Insurance question, handing totaled cars over to insurance
 

I'm a sad panda. Just spent a bunch of money fixing up my daily and a month after it got rear ended and totaled. I am curious to what can I remove from the car before I hand it to insurance.

I know I can't take off my new brakes and wheel bearings and such since I can't put back in the old parts. I am going to remove my coilovers and control arms since I kept the take offs. I'll probably buy a 10$ set of brake pads to take out my good pads I just put in. RIP my castrol srf fluid (not cheap) :(

My main question is regarding wheels. I bought new wheels and tires and I am definitely not giving them to insurance but I don't have the OEM wheels any more. Can I put 4 donuts on it and hand it over? 3 steel wheels and 1 donut? I'm not trying to rip off the company but no way am I giving them brand new tires and wheels I paid $$$ for. I will have to buy something to take off my new wheels so the cheapest option that won't get me in trouble is ideal.

FYI, I got the car towed to my house and it will be inspected in 2 days but there is no hope for it not being totaled

Oh that just plain sucks.Depends on your company but the general rules is what the adjuster sees is what belongs to the insurance company after they approve the claim. Most will not pay the value of the mods in the claim (unless covered) but will happily take those parts if they are on the car. Not sure you would get away with doughnuts though. See if you can get some cheap snows on steel rims from a wrecker or something. Time is against you on this I am afraid.

hmm, ok I will reschedule to monday and swap suspension and look for wheels? I'm off the weekend seems a good plan

Sorry to hear about your tough situation. I wish I knew more about insurance companies and the "totalling" process. An anecdote.. don't know if it'll be helpful or not..

A few years ago I had a 1999 Mercedes ML430 SUV. Ran great, I maintained it fastidiously mechanicaly, and it had about 235,000 miles on it. Was still driving it everywhere including long road trips up and down the east coast. Had a bit of body rust here and there; the worst was a half-dollar-sized bubble on the driver's door.

Wife hit a deer with it, or more correctly, a deer ran into the side of the car, leaving a dent in the driver's door and another small dent on the panel behind the rear seat door on the same side. Doors all still worked no problem, no mechanical or structural damage at all. Insurance "adjuster" totalled the car, gave me a check for $1900 ($2400 estimate minus my $500 deductible), and told me it was totalled and that they now owned my car. Obviously, I didn't accept that. I asked them if they thought they could buy a 1999 ML430 in good running condition anywhere on the planet for $2400 and they immediately agreed that they could not. I refused to give them the car, nor accept a salvage title, and continued to drive the car. Somehow, the whole thing just went away.. I got the $1800, didn't bother fixing the two dents, and traded in the car a year later. I wish I remember exactly how I worked things out with the insurance company.. it was all cordial, but there were many conversations.

In short, the whole concept of an insurance "adjuster" confounds me. You get an estimate to repair from a reputable body shop, and then the insurance "adjuster" "adjusts" the cost so that you don't get enough money to repair your car. How is that even ethical, much less legal? For our three cars, I give the insurance company about $1600/year; we have squeekly clean driving records, very few claims over the 36 years we've been married and insuring cars together, NO at fault claims, and NO claims since that deer hit maybe eight years ago. Needless to say, the insurance companies are WAY ahead profit-wise with us... by about $40,000. You'd think that, in the few unfortunate circumstances when you DO need help from them, they'd be a little more willing to step up. Yes, it's a business, but still...

Good luck, Zion. I hope things work out.

Thanks bro, now I understand why people say not to put money into a worthless car.

I think I was just unlucky in this situation though. I drive to work everytime in stop/go traffic so it is really just coincidence. At least that's how I am consoling myself :(

man that sucks. There are tons of posts selling stock wheels though, here and on fb. Look around

It's not my BRZ, thanks though

Keep the receipts. They should pay out more for recent maintenance additions or something like that, since it affects the value of the car. There might be something about that in the policy even.

Not sure how it works there since it is a not at fault claim but here you will not get squat for any parts that you did not report to the insurance company. They charged you premiums based on X dollars so why would they pay out Y dollars for extras? We have a whole different system here though so maybe that does not apply.

Shit happens and then you die.

YEa that is my motto and why i said fuck it and put 2500 or 3000 in a junk car. My idea was get a couple years out of it as I need to leave here in 3 years so I was trying to save money in the 3 year timeframe. Guess I will have to figure it out some other way. :bonk:

Anyway I didn't mod it because I wanted a sick car yo, so I'm not trying to pursue that cost from insurance. I needed to replace the parts and the modifications were similar cost to other replacements. The adjustable control arms was because my alignment was out pretty bad, +1 camber in front with edge wear on tires. New wheels because I had 2 bent/cracked wheels. Bad rear wheel bearings. Parking brake didn't work on one side. 1 front and 1 rear sticking calipers. Ball joints and end links were clunking. The coilovers were a luxury buy because they were 750 vs the 450 for replacement "quick struts". Just regular old car maintenance stuff.

The car actually turned out really well and probably my new brakes and good summer tires lead to me getting rear ended lol

oh well. live and learn

Was a good plan.

I looked at all the used same cars. I found 2 that might be worth buying. I'm going to check out both of them thursday, They are each a couple hours away so i got a full days work. If either is good i will buy it cash and bring it home to swap parts over the weekend. If not i guess im SOL.

Also a very good plan!