This is what happens when an old woman in a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis LS reaches down to grab something and pushes your Volvo 940 50-60 feet. I was parked on the opposite side of the street and she hit the Ford and my car. When she hit the Ford I think she panicked and kept her foot down on the gas. Glad it happened when it did because 60 seconds later and my wife would have been parking behind me with my V40.




I was parked right behind this car.


No one was hurt, which is the good news! Gotta love old FL drivers. Figures. I just had the motor rebuilt and it was running great.

 

Girls!!!!!

 

They just wanna have fun :-(

 

Ouch! That one is totaled.

 

Sickening. And the insurance company won't give a rat's *** that the engine was just rebuilt; they'll just see a 20 year old car and give you whatever they think it's worth. When this kind of thing happens to me, I make sure that I keep the car in my posession and let them deduct the "salvage value" from my settlement. That way I can transplant my new engine/transmission/etc. to another car and use the wreck for parts.

 

I know they are going to try and low ball me on the estimate. I can prove what I had in the car. They are going to have to come up with a decent offer or I will take them to court. It will cost them more than it is worth to just settle. The other alternative is they can repair the car. The transmission is not working, the engine and radiator were damaged and of course the body work. They can certainly send it to a Volvo dealer and use all Volvo parts. We'll see what they come back with as an offer.

It sucks because I really loved the car. They better make this right.

 

I just really hate to see that!!!

 

What do you want them to offer you for it? I was thinking $2,500

 

if you have recent repair receipts, at best you'll get bluebook plus those repair receipts.

p.s. I bet the front of the merc looks a lot worse, hah!

 

How many miles did the Volvo have?

 

Dang.

 

I have 233000 on the car but only 2500 since the rebuild. They have to pay me replacement values rather than blue book. Since there aren't any real comparable cars around, they are having a hard time coming up with a value. I hope they settle with me next week.

Pierce, the front of the Grand Marquis wasn't as bad as the Volvo but you can see that the cabin of the car was still in one solid piece. The strange thing is that neither of the cars had air bags deploy. I think it might have had to do with the low speed she was driving.

 

yeah, airbags require a pretty hard impact to trigger.

this didn't set them off either

 

Well I hope you get a decent payout on the car. Having an insurance background, I can tell you they will class your rebuild as "normal required maintenance" and wont car how much it cost. Read your paperwork thoroughly to see what you are entitled to.

 

I am still negotiating costs. We are $600 apart right now and they don't want to pay out. Now they want receipts from the rebuild. Part of me says I shouldn't send it over but I want to get this settled. The problem is that this is not my insurance company I am dealing with.

I told the person handling the case that she should be glad that we are in the final days of getting 3 kids we are adopting into the home. If I wasn't I would really be a pain to them. I just don't have the energy or desire to fight them that hard right now.

The difference is that they pulled 6 "comparable" cars to get an average price. There are 2 cars on there that are $1500 and $1600. That is bringing down their estimated price by $475. The rest is tax and adjustment costs. There is no way that those cars were close to the condition of my car at that price. The others are $2500-2900, which is more in line. I hate insurance!

 

having recent photos of the condition of your vehicle can really really help with these. sometimes its even worth the hassle of chasing down 1-2 of those 'comparables' and taking some photos showing they aren't anywhere near as nice as your lost car.

we just had our 11 year old low mileage van totalled in a no-fault accident (blowout caused loss of control on freeway, wife was at wheel). I had a year old photo of hte van showing it all nice and shiny and clean, and we had an opportunity to visit the van in the tow yard before the adjuster so we could pick up our personal belongings (and load into a u-haul) so I made a point of making sure the inside was as clean as practical (we didn't clean anything, but we swept out the floor and stuff after we moved our camping gear into the u-haul to bring home). the adjuster came up with a number better than the bluebook due to the low mileage and very good condition, so we had zero arguments. ditto the 18 year old tent trailer that we were towing, it was in very good condition, I had some 2 yr old photos showing it, so they are coming up with a decent price for it too.

reminds me, I really should take a fresh set of photos of my 92 745T showing the interior now that it has new front seats (out of a 98 s90), and how clean it is overall, just in case. I've spent way over what the car is 'worth' fixing it up to my tastes, hah! (suspension upgrades, stereo, yada yada).

 

If you have it.. Sell me that spoiler and the hubcaps!! Mines white too.