The Junk Yard Jag May Be Returning To The Junk Yard

If you're willing to go RWD, what about swapping up to one of the full-size Jags?

dean1484 wrote: Do I have any leg to stand on with respect to wanting a color match or something close? A white car with a cream interior is just not going to happen. It is a completely different car in my book but do insurance company see it this way?

No, not really. The body color can make a minor difference in value, but we're talking less than $100 typically. Interior color isn't factored in at all. If you could prove with several examples that cars with color X interiors sell for $1000 more than the same exact car with color Y interior, I'd consider it. But in 20 years, I don't think I've ever seen it happen. For the most part, that's just a personal taste thing, which they aren't responsible for.

Glad to hear the other carrier is accepting liability.

why have you not purchased the XJR yet.

car39 wrote: Diminished value only comes it if you were to sell or trade the car in now. The insurance company's attitude is if you keep the car, and they repair it, you haven't suffered any diminished value. If they fixed the car, and you drove it 300,000 miles it wouldn't be worth any less, or have a diminished value compared to any other similar 300,000 mile car. I was involved in a situation like this, and the insurance companies will all fight this to keep the precedence off of the legal books.

It may vary state to state but this isn't true it my case. I kept my car and I got diminished value because essentially my asset is worth less now than before when their client damaged it. If I were to sell it, if has a previous wreck on record and that lowers it's value to the average consumer that is shopping for cars.

My car was less than a year old and I got it. You may only get a couple hundred bucks or you may get nothing since it's an older car but fight for it and write a stern letter if you need to. I had plenty of people tell me I wouldn't get anything or that I didn't deserve anything. Lots of those people were on here and they were FLAT OUT WRONG. The state of Georgia disagreed and I got $1800. A paid an appraiser a nominal fee and it paid off.

Here's my ordeal and I hope it helps: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/advice-on-getting-depreciation-from-ins-companies/70720/page1/

dean1484 wrote: They are easy to find with a white or cream interior in white black or red or that horrible metallic baby blue. Trying to find one in silver or gun metal grey with a black interior it turning out to be a PITA. The other problem is that many of the early ones are 2.5l and they are not comparable to the 3.0l. I have driven a 2.5 and it was anemic compared to the 3.0l ones.

Mine was a 2.5. It wasn't fast..but it wasn't terrible. I was originally looking for a 3.0 Sport, but the deal on my car was too good to pass up.

Mine was Adriatic Blue, it was only offered for a year or 2. By far the best color for the X type. Not that I am biased or anything.

I also didn't mind the cream interior. Keeping it clean was a PITA.

I like the black. It seems to ware better. I also hate the cleaning of a light interior. The smallest thing leaves a mark.

Is the xjr awd? That would be a great car.

In reply to dean1484:

All the R model Jags are rear drive with the exception of the F Type.

If you are looking for a luxury performance sedan with AWD, Audi may have the answer.

S6 with the Lambo v10 could be interesting..

http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?endYear=2017&zip=21045&maxPrice=24000&showcaseListingId=0&mmt=%5BAUDI%5BS6%5B%5DRS6%5B%5D%5D%5B%5D%5D&modelCode1=S6&makeCode2=AUDI&modelCode2=RS6&startYear=1981&makeCode1=AUDI&showcaseOwnerId=0&firstRecord=0&maxMileage=75000&searchRadius=0&listingId=421543685&Log=0

Or the previous generation RS6.. TTV8

http://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?endYear=2017&zip=21045&maxPrice=24000&showcaseListingId=0&mmt=%5BAUDI%5BS6%5B%5DRS6%5B%5D%5D%5B%5D%5D&modelCode1=S6&makeCode2=AUDI&modelCode2=RS6&startYear=1981&makeCode1=AUDI&showcaseOwnerId=0&firstRecord=0&maxMileage=75000&searchRadius=0&listingId=419702725&Log=0

Buy the xjr

Just in case, there is a silver/black Jag with (my pet peeve) 20" rims for sale in Raleigh.

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/search/cto?min_auto_year=2004&query=jaguar

I am thinking YA!!! This looks to be a nice car.. . . Then I see this.

You gotta represent.

Buy it and get a sponsorship from Puma sneakers.

Klayfish wrote: Buy it and get a sponsorship from Puma sneakers.

ROFL

Well the adjuster was by this AM and although they did not write up anything She agreed that there was damage to the frame and the whole rear of the car was bent down. She said I will have something in my email this afternoon but she was 99.9% sure it was a total. Looks like it is now just a matter of determining payout. Now the real fun starts. I hope they are reasonable and don't come in at something like $3,500.

I have another question regarding this. If they come back with a ridiculous low number should I counter with a just as unreasonable number (I can make numbers work to show that this is a 8K car) using comps in the area. OR should I go in with what I consider to be reasonable numbers with my justification of that number. Like I said this car would be about $6500 if you purchased it from a dealer in mint condition with this millage but it is not perfect. And being reasonable with the comps and taking in to account the condition of the car I can see it as a $5000 - $5500 car.

What is the best approach here?

When my wife's Accord got t-boned and totaled, I prepared for the worst, and got as many comps for same car (was hard to find with 5 speed MT, which hers had, but I did) as I could reasonable find, with the same equipment level (EX), same mileage plus/minus ~ 5k, with pricing from dealers within 200 mile radius. I looked for dealer pricing, since I know it would be higher than personal sale, which was my 'goal' to maximize the negotiated settlement amount. With those data points, I threw out the high value and the low value, then averaged the rest. Added 6.75% sales tax to that, and $75 for plates. Happily enough, their offer was within 1% (actually to the high side) of what I came up with. Not a great deal overall as we only had 85k miles on a ~ 200k mile car, but fair given the circumstances I'd say. Oh, and the Accord allowed her to walk away from a big driver's door center punch with a quarter sized bruise on her left shoulder.

In reply to einy:

Yeepers it sounds like the Honda engineers did a good job there. Glad she was basically ok. How you approached it is how I have been. We will see what they come back with. I don't want to be the jerk and I am sure that they are smart enough to know when some one is "manipulating the data". I am sure that they get it all the time from people looking for that huge pay out on there 15 year old rust bucket that even the pick and pull would not accept.

I kind of figure that if I go in with a logical fair number that is backed up with data I can point to that is based on real market value and I also show that I am not trying to gouge them they may be more reasonable when it comes to paying out on the car. At the moment even if I get what I think is fair for the car I will be paying out of pocket if I want to replace it with a like car as I will be looking at ones that have a bit less millage and maybe a couple years newer. It really is funny with these cars. There pricing is all over the map. I could make the average replacement cost anywhere from say $8,000 if I picked all cars say 2005 with around 90-100k versus say 2003 with about 130-140K it would be about $4,000 My car is an 2004 with 118K so it is kind of in the middle.

Another interesting thing is my interior is the same as the that of a 2003. Many of the 2004's I see have the slightly updated interior (different steering wheel) that I thought started in 2005 so that is a bit of a weird thing. I am betting it is a mid year model change over as I have to be careful when getting parts for my car that they are for the VIN range that my car falls in and not really what year the car is. I actually like the earlier set up better as it uses rocker switches on the front and on the back side of the steering wheel to control things where as the newer ones seem to use roll switches only on the front. Just an interesting thing I noticed when car searching.

How can TWO body shops give me estimates of $4,200 and $4,600 to fix my car with conditions that there is more hidden damages under it and the insurance adjuster said nope $1,800.

Now I have to go through all the crap of getting the car over to the body shop leaving it there and waiting on them to tear into it and then getting the new adjuster out there to re do it again and write a sup. I am 2 weeks in to this now this will add another 2 weeks of dealing with this and more of my time that I have zero of at the moment. I would like to just drop my car in the AMICA parking lot and had them the keys and let them deal with all this. Let them pay for some one to deliver and pick up the car from the body shop. Let them deal with getting me a replacement. I REALLY don't have any spare time at all at the moment due to work and dealing with storm clean up at my house.

And they just don't give a crap how much of an inconvenience this is to me. I may be made whole with respect to eh car but at a cost of a lot of my time. That is not being made whole that is like being punch in the mouth and saying you are all good and fine you will heal up on your time here is a band aid for the fat lip now you are whole.

No matter what happens if you are in a crash you loose it seems. I don't want to win I just want them to deal with more of the crap that they are making me have to deal with. Getting the car to the body shop is going to kill half a day and then I am going to have to deal with some sort of alternative transportation and that has its own problems.

Do I take a rental (that they only will pay for a month) that will probably use up a week to 10 days just getting the car torn into and getting the insurance back their or do I suck it up and take another half a day and register the corolla I have sitting in my yard meaning I will have to pay tax title and insurance on it. The problem is that both shops told me that the repairs to my car will take at least month due to parts availability. So if i start the clock on the rental now I will more than likely run out if they decide that it is fixable (I am going to fight the fixing part anyway) Or do I get the rental and say it really is fixable but it takes a month plus the 2 weeks of BS dealing with sorting out the cost of hidden damages meaing I am out of a car. I could put it to them that if they don't extend the rental I can not get to work and they can pay my salery but I knwo that is not going to happen. Do I have a chance in hell of getting them to extend the rental? Or again will I be forced to just suck it up and have to get my own transportation (at my own cost)

This is all just one PITA at this point. I was hoping they would see the light and just total it so I can move on.

So now I need to get to the nitty gritty on things. IF they really insist that the car is not totaled. Say they get it fixed what is the real dimished value amount I should press for. I can see it being a sticky one as these cars in mint condition command about 8K one with an accident on its record will just not be as salable even if it is in perfect condition. I can see it banging the price down by a thousand or fifteen hundred. On the other hand my car say is a 5.5K car with an accident does that make it a $4000 car? Maybe. I really don't know. Since all the comps I have seen have clean accident reports how do I figure this out?

dean1484 wrote: On the other hand my car say is a 5.5K car with an accident does that make it a $4000 car? Maybe. I really don't know. Since all the comps I have seen have clean accident reports how do I figure this out?

On a car of that age, especially if it doesn't get a rebuilt title after being repaired, I wouldn't personally knock the value much at all for an accident, provided I can't readily find evidence of the repair when giving the car a look-over. I've seen repairs that were decent, but noticeably imperfect (where I would knock the value) and others where I couldn't really tell even when it was pointed out to me exactly what was done and where (shouldn't hurt value much in my mind, as it's not any worse off after fixing).

dean1484 wrote: How can TWO body shops give me estimates of $4,200 and $4,600 to fix my car with conditions that there is more hidden damages under it and the insurance adjuster said nope $1,800.

The body shop can write "guesstimates" by making assumptions about things that may be damaged. The appraiser can only write damage that he/she can actually see. That's the difference. Yes, unquestionably there is more damage than the $1800 estimate, and I'd be sure the appraiser knows it and is expecting a supplement. But the rear bumper cover really needs to come off and maybe a tiny bit more teardown to be able to expose the rest of the damage. Happens all the time. When I was an appraiser, my conversations with shops would typically be "Here's my initial write up, call me once you get it apart and I'll be back to finish it." Here's what I'd suggest.

Take the rental. Get the car to the shop of your choice. Hand them the estimate from Amica. Shop will remove the bumper cover and maybe pull back trunk carpet to expose structural damage (Amica will pay for teardown, typically less than 2 hours labor). Appraiser will reinspect and evaluate for total loss at that time. That really shouldn't take several weeks, it's typically a 3-4 business day turnaround. The car may be a constructive total loss. If they total it, they sell it for salvage and recover some of the payout. So if they pay $6500 for the car (just making up a number) and it sells at auction for $2500, their net loss is $4000. If the estimate of repair is $3500 (again, just making it up), but rental will be $1000 because parts take forever to get, total spend would be $4500. Therefore, cheaper to total the car.

Take the rental. If and when the repairs go past 30 days, let the insurance company extend it. The other driver is at fault and you shouldn't be asked to pay for the rental at all.

As others have said.. take the rental, and have your insurance force theirs to extend it. If you want the car to be totaled, choose a higher end repair shop. Ask your local Jag, Benz, Audi, etc dealer where they send their cars.

If they fix it I will be insisting that I see it on the alignment rack I will probably now put it on my rack today or tomorrow to see what it baselines at. I probably will not sign off on it until I actually put it back on my Hunter Machine to verify that it is fixed.

I have another question. Can I demand that the other insurance company come out and certify that the repairs are complete and that they are 100% per the repair order? that way if down the road I find something I can come back at them? Or will they just send a no body out that will rubber stamp it as they just want me out of there hair.

Also I have been getting a fuel smell in the cabin since the accident if I fill it up more than 1/2 way and there is no mention of it in the estimate (Yet the adjuster smelled it adn commented about it to me). What happens if I get the car back and when I fill it up again I get the fuel smell. Part of me wants to fill it up before I take it to the shop but if they are going to total it I am out the $50 for the fill up.

Again how does this all work? I know I may sound like I am nicking and diming things here and any one item alone is not that big a deal but $50 here $75 there and it starts to add up to real money at some point.

I just may do that re taking it to the jag dealer and asking who they use.

I'd definitely make sure that fuel smell is documented in writing. And if they fix the car and you determine something isn't fixed to your satisfaction, you can definitely push back.