I see posts every week or two about how some *** backed into some poor sucker's RX-7. Last night, I became that poor sucker. I don't have pics right because they're still on the camera.

Somebody in an Acura RL backed out of my neighbor's driveway and slammed into my car. She thrashed the left fender at the front, scraped the corner of the bumper cap, and damaged the corner marker light in addition to pushing my car up and back along the sloped curb.

I didn't see the incident. Another neighbor came to the door to say he was the bearer of bad news. I went to the house the airhead was visiting and found that she wasn't going to come back to deal with it. So I got her name and cell # and called the police. The officer took a report, took pics and somehow convinced the woman that it was in her best interest to come to the station and own up to the hit and run.

The car drives fine. I was worried about damage from the sideways-and-backward movement, but the wonder steering is no worse than before. The headllight scrapes on the fender when it comes up, so I've just left it up.

I talked to the woman's husband. He'd like to resolve it without an insurance claim. So would I, because I have a feeling that the car will be deemed a total loss if a claim is filed. However, if the cost reaches a certain, unspecified, level, he's going to have to go the claim route.

My question is, if the car is deemed a total loss, does anyone know what I'm likely to get for a 83 GSL with 140k miles? How does the buy-back thing work, where I'd take $$ and buy it back? I've never done that before. Hell, I've never had a total loss claim before.

 

Each state varies on the buy back, but it basically goes like this:

The insurance company totals your car and offers you $$ for it.

You offer to buy it back for $$.

They subtract the buy back amount from the total amount and thats what you get plus the car.

The insurance company will then probably retitle it as a salvaged vehicle and sell it back to you with this salvage title.

Now you will have to have the car retitled and reregistered.

Its lot of paperwork and hassle because of the retitle and reinspection stuff you have to go through.

They may not off you much money either since its 20+ years old unless you have some third party evaluation or appraisal that you can use to convince them of a higher value. Usually the buy back amount is just the amount needed to cover the insurance companies cost to retitle it as salvage and turn it around to you, on the order of $100 or so.

Good luck.

 

that sucks man, when I was in high school (1998) I had an 83 GSL with 15,000 original miles on it and some guy nailed me getting of the highway. The insurance company said they would give me $2200 to fix it, or total it for $2600 and they would take the car. I of course took the money to fix the car and luckily I knew someone who would fix it cheap.

 

I got 3,800+ for mine, because I made a strong argument that it was worth it, and I got to keep the car, which wasn't salvaged. My neighbor Bobby and I did the body work later and I used the profit to buy another 85 GSL, nice car.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/479957/2
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/479957/13

Ray

 

Talk to her insurance company - you may get low-balled by the woman's husband on this, and most people look our 20+ y/o cars and think they can buy their way out of it.

If he starts to low-ball you or not match what you think it's worth (plus your hassle in all of this...), then start moving toward the insurance claim. If she's that stupid, she probably has other claims against her and you could get her dropped by that insurance company with little likelihood of getting insurance without paying big $$$. Stupid people deserve that karma...

Dish it out if it comes down to it - this wasn't your fault.

Get what you need to fix the car, and time out of work, rental while it's getting repaired, etc. This is your one and only chance because once you take a settlement, no matter what your mechanic finds, it's all yours to pay.