jsucraig

Who said anything about used car salesman? The OP isn't wanting to buy a vehicle. He isn't wanting to sell a vehicle. He is wanting to get a diminished value check form an insurance company. This should have been mentioned in Post #1, but I digress. The Insurance Company has given him an extremely low ball offer hoping that he will take the money and run.


The Chevy Dealership that performed my repairs was little to no help with the Diminished value claim. Their body shop urged me to do one, but beyond that the sales side of the dealership 'wanted nothing to do with it', there words not mine. Hopefully because they didn't sell that many Corvettes and not just because I didn't buy from them. I contacted a Forum Dealer and within a day after sending them all of my documentation they gave me their estimate of what they would deduct if I were to trade the vehicle in with said damage. They also gave me an estimate for what the private sale would be. In both instances the difference was $5000.00.

The Insurance company of the lady that hit me settled rather eagerly at that price. Could I have gotten more? I don't know and frankly I don't care. The fact is that no matter how much monetary value someone places on a Corvette's Diminished Value it will be difficult if not impossible to sell far at least one full generation cycle.

LbulletM

I wanted some unbiased opinions before revealing the reason. I didn't want everyone to just jump on the "screw the insurance company" or "screw the owner" train and either go high or low. I'm sure you can understand that

jsucraig

I already knew that opinion as soon as the little old lady turned on front of me.
Looks like you are in the same boat as me. Stuck with a beautiful car that no one will know anything was ever done to it until they read the carfax. Then they will never by it. I bet they all married virgins too!

But what a car to be "stuck with".

Cybernetic Medic

It may come down to what state you live in...

http://www.carinsurance.com/kb/content37286.aspx


You may be able to go after the other party's insurance company...

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/car-w...ry?id=10713550

ruxvette

Wow, who pissed in your Wheaties? "used car dealers exist for the sole purpose of taking as much of your money as they can"...I'm sure you think the same of new car dealers, too! But, wait...what about the grocery store when they lure you into the store with sales and then take as much of your money as they can...or the clothing store, the bakery (that darned aroma)...ad nauseam? Businesses are in business to make money. Period. Some are more honest than others, sure. Call that the ethics of the management/owner. Just like the friend you will loan money and the friend you won't.
But to lump all businesses of a specific genre (or ALL business) together? Nah. Your glass must be half full.
Sorry.

LbulletM

Well, the original plan was to sell it and upgrade in a few years, either a newer C6 or a C7. We'll see how that goes after the valuation.

I am. Interesting thing though... we're both insured by State Farm!

Try to keep this on topic, please Don't want it shut down because it turns into a dealer love/hate fest.

And either way the glass is filled, there's room for more beer!

Ratchet Thunderbolt

Nice informational post!

Don-Vette

In my honest opinion, buying a car or even thinking about one with $12,000 damage is preposterous! !!!!! Put down the crack pipe and move away from the table.

billyboy47

if you don't have much money to spend and you really want a vette then i see no problem. just make sure no frame damage or all bets are off. i know money is tight for a lot of folks out there that would love to park their *** in a vette. jmo.

ruxvette

Try to keep this on topic, please Don't want it shut down because it turns into a dealer love/hate fest.

Yup, sorry about that. I wish you well in your dealings with the carrier.

lvjetboy

Granted, repairs may be professional. With an outstanding repair shop, those repairs may even be better than factory.

However. Resale value is driven by perception. Most people buying, will think a car with a history of significant damage may have problems in the future with those repairs. Maybe because they've seen that personally or know someone who had problems with bad repair work in the past. The more the repair cost the more likely that perception.

Makes sense?

Even reputable car dealers, like my wives BMW dealer said they would not offer her a trade-in value after her Mini Cooper was rear-ended (other party at fault) and repaired by their facility. Repair cost was about $5k. But they had a note of "frame damage" in the record even though it's unibody, and the service manage said "frame damage" was difficult to categorize for unibody construction as our damage was minor and not really frame related. From our perspective the damage was repaired to like new.

Thing is, resale value is at least $5k less than her car without damage. And the dealer we purchased from will not take our car as a trade-in because of their maintenance records even though their company did the repairs to like new.

How do you put a number on your value loss when the damage repaired to like-new means they will not take your car as a trade-in??

From what I understand, that's the basis in most states for a diminished value claim. Even with repairs like new, value is lost. And most buyers as well as my wife's BMW dealer seem to know that. So typical buyers will diminish the value. And a dealer like BMW with a Certified Pre-owned vehicle qualification? Your damaged car, even though repaired like new by the best repair shop in the country, may not qualify.

Bottom line? Enjoyment value is all about the quality of repair if you want to drive it. But resale value is not so much about the quality of repair as the buyers perception value directly related to the dollar amount of former damages and likeliness of future problems.

Just sayin.

If the Op's intent was flipp'n, then I just wasted my time post'n. If that's true take note so you don't waste your time posting to this thread too.

jer

brettbolt

Actually, this thread is about a diminished value settlement on a car LBulletM already owns. State Farm is low balling him.

... Anyway, I agree that $1,500 is too low for diminished value -- especially for a Corvette. But fighting State Farm to get more may be very difficult.

bolivar

A family member in Austin, Tx several years ago was hit by an unsecured car rolling around in a parking lot. I got involved in it a little. Dealers, body shops, and car lots do not want to get involved in something like this - issuing a diminished value amount on their letterhead. But looking in the yellow pages, there are companies that do exactly this. For a fee, I think something like $500, they will give a 'diminished value' estimate, for you to use as you wish.

LbulletM

I paid almost $300 to "autoloss.com" for the same thing. They valued the loss at around $9k. State Farm pretty much just didn't care.

jsucraig

State Farm didn't care when they issued you the assessment of $1500 or they didn't care that you had the outside Diminished Value appraisal completed and wouldn't accept that amount?

That is odd, State Farm insured the lady that caused my accident and they accepted my appraisal very quickly (within 5 minutes).

Bill Dearborn

A lot depends on the adjuster not the company. My wife totaled a nicely kept Pontiac Phoenix by swerving to miss a small animal and rolling it over into a creek. The wrecker had to pull it up 8 ft to get it out of the creek while the car was upside down. Car was filled with mud dinged on all sides broken windows and a real mess. The SF adjuster low balled the value of the car because he said it hadn't been in good condition and wouldn't budge on his estimate. A year later my daughter totaled a Chevy Citation (fell asleep at the wheel coming home from work and hit a tree head on) that I had purchased as a beater car since it had been wrecked a couple of times before, still showed the damage and where somebody used a large hammer to straighten some panels. The SF adjuster that looked at the car gave me 50% more than I paid for the car a few weeks earlier. Whereas the previous adjuster was looking for any excuse to pay as little as possible this guy was looking for any excuse to pay me as much as possible.

Bill

Bill Dearborn

Since we are talking about an LS2 that means the car is already 7 to 8 years old. Carfax reports of damage earlier in a car's life mean less and less as the years go by. The car's value will normally go down over the years and the value of the loss diminishes right along with it. If you keep the car another 2 or 3 years while putting some miles on it subsequent buyers are going to be looking at how the car looks and drives at that time. Usage proves how good the repairs were and since they will keep the car a few years as well diminished value is even less of a concern when they sell the car.

It seems you took a substantial front end hit and I was wondering if the cost of repairs included replacing the air bags and seat belts that were being used at the time?

Bill

RJRSW

I have owned 25 vettes and of those I bought one with a salvage title that was a stolen car that was recovered undamaged after the owner had been paid off. I had verifiable proof that the car had not been damaged but when it came time to sell it I had a very tough time finding a buyer and ended up getting half of what it would have gone for with a clean title. Never again no matter how low the price is.

flatlander_summit

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I have a question along the diminished value lines.

I have a 05 C6 that was immaculate until yesterday. My buddy's wife didn't watch backing out of their driveway when I was visiting for the weekend. She caught the front bumper, the scratches waxed out, but the tail pipe left a half moon shaped indentation in the bumper. I wish it would have been someone other than her who would have hit it. It's awfully hard to even really get too mad at someone who ***** for an hour because she just ran into my perfect Corvette. I'm not sure I even want to have it fixed and risk having a mismatched bumper or if I want any paint work done on it. I know one of the first things I always ask when buying a used vehicle is if it has ever had any paint work done on it. If I have it fixed what kind of diminished value am I looking at for something like this, that I can no longer say that it has never had any paint work done. Is this car getting old enough that buyers won't worry in 2-3 years when I sell it?

What would you guys do?

LbulletM

The latter. They didn't even entertain the autoloss appraisal saying that those services aren't reliable. Wouldn't even discuss it.

Air bags did not deploy, seat belts were not replaced. Some panels, like the driver's side quarter panel, had just the right damage to have to replace rather than repair (i.e. quarter sized hole through panel).