Car got crunched; insurance company wants to say it's a total loss?

[pumpkinpony]

Apologize in advance for the minor hijack here...but this got me thinking, and I'm curious....
If a car is deemed "totaled" by your insurance company, and you take the check and get the car repaired and back on the road...can you get insurance for it, or will the insurance company(s) deny you?

With USAA - they totaled our vehicle, wrote a check.. We kept said vehicle, had to put a salvage title on it, and dropped the insurance to liability only. They are only going to pay out on a vehicle once.

Oddly enough though, if you switch companies, you can probably put full coverage on it again. I had a truck I switched to USAA with a previous salvage title, and they let me do full coverage on it.

[owlice]

Hey, maybe Owlie can go lift a door off a car somewhere

Yeah, like off my brother's Honda Civic, which isn't running and is available for cannibalization.

I'd say you're lucky it's a Civic, because there are thousands in that age range still on the road, and you'll probably be able to find a door at a salvage yard.

Yup, and it's even the most popular color for these cars, too: silver. I think getting a replacement door, even without my bro's largesse, would not be hard for this car.

Liability for the accident has not (to my knowledge) been determined yet, but I am pretty sure the other driver will be found to be at fault.

[Biciclista]

With USAA - they totaled our vehicle, wrote a check.. We kept said vehicle, had to put a salvage title on it, and dropped the insurance to liability only. They are only going to pay out on a vehicle once.

Oddly enough though, if you switch companies, you can probably put full coverage on it again. I had a truck I switched to USAA with a previous salvage title, and they let me do full coverage on it.

no, again, it depends. I got full coverage on my car after it was stolen, recovered totaled and repaired from the same company..

[abejita]

I just have to laugh...it is nice to know that other people run their vehicles into the ground too. I am a bit heartbroken that it is time to replace my 1995 acura integra that has 198000 miles on it. The a/c is broken and the radiator needs replacing and I just as soon put the money into a new honda or acura than my old one.

[owlice]

Only 198K miles? Oh, c'mon, abejita! Your car is a pup! A baby! Young! :-D

~~~~~~

I've never been given a door before, but wow, what a GREAT present! My brother showed up yesterday afternoon with the driver's door off his 1996 Honda Civic, which used to be my Honda Civic. I sold it to him when I bought the '98 Civic I can now drive again, because we put the '96 door on my car and I am good to go!!!

Granted, the only window that can be rolled down is the driver's window (electric windows on the other three doors now not operable because the "new" door doesn't have the controls for them), and I need two different keys for the car (but have only one, for the passenger side, because neither one of us realized that hey! the lock is NOT the same! until after the door was on the car and I got ready to lock it [the Doh! moment of the day]), and I now have a smashed car door in my shed, but I can drive the car again, yay!!!

[tulip]

But we want to know: does it match??

Glad it worked out for you.

[OakLeaf]

Hee hee.

Glad it worked out. Hope you get a big check from her insurance.

And I'll bet you can wire in a dashboard switch for the other windows. You're gonna need them, as hot as it's been. Better yet, you could just screw the old switch onto your new door to match the "fabulous" theme.

[Tuckervill]

Switch the lock on the wrecked door with the lock on the "new" door.

Glad it worked out.

Karen

[Melalvai]

(My second split-second thought while the other car was hitting mine was something along the lines of "Gee, I hope I don't have to go to the hospital; I have on old underwear!" I wish I were kidding about this... but ~~ sigh ~~ I'm not... )

You should be proud of that moment. That is hilarious.

My car is a 1998 Ford Escort. I had the same situation about 5 years ago. I was waiting at a stop sign and a snow plow backed into me. Insurance declared it totaled and gave us $1600 since I said we wanted to keep the vehicle and fix it anyway. I think they were going to give us $2000 if we didn't keep it. I don't want to buy a car for $2000. It wouldn't run. The mechanic fixed it for as close to $1600 as he could. We paid the difference. It wasn't much, so I was happy.

We were able to get it fixed for less because I guess one of the things they do is paint it to match the rest of the car, and after the car is this old it has faded quite a bit. I could barely tell that the hood was a brighter white than the rest of the car, and after a few months when it was equally dirty I couldn't tell at all. The front and rear bumpers are now black, on a white car. Since then I've noticed a LOT of cars have black bumpers and I wonder if that is intentional or just a cheaper way to get the bumper fixed. It's not noticeable, not like having a blue door or something.

I just wanted the car to run, and be safe. It's stupid to pay for cosmetics on an old car.

I guess technically we were supposed to get a salvage title, but we never got any paperwork on that. We don't intend to sell this car, we are going to drive it as long as it will run, so it doesn't really matter.

[colorisnt]

Wow. Glad you are okay, OP!

It makes sense that they would total it. The car that was SUPPOSED to be my first car (a 1989 Chevy Suburban) was totaled in 2001. We used it to pull our horse trailer. We paid $800.00 for it and it was a good car. We took good care of it for 2 years and then my Dad had to go on a business trip. Rather than bring the nice car, he took the hay mobile. It was stolen from the airport. The took the AC unit, the stereo, and the back doors.

Turns out whoever stole it, stole it for scrap. If we could have gotten the doors, we would have bought it back from the insurance company. Not having a payment was what really mattered and the salvage costs could have been minimal IF we could have found doors (which we couldn't).

A civic is a lot different. And I understand why you want to keep it. We have a 97 accord that was "my" car growing up. It still runs great. Plenty of issues with the pain, has a ding in the windshield, and the windows don't work, but it gets my sister from point A to point B. You should be able to find a door if that frame isn't bent. Shouldn't cost that much.

[owlice]

But we want to know: does it match??

Yup! Both cars are silver.

I hadn't noticed until the new door was on, but one of the differences between the cars (the older a DX, the newer an LX) was that mine had a strip of silver metal running around along the bottom edge of the window, instead of just the black edging. So the driver's side window doesn't have that shiny silver piece now; I can live with that!