ddavidv said:Mr_Asa said:In reply to Boost_Crazy :
They likely totalled it because they are gonna repair it and sell it for the same price or more due to the market.
Your lack of knowledge on how the insurance business works is blatantly apparent.
K
Go back and ask for more money and to see the comps they used? If the Money they are giving you is not enough to make you whole you should push back. If you took the check already you are stuck.
Thanks for all of the advise. We are going to check out a few options. So far a Lighting is on top of the list on paper, and another Telluride is a strong option. Kind of surprised, but she wants to check out minivans again. She realized that a minivan is the best fit for her use. As much as she loved the Telluride, her previous Sienna made better use of space. We'll check out the new one, the hybrid drivetrain would be a big plus for her mileage. If the market really sucks, she's good with buying a much cheaper temp car until supply catches up and the market cools.
The valuation part for her Telluride seems fair. In the past, we've always been low balled, and had to fight and find comps. In this case, they are giving her pretty much to the penny, plus tax, what she paid almost 3 years and 40,000 miles ago. While cars are much more expensive now, if feels like an even deal.
Check the Carnival by KIA one of the most striking minivans I've seen.....good luck
Mr_Asa said:In reply to Boost_Crazy :
They likely totalled it because they are gonna repair it and sell it for the same price or more due to the market.
Or they know that they will have someone in a rental for three months while they wait for parts.
Sonic said:Toebra said:Mr_Asa said:In reply to Boost_Crazy :
They likely totalled it because they are gonna repair it and sell it for the same price or more due to the market.
This.
Same thing happened when my Integra GSR got totalled. They under valued it about 50%, totalled it and then when I appealed they had to cut a second check. The totalled car was rebuilt and registered before I got the replacement car. If they had given it a realistic value to begin with, it would have been repaired.
I assure you the insurance company has nothing to do with this sort of thing. They are only going to sell it at auction. Many newer and in demand cars can be totaled more easily than you think as the salvage value is quite high, like it might be even $15k for something like this, so the full payout less the salvage value net cost is less than the repairs plus rental, especially with current parts delays. A surprising amount go overseas.
The insurance company had nothing to do with undervaluing the car by 50%, really?
In reply to Toebra :
He's referring to the comment about the insurance company repairing a car and selling it, which is what was suggested in the previous comments. That is something insurance companies absolutely do not do. They just take the car and have a third party (such as Copart) sell it as-is.
Regarding undervaluing the car, that's absolutely subjective. I don't know a single thing about your specific case, what your GS-R was really worth, what they offered and/or why. What I can tell you for absolute certainty is that they do not intentionally undervalue a car. They don't say "We know this is worth $20k, but let's just offer $10k and see what happens". That's bad juju for insurance, they would get their ass handed to them if they did that and got caught.
Glad you wife is ok, shaken, but not stirred as it were. While I cannot offer any recommendations on a replacement or what the car market is doing, I just wanted to add that I am seeing a lot of lawless driving here in NJ as well. I just do not understand where it is all coming from.
In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) :
Guess you've never experienced corruption, and are unaware that there are crooked people, kick backs, etc.
I wish my life had left me with that impression. 
Klayfish and I have worked in the business of insurance claims for probably 40-50 combined years. I've seen lazy and sloppy appraisals but no one is motivated to intentionally undervalue vehicles. All that does is created MORE work for us which we don't need. I'm an hourly employee; I get zero financial incentive from what I pay on a claim. I just want a claim to GO AWAY.
The insurance industry is highly regulated and the fines that can be imposed for intentionally defrauding customers can be substantial. Of the five companies I have worked for, not one has promoted anything but "pay what we owe, owe what we pay". Are some a bit sloppy about it? Yes.
ddavidv said:Klayfish and I have worked in the business of insurance claims for probably 40-50 combined years. I've seen lazy and sloppy appraisals but no one is motivated to intentionally undervalue vehicles. All that does is created MORE work for us which we don't need. I'm an hourly employee; I get zero financial incentive from what I pay on a claim. I just want a claim to GO AWAY.
The insurance industry is highly regulated and the fines that can be imposed for intentionally defrauding customers can be substantial. Of the five companies I have worked for, not one has promoted anything but "pay what we owe, owe what we pay". Are some a bit sloppy about it? Yes.
This 1000%. Granted I only worked in claims for a short time after college, and on the housing side and not cars, but undervaluing or trying to screw over people is absolutely not something anyone did.
My experience, and how I handled my claims, was we tried to find ways to get people as much money as we could under the policy. And sometimes we bent the rules to get the insured more money.
This attitude that the insurance company is out to screw you stems from the fact that most people don't read the policy, IE, the contract they voluntarily entered. And think that everything is just covered carte blanche with no exceptions or limits. Read your policies, examine the limits and exceptions and see if you need additional coverage for certain things.
We went out and looked at some cars. Lots of dealership lots were very sparse.
Kia Carnival. All they had was one base model that just came in. The dealer said that they were getting very few. It was nice looking for a minivan. It didn't seem as roomy inside as the Sienna, despite claims to be the roomiest minivan. I was expecting a bump in interior space over the Telluride, but it didn't feel like it. On paper, it should have been more practical than the Telluride, but it just wasn't different enough to "downgrade" to a minivan. They were marking up the base model by over $10k!
Toyota Sienna. Hard to find one. It was very underwhelming. In theory it was perfect- standard hybrid, 36mpg, lots of room. But in reality, it was just boring. And I'm a big minivan fan, I loved our old 2014 Sienna. While I don't expect a big practical box to be exciting, the 2014 at least looked good. The new one just looks- weird. Fugly is also a good description. The quality of the interior was really disappointing. It looked really cheap. My wife thought maybe it was a base model, but it was an XLE. Maybe the Telluride just spoiled us, but we were expecting more for the money. Add in the markup, we didn't bother driving it.
Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Not on our list, but we were at the dealer and it was sitting there. A slightly less ugly but less practical Sienna. Better mileage than a Telluride, but that was it. Also marked up, but wasn't interested regardless.
Ford Lighting. We got to drive one and loved it. It drove surprisingly like a regular truck, just absent engine noise. Until you mashed the pedal and got instant acceleration. We loved everything about it, accept the price. All they had were $70k Lariates- which then then added dealer add-ons like paint sealant and additional mark up, driving that number into the mid 80's. We might be willing to pull the trigger on a $60k truck with almost $10k in tax credits- but hard to justify a $75k (after credits) truck for a daily driver. Not completely sold on EV only, and at that price, it doesn't make much financial sense. While gas is very expensive in CA, so is electricity. We are checking out the hybrid F150- did find one to drive yet. But it seems to be stuck no man's land. Close in price to the Lightning, but without the extra mark up. But also no tax credit. At the prices we found so far, pretty much better going with the Lightning for our use. For range and towing, the hybrid is a better choice. The standard Eco-boost costs the least, but is the most expensive to operate. My quick and dirty calcs ($5 gas, .30kWh electricity) show that all three would be roughly equal (purchase price plus cost per mile) at 100,000 miles, with the hybrid pulling ahead of the gas and the EV pulling ahead of both from there. Seems like a long payback to me.
So it was looking like another Telluride was the best option. But they are also getting marked up. The MSRP is up a few thousand from when we bought our 2020, and they are adding $4-$10k on top. If we could find the one we want.
Which brings us to our next option. My wife loves driving trucks. Part of the appeal of the Lightning. But dropping from 8 seats to 5 won't be great. So we are looking at used Expeditions. They seem to be a relatively good deal, especially 2WD. Finding lots of 2018-2020 low mileage examples in the 40k range. Best so far is a 2018 with 36k miles for $35k. Anything to know about these? Checking a couple out tonight.
In that deal with my car, I told them they were way off and showed them comps in comparable condition. They used a bunch of clapped out beaters for comps. Maybe the adjuster had a friend who rebuilt Hondas and split the money with him. They ended up having to cut me a second check that was just a few dollars shy of what the first one was. I should have bought it back from them myself and turned it into a track car, which was my plan for it, but I did not have time to do it then.
As I've opined endlessly in these threads, those situations are the result of lazy or incompetent claim people, not intentional acts. We have them sometimes...just like every other business out there.
We found a replacement this weekend. The market is nuts. Pretty much every new vehicle we considered had a crazy mark up, was unavailable, or both. Back when she originally bought the Telluride, she really liked the Expedition. But they were way more expensive. We checked them out, and it turns out that used ones have depreciated a lot in relation to her Kia- enough to close the gap substantially. And the good news was that there appeared to be lots of them available. The bad news was that like with many used cars, quality and pricing varied wildly. She really wanted a Max. Being able to hold eight people and their stuff is a big plus. More bad news was that while there were still a lot for sale (pretty sure I looked at every one this side of the Rockies,) the vast majority of the Maxes are previous rentals. Not a deal breaker in itself- though a big check against it- but most of the them also appeared to have come from rust belt states. I was shocked to see so many for sale in CA. Big props to the Carfax search site. It made it easy to vet cars. Quite a few that were certified at Ford dealers, also easy to search for. This was huge to me. The Kia had another year of bumper to bumper and 60k miles or so of drivetrain warranty. Giving that up for a used Expedition with little remaining warranty was a non starter. With a good amount of choices out there (we were willing to do a fly and drive) we decided to follow the old adage of buying a used car. Buy the best one available. So while we spent quite a bit more than we were intending, and much more than the cheapest examples, I think we got great value. 2019 Expedition Max Limited. Single owner, 35,000 mile Ford certified, bought new and services religiously at a local Ford dealer. Pretty much as close as you can get to a brand new 2019 Expedition. It is also a Special Edition. Which is an oddly named package, just "Special Edition." It basically means that they took a Limited and checked off every option box available, and added 22" wheels and a different suspension to match. I questioned the idea of the 22's- but my wife loved them and honestly, I couldn't tell a difference in ride between it and a regular one on 18's. In the end, we ended up upgrading the Telluride to her dream car for a fraction of difference it would have been in 2019. It has less miles and about the same warranty left.
Looks great. It's funny that the SUVs are big enough these days that 22's look about right on there. Hope it brings you guys many years and smiles!
In reply to Boost_Crazy :
The big question is does it become your tow rig in a couple of years?
In reply to Rons :
That's a possibility. Right now I have the beater Titan, which does a great job towing. But the Expedition has all kinds of nice toys for towing that I'd like to try out.
Something I find weird about these is that the Platinum trim is higher than the Limited but it's the opposite on the trucks (F150 etc.) so confusing
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