person that has insurance, your ins company really doesn't even need to know about it. Their policy has to cover the damages to your car. I've had an instance where i was hit, their ins company totaled the car, cut me a check, and i bought the car back from them. My insurance company could care less about the situation.

[Cash]

Why is your insurance company even involved? i could understand a Hit and run, or hit by non insured individual, but if you were hit by a person that has insurance, your ins company really doesn't even need to know about it. Their policy has to cover the damages to your car. I've had an instance where i was hit, their ins company totaled the car, cut me a check, and i bought the car back from them. My insurance company could care less about the situation.

That's what I was wondering too. Also, doesn't the car end up with a salvage title if an insurance company totals it? Might be worth seeing if they'll pay out just under the total threshold, which would keep the clean title, and you wouldn't have to buy it back. I don't even know if that's possible, though..

[mrcrazybutt]

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[jorge1190]

You need to do some research about salvage title laws. Ask the insurance companies. Some states with the age and value of the cars you may not need a salvage title.

Chances are both insurance companies will use the same valuation method. Get the other insurance company involved and get their value. You can then find cars similar to yours for sale in the local area and present it as proof for a value revision.

Even if an accident is not your fault sometimes it is easier to go through your own policy and have the insurance companis fight it out. This is very common when both parties are injured and exchanging info isn't an option.

[Reece]

Even going with your insurance company wouldn't be a horrible deal. You could easily repair all of that with the $4200 left over after buying it back.

[mrcrazybutt]

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[silviaks2nr]

JMO $4200 is not enough to repair that properly even if you do all of the labor (besides the bodywork) yourself. Like I said the whole car will need to be repainted + all the parts you need.

Door- 200
headlight/corner- 250
bumper- 300
OEM quarter weld on/bodywork $1500 (including removing window)
or
chargespeed overfenders + fitting by body shop $1000
Paint $3000

You need to have at least $5500 cash after getting the car back to come out ahead. And even then "coming out ahead" is subjective. In the end you still have a car that's been in a serious collision and a whole lot of aggravation and possible sweat equity to go along with that. You really need to haggle with the insurance company- and your insurance company can help. This is why I have mine covered as a classic car @ $12,000

[burnsauto]

I'm a professional autobody tech for the daily grind.

The buy back option they're giving you is based off the NADA list price for that car, assuming its a base, non leather, non sunroof model, the rough trade in (and I would consider the car's current condition now being rough) is 1475, so that's where they're getting that number from.

As far as repairing it, back to OE specs (please resists "fixing" a problem with shit frp panels), you'll use about every penny having a shop bringing it back to normal (quickly adding up the amount of body labor, paint labor, materials, and parts needed for the job), and this is just with the damage you can see.

When making your decision, just remember they only made 3655 S14's in 1997.

[mrcrazybutt]

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[burnsauto]

Just remember, they only made so many of these cars.


Its fixable. The inner wheel housing on the quarter looks like it's pushed in a little, but nothing a little pull couldn't straighten out. Past that, it looks like a replacement used door, and a quarter panel. You're rocker is hard to see in that photo, so I'm not sure what to expect with that.

[rbpwrd240]

I know this thread has something going on my guess is OP decided to remove his comments incase insurance scoped this but being informed on your options when dealing with insurance isnt illegal. I figured I would post some information that has helped me and others deal with our totaled kouki's.

First thing first dont let them total the car. They are almost always going to but they cant total it until they have your title. Make sure if your keeping the car to do an owner retain so they cant swap you with a slavaged title.

I recently went through buying my kouki back and starting the repair process. You took all your info off the thread so I dont know about your perticular situation but in my case I got hosed.

I had the insurance get whats called a guaranteed bid on the car. Anotherwords someone promises to pay that value once its scraped. This will be lower then their claimed buy back price becouse that price is a high end price. That should open up a few more houndred for you.

Next go get your own comparables. Any listing with a vin can be used to get a fair market value, zilvia, ebay and autotrader is what I used. They will also get their own comparables. Make sure these cars have all the same options as yours and are good representations of your car. If they dont refuse to allow them to use non comparable cars. In my case after closer inspection my comparables for my mint 98 kouki was a 97 stripped with no clear coat paint no radio no cd player no cruise etc. and it was no power anything. Anotherwords it was a junk yard car sold for 5k that they were trying to compare to my car.

Another good tip is that OEM upgrades can become options. See OEM optional strut bar upgrade. these items will bring up your cars value and your end nut. Our cars are some of the hardest to decode by the vin. Outside standard options like cd/leather tint cruise etc. They are clueless to what else you have. Make a long list of options with pricing for each and submit that to the insurance company, ALL OPTIONS MUST BE oem parts. JDM din gAUGES, STRUT BARS SHIFT KNOBS, ETC.

Do NOT release your title. The longer this goes the more it cost's them. They have to settle with you before they can move the car and storing it etc is all being paid by the insurance company. The longer you fight the more they will get desperate to finish the claim.

In my situation I got the car back with a claimed value of 5200 and a buy back of 1600. I ended up with 3600 in cash and my car with a owner retained non salvaged title. I figured since I had all the body panels already (JDM) I could fix it for this but alas I was wrong. My car is the WKO pearl paint which means expensive paints, $1000 in paint and primer then a full respray as you cant blend the pearl. I also cant spray the pearlescent myself as it is very easy to screw up. Being that I want a near perfect car when Im done Im looking at

1000 in paint
1000 in frame work
2000 to have the car sprayed. Thats with me doing all the stripping etc



Wihtout even taking into cosideration for the fender, bumper, headlights etc Im out over 4k and the car isnt even finished yet. Im guessing it will be a 7-8k dollar repair but I am also doing some bushinggs and a full jdm conversion.

Hope this info helps and its not too late.

One last tip screw their mileage deductions if its high miles just remind them this is a collectible car and high milage doesnt effect resale. Again "comparables" are your best friend here too.

Dont be rude, tell them that you understand their just doing their job and if you could find a car at the price you would just move on but most times they will be about half the actual market value less then your car. Work them as close as you can but know from the begining you arent going to get 10k for your kouki from your insurance company. The closer to florida and mid west you are the less money you will get as they use local comparables so the Cali cars all factory pulling big money wont help you if you live in florida.