Poll #2 Diminished Value Claim
 

Continued from my Poll #1,

here is my 2nd poll question, if you were to buy a car A with an accident history over the car B without which are in equal over condition including mileage, options, etc

how much do you think you should pay less for the car A than the car B?

here is a backgroud story for those who did not read my first thread

Hello everyone I was recently hit by someone in my Release Series 1.0 and I am trying to recover the diminished value from him or his insurance company thereby, I need some concrete and productive poll results to support my story that my Release Series now has some diminished value since it was in an accident and no longer (or less desireable) candidate for collectible with a history of accident. every single vote helps my car only has 2000 miles and now I will have to drive this car knowing this car once was hit and that makes me frustrated as I originally bought this car to keep it as collectible, now If i try to sell it, the dealership appraised my car about $4000-5000 less than when it had no accident history,

thank you very much for all your help each participation means a lot for me as I am going to use the results when i take this case to small claim court
when I mentioned about diminished value to the person who hit my car, this is what he replied with
"i dont believe there is much diminished value on a Scion with fender bender accident history." I replied "it might be a just scion for you but it was my collectible car and you ruined the collectibility of it."

How can people answer this poll without any facts?
Was the damage a $500 paint touch up or a $12,000 rebuild?
Different damage levels have different effects on the values.

Get appraisals from dealers.

On paper quotes will give you "evidence" if you are going to court. I know when I got a van appraised at a dealers said he offer 4500 instead of 6-6500 because he has to wholesale it and can't sell it through the dealership

But it also depends on the damage. Subaru has a guaranteed trade in value and the fine print says it can have repaired damage to one panel or something like that.

This. Go to several dealers and get quotes on paper with signatures and full dealer info, and then go to a couple experts in collectible cars and ask them to write something about the value of a car if it has been in an accident versus never having been in an accident.

An internet poll is totally worthless.

At this point in time a collectable car expert may very well state it is not yet (and may never be) a "collectable" car. It is a special edition yes, but that does not automatically make it collectable. A quick search shows that currently they are holding their value about the same as any other FRS with loads of used ones already for sale. In fact in a 5 minute search I found dozens of still unsold new ones and that does not bod well for them achieving collectable status.

And yes a poll is useless as evidence in a small claims case.

You mean random jackasses opinions on a forum thread based on zero facts don't hold weight in court?

Yea, talking about this car would be silly to a collectible car expert. But if you went to him talking about cars that are actually collectible or almost collectible, they'll be able to give some reasonably accurate estimates.

Now comparing it to something worth half a million or more would be dumb, but cars like the Plymouth Road Runner might be a good start. They are sporty unique cars, but the values are not totally insane yet. It could help in court to have a few different comparisons to reasonably priced older vehicles like that.

No insurance claims adjuster will care about a random, totally biased poll on a car enthusiast forum.

That is sort of my point. In 1972 if you took your 1970 Road Runner (I had one I paid $800 for in 77 by the way) to a collector and asked what it was going to be worth in 43 years they would laugh at you. There is no way to predict what cars will go up in value or what effect an unknown level of damage would have on the value. I had many cars back in the 70s that would now be worth big bucks and they were not always the ones that I would have expected to be.
Nothing wrong to buy a car on speculation (there are far better ways to make money though) that it may some day become a collector car but to try to set a value on it now based upon the assumption that it will be worth more just doesn't work. If the OP is going after the diminished value of the car as priced now then great but the damage may be so little that it just won't happen.

your best bet and what I tell my customers to do is go to several dealers and have them appraise the car I tell them to do at least 3, a poll on the internet is completely pointless.

If it's something as small as say just a dented bumper then I'd buy a used vehicle. I'd even much rather prefer they keep the damaged bumpers on the car when attempting to sell so I can talk the price down. :D

Does anyone's insurance policy have anything written about diminished value?

This.

Thank you everyone for the inputs
My point here is that regardless of extent of damage, once it was involved with an accident whether minor or major, it must have some kinda diminished value as buyers will not pay the full market price and the dealers will not pay full trade in value My damage is minor but now its going to have accident carfax history as well as paint meter reactive body panel....

Exactly...it's just impossible to tell now what will be then for any mass produced vehicle. My high school parking lot in 1977 was filled with 10 year old muscle cars that were all in the $800 to $1,200 range when bought by the kid driving them. If all those cars were fast forwarded to today as they say you would think my high school was in Beverly Hills given the value of the "classic cars" in the parking lot.


Heck even the piece of crap 1964 Dodge Polara I bought for $300 and drove to high school shows up on classic car lists/auctions now for $20,000 (good running survivor, which mine would have been) to $75,000 (restored). Don't get me wrong, I loved that car but it wasn't really anything special.

So, if the damage is minor you do as so many have said and take it to 3 places and get it appraised. Remember it has depreciated anyway so looking for full value is not even remotely reasonable. You probably lost $6K the second you drove it off the lot. The insurance companies have formulas they use to calculate diminished value and none of them include asking a bunch of guys that have no clue what the level of damage is, what the going rate for your car is in your area is, how many kilometers it already has or any other facts what they think it is worth.
I know you think you have a special collectors car but it isn't so have fun in court.
I am out.

Ill keep this thread updated so that whoever in similar situation can learn how to approach for diminished value claim as it is claimants' rights to collect it and if we dont, we will take a huge loss when selling our cars ....

Its called 17c caculation that statefarm created which is favorable for insurance company so they were sued and georgia court banned them to use that calculation

Diminished value is the differences in value comparing before and after the accident

If you truly bought it as collectible, it should've gone home on a truck, straight onto jack stands, covered up, and in a temp/humidity controlled garage. It would only be started from time to time to keep it working and the fluids would get replaced every so often.

Then, come back circa 2065 and see if it is worth something.

Look at the '60's cars that are going for big bucks now. All original, low miles, fully documented. They are expensive because they are rare. Most of them got modded and people drove the shit out of them.

Luckily for me, I plan on driving this car until it becomes a rust bucket. So no worries on what it's value is years from now.