Insurance totaling pickup

[5Miler]

Ran into a similar situation 2 years ago when DGF backed into a telephone pole in her 2001 Trailblazer with about 60k miles on it. She crumpled rear quarter panel and put a few scrapes on the bumper. IC said it was totaled mainly due to the age although it was pristine.

IC used their own body shop for the repair estimates so I found another local shop with good references who said he could do much better. IC was going to replace a laundry list of body parts that shop 2 said were not needed and he could repair. Battled with IC for about a month and escalated a few levels of management until they relented and sent another estimator to meet with shop 2.

Ended up getting it fixed in three days and looked like new for much less than original estimate and managed to save the deductible through it all. DGF had originally priced a similar replacement in a new model and list was over $35K not including taxes and other markups. I made big points when this all worked out as it did.

[pb4uski]

^^^ So did they total it and you then bought it from them for salvage value or did they just pay for the repair bill with shop 2?

[5Miler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski ^^^ So did they total it and you then bought it from them for salvage value or did they just pay for the repair bill with shop 2?

They paid shop 2 to fix it finally. We looked at doing a salvage repair but when I looked into the details I found Georgia makes it almost impossible for an owner to jump through all the hoops necessary to get it done. And as the owner of shop 2 told us, there was no promise our IC would even insure it if we were successful. He proved to be a very honest and trustworthy shop owner as all the referrals stated. He ran a mid sized shop close to our house and I wouldn't hesitate to use them again. His advice was to avoid the salvage as even he wouldn't get involved with it and I certainly don't have the skills to do it myself.

Our vehicle was roadworthy as it only had a crumpled quarter panel that unfortunately included all the lights and mounting points. To do the salvage, it had to be inspected but the inspection point was on the South side of Atlanta while we live way north. The car could not be driven so had to be towed for every inspection of which there would be several. The alternative was to pay for an on site inspector to visit and get on his schedule. The paperwork was onerous as well, and the fees. I have a friend who did his car but that old boy has skills.