cgalpha08
"Like Nothing Else"
- Messages
- 3,713
- Location
- Indianapolis, IN
All, a little over 3 weeks ago i was involved in a collision in an intersection and totaled my H3. Accident was my fault, everyone walked away.
Well after back and forth with insurance and the body shop, the original estimate form geico was 5100 dollars worth of damage, new estimate is at 16,500, big jump I know. Evidently, and I saw this with my own eyes, the frame bent and crumpled in the crumple zone pretty badly, bad enough the body shop isn't willing to bend the frame back as it will then be structurally not sound, so it needs a new frame which is 5k new from GM. Here's what i am faced with
In Indiana, you can keep a totaled vehicle if you want, so i have a couple of options
Option #1 total value that geico will pay including the deductible is 20k(evidently they take into account mods if i have proof of payment), if I do not keep the vehicle. I can take that money and run, and find another H3 down the road/ do whatever.
option #2 would be to buy it back from geico which is the salvage price of around 5-6k(will not get a salvage title as it is over 7 years old in indiana), which puts the check i get at 14k~ish dollars. I would then pay out of pocket anything additional that the body shop charges past the 14k, which could be alot as more damage/little things come up.
So what would you do, yes the smart and easy financial move is to just total it and take the cash, but remember this vehicle has a lot of sentimental value to me (a hard value to quantify)
Here are a couple of pics
Well after back and forth with insurance and the body shop, the original estimate form geico was 5100 dollars worth of damage, new estimate is at 16,500, big jump I know. Evidently, and I saw this with my own eyes, the frame bent and crumpled in the crumple zone pretty badly, bad enough the body shop isn't willing to bend the frame back as it will then be structurally not sound, so it needs a new frame which is 5k new from GM. Here's what i am faced with
In Indiana, you can keep a totaled vehicle if you want, so i have a couple of options
Option #1 total value that geico will pay including the deductible is 20k(evidently they take into account mods if i have proof of payment), if I do not keep the vehicle. I can take that money and run, and find another H3 down the road/ do whatever.
option #2 would be to buy it back from geico which is the salvage price of around 5-6k(will not get a salvage title as it is over 7 years old in indiana), which puts the check i get at 14k~ish dollars. I would then pay out of pocket anything additional that the body shop charges past the 14k, which could be alot as more damage/little things come up.
So what would you do, yes the smart and easy financial move is to just total it and take the cash, but remember this vehicle has a lot of sentimental value to me (a hard value to quantify)
Here are a couple of pics
what would you want to take off this H3 and put onto a new one? The bumper seems destroyed...maybe the rack? If you could take some of the parts you want and put it on another H3 that would be probably the financially best thing to do but then again if your willing to put up with the headache you could probably find enough hoarders to buy stuff off you. Storing the rig would be a pain and people would probably want what you are trading over to the new rig. 
