A Carfax indicating damage/collision/accident WILL decrease the value of the car. Carfax won’t disclose the source of their information so I can’t tell you if a police report will trigger the Carfax. Carfax isn’t particularly accurate about the damage, they will say something like “collision left side” so no way to tell if it is a minor parking lot scrape or something more. Once you have a Carfax report indicating “collision” the car value diminishes. Most people looking for a used car will simply skip any car with a Carfax collision report on it. Carfax is not receptive to correcting or specifying exactly how much damage there was. They are in the business of selling Carfax reports, not ensuring the accuracy of the reports, nor specifying the amount of actual damage. You are a source of income for them, nothing more. Know that Carfax is not your friend.
I believe it’s likely any insurance claim will result in the Carfax “collision” report.
So, if this incident has caused Carfax to include a “collision”, now associated with your car VIN number, that will make your car less valuable, independent of the actual amount of damage sustained by the car.
Whether or not the other guys insurance company chooses to address the diminished value due to the Carfax isn’t really relevant. The simple fact that the other driver’s action has caused a Carfax collision notification attached to your car’s VIN is financially damaging to you. If you ignore this, you’ll find out when you sell it that the value is fairly significantly decreased.
As you might surmise, I’ve been bitten by this Carfax service in the past. I had a BMW convertible. I won’t bore you with the details of how pristeen this car was, the trip to Germany before ordering, the factory visit, the special order, nor the details about the dull witted cretin that creased the side while it was parked. I got it repaired, the repair was absolutely perfect including matching of the factory orange peel in the paint. I checked with the BMW dealer to see if this Carfax report would affect the value when I would sell it in the future. No problem I was told. I believed them. Later when I did sell the car I found out how wrong the dealer was. The car took a big hit. Thousands. There was no structural damage, no replaced panels, no panel spacing issues, you could sight down the sides, the car was perfect. That Carfax is poison.
If the other guy’s insurance chooses to ignore this, you can go after the other driver. Basically his insurance protects him from liability, so it’s his insurance policy that insulates him. They will do all they can to minimize their payout. They’ll tell you not to worry about it, they don’t cover it, that isn’t a problem for them, etc. Be aware of statutes of limitation, if you sell your car 3 years from now, the usual 1 year statute will have expired so you’ll have no recourse. Be aware of anything you sign, especially anything that releases the other party from liability. Do check to see if there’s now a Carfax collision report on your car, and if so, find an expert on diminished value.
If there is no Carfax report on your car, and you suspect there’s no actual paint damage, no dents, or metal deformation, then it might be worthwhile to see about removing that rubber and see if you can avoid the whole insurance/Carfax process.
Good luck.
