austin101385

As I was driving along the interstate in Columbia, SC on a rainy morning the cars in front of me started slamming on the brakes. The car in front of me swerved and I stopped in time behind a van. Then all of a sudden this toyota car ran right in the back of me slamming me into the back of the van infront of me. The girl acted like her neck was hurt and went to the hospital. Turns out she is an illegal alien without a driver's license and insurance. And the owner of the car had already been deported. My State Farm insurance is going to file the claim as uninsured, but has to do an investigation first.

I don't think they are going to call it totaled, but I just hate that this is going to make my car depreciate like crazy even if they fix it. I have not quite had this car for a year yet and has less than 25xxx miles on it. I don't know if the insurance will help me out with some money because of the "depreciation" factor. The body shop has to wait until the insurance gives the ok as an uninsured claim and I'm planning to go to the court date to make sure no one changes their story.

Anyone have any experience/advice with this kind of situation. Do I need to ask the body shop anything?

PennState

I had the same thing happen to me last year on my 06 v6 with about 20,000 miles...but I pushed them to total it and they did...I feel your pain though and what you have to go through, good luck with everything!

5spdftw

Either take the opportunity to do some serious exterior mods or total it bro, IMO it would never be the same and that would bug me.

hammeron

sorry to see this, but glad it wasn't worse. hope the repairs
go smoothly

tightdogal

Push them to total it. This is pretty bad dude. I wouldn't trust the car lasting for another 100K miles with all the damages and it would just haunt me.

Sucks about the situation and glad you're here to post this.

Templar

Sorry to hear about your ride Good Luck with everything.

austin101385

Just got off the phone with the adjuster and they said for it to be considered "totaled" the damage would have to total to 75% of the car's worth. That's a lot of money...I'm not sure if they can find $20,000 worth of damage, but then again it's a body shop and they are expensive.

pdonket

Ehh it might get there..every metal body piece on the outside will need to be replaced and repainted, exhaust, lights, grille assembly, radiator I'm guessing, etc.

I agreed though....****ty situation because with that big of a compression I wouldn't trust that frame all that much, and plenty of other things got shaken up pretty bad I'm sure that might not be broken now but would be down the road.

austin101385

If you don't mind me asking, how did you push them to total it? Did you talk to the body shop before they gave the estimate to the adjuster, or is there an opportunity to appeal it?

FastDEW

too bad the airbags didnt go off. That adds a lot of costs and usually totals them. It sucks, because you are probably in the high $15k+ range, but not totalled. The worst place to be