It pays too Total Your Car If in an Accident

[hsfrank]

With several posts and articles about the high cost of collision repairs, it occurred to me to post about a past experience. A few years back I had an at fault accident that cost over $13K to repair my low mileage 18 month old car. Fortunately I had collision insurance and I was only out the deductible. It was repaired using all OEM parts and restored to a like new appearance. A year later I traded it in for a new Lexus 300 F sport. The trade in values were identical in Edmunds,Kelly Blue Book , Carmax and the dealers program. The offer was $3K less. The dealer produced a VIN history showing all services,recalls and accidents with a highlighted notation of MAJOR accident. They advised that all collision repairs in excess of 10K are major. As a side note had the repair been $15K or more it would have been totaled.

Now I am not suggesting any fraud but given the choice I suggest totaling and replacing.

 

[kilpatds]

I wonder if the trend of hard-to-repair cars will change that any any point, or just reinforce it? My car got hit in the rear quarter, and the damage appears to be limited to just one piece of metal (and at first estimate, only that one piece of metal), and yet the first repair estimate is $12,000. That would make it a "major" accident for a fairly minor collision.