Totaled or Not

[Tripp1117]

Originally Posted by Jingwei

By the way, the left back tire was kind of caved in. Would that be structural damage?

Originally Posted by juliog

The airbags only deploy on hard impacts —e.g. the car could roll and not deploy airbags, ask me how I know —, and I don't see *that much* exterior damage, so I'm guessing the suspension parts and subframe took the most beating. So it's hard to tell without looking under the car.

Originally Posted by strat61caster

None of the pictures show significant structural damage imo (except maybe the rockers).

In my opinion it will come down to whether or not you managed to tweak the suspension and drivetrain, you mention the wheel is caved in, if that goes along with a tweaked axle, borked differential, trashed strut + whatever else holds the wheel in place the dollars rack up.

Doesn't matter what we think, it matters what your insurance thinks.

I have some bad news that comes from experience and almost the same type of wreck.

Unfortunately man the subframe and frame on this car bends very easy. Take it from me who had one totaled on the third day I owned it by a lady coming around a blind corner. She barely hit me in a very similar to this wreck and the only noticeable main damage was the wheel being crooked EXACTLY like this one. And yes my airbags went out too, it seems that the curtains go pretty easily. The way these wrecks happen and the angle and spot where they hit the car cause the frame to bend and warp very easily.. You should check your rear floor pan and footwells and see if they are bent or warped if you can. Mine weren't but the shop told me that's and easy way to check before it goes on the frame machine. My airbags went off just like this one too and that cost added to the frame EASILY deems the car a total loss. That airbag alone and install was close to 7k. Good luck though if your frame isn't bent you may be fine. As for mileage...I had only 5k miles on it. It ended up being one of those situations where the repair costs didn't exceed the value but it was way too close, over $19,000 on the estimate. So like I said I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, your situation may end up different but I'm just trying to prepare you. It's usually better to be a total loss usually anyways because if it isn't totaled and you have a lot of repairs done to the car, depending on how much damage you have, the bigger amount of the damage, the bigger the hit your automatically taking on your resale value and an ugly CarFax report. I'll see if I can find my pics because I changed phones since then, but it really looked exactly like yours and happened in the same way.

[Tripp1117]

But listen if it's a total loss try and not be very upset, you have no clue how tore up it had me. If it is just be sure you immediately begin work with your insurance company,being that it's a total loss they will call you and do a recorded call that involves questioning you about the accident, I had to explain which lane I was in by numbers, direction of travel, speed, road condition, and then the BIG ONE, was there anything you could have done that would have prevented this wreck? When I was asked this I panicked and asked if I needed to get Lawyer or something, yea stupid idea but I immediately didn't want t say the wrong thing and my car be totaled. I asked her if she could elaborate and she said could I have swerved out of the way or made any action that would've prevented the wreck. So I told her the truth that there was no where for me to go. Once your finished with the questioning, I then got my judgement on it all and was told that the insurance company was going to take full responsibility for the car. I was lucky enough to find the exact FRS that I had to replace it only 65 miles away and was in that car in less than 6 days.

[J_kennington]

All this talk about airbags.... you do know side airbags for our cars are 695 dollars right? Front passenger airbag is 765. That's installed as well. Your car is not totaled. Not even close.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by J_kennington

All this talk about airbags.... you do know side airbags for our cars are 695 dollars right? Front passenger airbag is 765. That's installed as well. Your car is not totaled. Not even close.

Not just the cost. The deployment of airbags is just one of the criteria that insurance companies look at when determining write off.
My wife rear-ended a guy and the only difference between writing off or not writing off her car was the fact the airbags had not deployed. The company said that with the exact same level of damage they would have written the car off if the bags had deployed but since they didn't they fixed it. As it was it was $14,000 worth of repairs and that was with no structural or mechanical damage.

[J_kennington]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Not just the cost. The deployment of airbags is just one of the criteria that insurance companies look at when determining write off.
My wife rear-ended a guy and the only difference between writing off or not writing off her car was the fact the airbags had not deployed. The company said that with the exact same level of damage they would have written the car off if the bags had deployed but since they didn't they fixed it. As it was it was $14,000 worth of repairs and that was with no structural or mechanical damage.

14,000 damage on the front end with no mechanical or structural damage? Bumper, hood, and lights was 14k worth of damage?

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by J_kennington

14,000 damage on the front end with no mechanical or structural damage? Bumper, hood, and lights was 14k worth of damage?

Keep in mind it is Canada so everything costs at least 20% more than you think right off the bat.
Her car is a top of the line Mitsu RVR GT.
Took out the whole front fascia including bumper, fogs, grill, headlights, hood and one fender.
Everything was replaced with OEM Mitsu parts which drove the cost up.
The adjustable, HID, headlights on the thing cost $1200 plus labour each.
Add paint to the whole works and it got costly fast.
She was not even moving that fast as she had just started from a stop at an intersection. The light had just turned green and the guy ahead started to go then stopped suddenly just past the far crosswalk.
The good news was that we have forgiveness on the insurance so it won't go up and the other guy never stopped or filed a report so there was no tickets or charges laid!

[J_kennington]

Sounds like you got lucky with that one lol. I didn't think Canada was really THAT much of a price difference. I'm currently having my whole car aside from the roof and driver side repaired\replaced including heads, tails, led fogs, and both bumpers. With the passenger side airbags deployed at 9000 dollars worth of damage. Literally 3\4s of the car.

Forgot to mention all oem parts and toyota doing the work.