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Is It Totaled? :(


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im not at fault, at all, going 35mph and the old 65year old lady that barely walks with a cane stupidly pulled out of a driveway on a main road like 30 feet infront of me, yeah thats enough time to stop.. anyways do you think insurance will fix it if i make them or just total it out no matter what?

crankshaft is whacking the radiator (or fan), powersteering fluid is spraying everywhere, A/C radiator is smashed, i have no idea where all the oil is comming from but in about 10 seconds it dumped all 4 quarts of it on the floor. sad sad day.... was the only 3rd gen driving around in my city, i've never seen another the 2 years of driving it. being pulled home the steering wheel is 90 degrees to the right so i guess the A arm is bent also. i don't know what else is wrong with it but ill take a look tomorrow morning and post pictures. to be honest, the car actually did amazing, i hit that car HARD, i will definetly be buying another Subaru Tank in the near future if that comes to the case.

 

 

here she is, not a single spot of rust anywhere, flawless everything, always fixed it the day that something was wrong, waxed it once a week. wish it would have been a POS before the accident.
IMG_1540_zpsukkh2itj.jpg

 

IMG_1543_zpscaih79nv.jpg

 

the Subies blood all over the floor

IMG_1542_zpsrslbjpf1.jpg

 

heres the other car

IMG_1536_zpsjw7xt8i1.jpg

Edited by Subasaurus
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That sucks!

 

I'd try to save it.

 

I don't care if the insurance totals it.  They won't pay what it's worth anyway.

 

Obviously, you have to remove the bumper and fender, see what else is bent.  Look at the roof line, and the doors and the frame under them.  If that stuff looks ok, it's a lot easier.

 

All of the engine stuff is fixable / replaceable.

 

My 86, my wife was driving, hit a big old American car.   It was more of a corner hit, pushed the driver's side wheel all the way back till the rim bent on the frame part the door mounts to.  I didn't try to save it, since there were plenty of them around back then.  But I decided to use it around my lot for a while, so I took it apart, beat stuff back into shape.  Replaced the suspension parts.  Never took it on the road.  The frame was bent, there was a ripple in the roof.  But it did work again. 

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That's totaled for sure, 100%..

 

It looks like oil on the ground, not power steering fluid.  My guess is the oil filter got crushed and spewed it's entrails on the ground.

 

But you have a few options:

 

1. if it's her fault you can literally get the insurance to do anything you want (within reason).

What people don't realize is this is totally up for negotiation - the insurance is liable and you don't have to accept their recommendations or offers. People don't understand how this works at all - they are liable for damages, period. 

 

"Totaling" a car is just a convenience for them and it's simply a business model/system that works and most people agree with.  But that is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the law, that's not their legal responsibility.


They're legal responsibility is only liability to repair damages rendered during the accident - period.  And you have a say in the matter.

 

A friend of mine did it in his 1980's car that wasn't worth anything. 

he wanted to keep it, had put tons of care and maintenance and rebuilding into the car and consistently told the insurance pay for it since the accident wasn't his fault and assured him that had to be better than getting a lawyer involved...in proper terms.  Of course it took some effort - because they're not used this, it probably confused the first 3 people he talked to, who would never understand wanting to keep a 1980's vehicles, but he got it done with consistently telling them what he wanted/expected.

the insurance rebuilt his car, no lawyer involved.

 

a lot of people aren't up for negotiation like that though.

 

2.  total it and fix it yourself or keep for parts.

ask the insurance what the buyback amount is.  here is how buyback works:
a.  they total it - which means essentially they're buying the car from you

b.  you ask them the buyback amount - they say $300.  this means you give them $300 and keep your car.

c.  you then get a salvage title.

 

*sometimes if you move through the process quickly and get lucky they don't give you a salvage title , you fix it and move on.

* if you get a salvage title then you check with your state how to recertify it.  in WV it's SUPER easy - literally they don't even drive the car.  they sit in the drivers seat, turn the key on to make sure all the ABS, SRS, CEL, AT lights come on - then start the car and make sure the airbag light goes out.  it's crazy.  literally less than 1 minute and my salvage car is back on the road.

MD is more thorough - but involves the police only to make sure it's not mismatched VIN's, rebadged stolen goods.

 

3.  tell the insurance adjuster you'd really like to keep the car from getting totaled.  they can run the numbers right up to their 75% value or whatever for totaling - which won't be much - $500 - $1000 for that car.

then they can add in various rental car and even a few other damage related items - i forget what they call them - that adds to your claim check but doesn't count towards the percentage of totaling cost.

 

I had the same thing happen 2 years ago in my 1988 XT6 - old lady pulled out in front of me and i tboned her - identical in nearly every way - age, speed, etc, but mine did fair better than yours.

 

It helped that the adjuster was really good, nice and i'm totally comfortalbe in situations like this - but i filled him in that i would keep the car and hoped to keep this simple, avoiding buyback and totaling if possible, just so i didn't have to deal with the salvage, title work, inspection. I filled him in that i'm a Subaru guy, have owned an XT for 20 years, moderate an online forum, and had this car shipped from CA to have a rust free one in WV - which might not otherwise exist - i don't know if i've seen an XT6 in WV since I moved here 9 years ago...except for one I helped a friend get.  anyway, he totally got that and wanted to help me.  I think he respected I just wanted my car fixed, didn't need to get a lawyer involved or compensated.  he stopped adding when it was just about totaled and told me he'd give me every additional dollar he could above and beyond that...which I was surprised at how much he was able to add. 

 

 

 

unless you're doing the work yourself or know someone who can do some reasonably inexpensive work, you'll need to just get rid of the car or go for option #1.

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yea, insurance is gonna total it.. They total above 75% of the total book value of the vehicle, which might be $1k, might even be $2k, but it's not gonna matter because you likely have $3k in damages with possible frame issues and such.. An adjuster will probably write it off just because parts are mostly NLA

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As for repair - this is so easy.  I've done tons of these.

 

Replace the oil filter and front corner light and it's drivable - for $50 it'll run another 100,000 miles.

 

From there it just depends how perfect you want it to look. 


Easy repair that makes it look good:

1. replace the bumper and fender - the damage is so light that this is all you'd need to get it back to nearly 95% original lines....probably even higher.

I don't see that being bad enough that anything wont' line up . The llines won't be perfect, but new fender and bumper will bolt up just fine with no overlap.

 

Some of the lines may be uneven if you're a perfectionist - the p/s fender/hood gap will be smaller than d/s so to speak.

If you want to get restore some of the lines - do a little bit of pulling if necessary - pull that front corner forward - takes less than an hour to attach a winch, come along, or even use a tree and reverse in the vehicle to pull back.  Wrap a tow strap or chain or cabling and attach it effectively to pull as necessary - either points or wrapping larger portions....depending.

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im either going to get it repaired or buy another (if i can even find one) and use it as parts which i know everything was perfect on it so i will be buying it back from insurance if i can't get them to pay for the damages. im really hoping for $3,200 atleast, even though if wasn't for sale, my price on it would have been around $3,500 due to the flawless condition that it was in.

Edited by Subasaurus
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I doubt there's frame damage there and if so, very minimal.

 

If the roof is straight and the doors open and close as they should, I'd fix it, totaled or not.

 

It puked it's oil because there filter punctured when the radiator got pushed into it.

 

Get it home and get the bent panels taken off and go from there.

 

Glad everybody was okay it seems! Sorry for the unfortunate event. That car looked like it was super mint.

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just wanted to share more photos, now that i can actually see what exactly happened.

 

 

Heres the frame damage, i have no idea how im going to fix that, if i can manage to straighten that out, i think i can rebuild the vehicle. this is pretty much the worst of it all, since i have parts cars that i can fix the rest with. The engine will be removed and replaced with another or rebuilt since compression on it was pretty low already (115psi).

IMG_1553202_zpsmagguk9c.jpg

 

Either the oil filter was punctured or the bolts that hold the oil pump stripped out because of the leverage with the oil filter on impact.

IMG_1550%202_zpsswqh5jlx.jpg

 

shows you how much it was squished.

IMG_1547%202_zpss8uuwnw0.jpg

 

the foglight bracket used to be halfway from the vehicle and the end of the bumper, now its tucked underneath

IMG_1551%202_zpsyv6ibbdv.jpg

 

side by side comparison with my parts car, im thinking of maybe building on the blue one if i can't fix the damages. but i woun't know untill i dig in but i can't untill insurance tells me whats going to happen.

IMG_1554%202_zpszd81bjir.jpg

Edited by Subasaurus
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I'll be interested to hear what others have to say about this crumpling.  I've got some crumpling in a rear I might be fixing soon.

Couple options on the frame issue.

 

Call/ask around for a frame shop and see what they charge to straighten it. 

They can yank that out, but prices will vary wildly based on local market and options.  $500 minimum I would think.

 

Another option - just ignore it or get it out as much as you can with porta-powers or winches/pulling against a tree.

Or dont' pull it at all - and bolt the fender/bumper up.

 

I've had some where the very front/corner was squished some - bolt the fender up and maybe the front hole doesn't line up...but who cares?  it looks totally fine externally I just can't insert the front corner fender bolt, which is entirely benign as long as the fender, hood, and bumper line up.

 

My goal is that the fenders, hood, and bumpers line up and have reasonable gaps that aren't noticeably off.  That's usually fairly easy to get on minor impacts like this.

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Totaled for sure.  My GL was totaled in 2003-2004 for way less than that.  I ended up swapping on a Loyale Bumper (paint code 787 was hard to find to match), kicked the fender to remove the bow in it and touched up the paint chip and it was good to go.  They paid me $750 for the car (it had a ton of miles and some dents and stuff), and I bought it back for $50.  Thankfully mine had no frame damage.. the core support over on the drivers side where the fender bolts to it under the headlight was pushed in maybe a half inch at most and that was $1200 in damage.  Yours will clearly be more.  Not sure if its worth fixing... maybe you can replace the front core support and straighten the parts that attach it.

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I would like to remind you all that nothing is impossible:

IMG_20120811_111125.jpg

 

IMAG1071.jpg

 

Frame rail: front of car to left.20150715_210346_zps0ttkctkv.jpg

 

Couple weekends of hammering and bending things:

20150822_151235_zpsutr6qvi1.jpg

 

20150715_205549_zpseoigfirp.jpg

 

The frame rail is still bent, but it's bent ahead of the suspension so it doesn't affect the geometry of the front track. To attach the bumper I made an extension out of steel plate.

Seen below in green:

20150713_203544_zpsc8pgjfur.jpg

 

Is it perfect? No, but it looks damn better than it did. BTW before I started, the pass headlight bucket was pushed back about *half a foot* from its proper position as you can see in this dry fit before anything was straightened:

20150712_120358_zpsna4nfvce.jpg

 

Once again this was all done with hammers, wood, jacks and pliers. Nothing is impossible.

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  • 2 weeks later...

update--- so the case is now closed, i ended up getting $1,356 for the wagon, (yes they totaled it) would have gotten $1,500 if i gave them the car, ridiculous, $150 for the vehicle, anyways, i would have gotten about $200 more if i didn't get rear ended a year ago (that showed up that the vehicle had been totaled once before) depreciation they claim because i didn't take the car to get repaired by a certified whatever, so they still assume things are tweaked underneath (which are not) but you get what you get... ill post pictures later of how things are going with the rebuild.

Edited by Subasaurus
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From flawless and perfect condition status to my beater that i will not care if i get a shopping cart ding or if i back up into a pole. although it may seem perfect, its far from that now underneath since i was the one that did all the pounding and pulling i know where all the flaws are, but to be honest it actually came out better than i thought it would.

 

hope you guys found this entertaining in a way :P back on the street the subie goes, and a daily driver once again.

 

 

IMG_1595_zpskyexa8rz.jpg

 

20,000lb of pulling force on the winch, was struggling alot.

IMG_1599_zpshseiymcw.jpg

 

went through 7 bolts in total, from grade 5 ones to grade 8.

IMG_1597_zps8sxlwoey.jpg

 

even 20,000 pounds of force was not enough, the heat did the rest of the work at the same time.

IMG_1600_zpshvuqu4np.jpg

 

 

IMG_1612_zpsy3vtpuo0.jpg

 

 

IMG_1609_zpslatxrofc.jpg

 

 

IMG_1605_zpsf6gqiu8z.jpg

 

Costs of damage: $25 oil change due to only a punctured oil filter and a whole bunch of free labor (me) and parts from the donor vehicle.

Profit: $1,331

 

Guess this is the end of this thread..

Edited by Subasaurus
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