So I was driving along the other day and minding my own business and then BAM! a old lady rear ends me. She said she hit the gas instead of the brake!. She has insurance but now I am wondering if the insurance agency is gonna say my car is totaled. My auto body shop estimated the damages at around $1,118. How bad is this? Oh and my car is an 89 RS 305 in fairly good condition. It also messed up my hatch a little.[IMG]file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Kevin/Desktop/DSC01153.JPG[/IMG]

 

$1100 for THAT????

Take the check from your insurance.....
Go to a junkyard & spend $50 on a new bumper cover.....
Spent maybe 2 hrs to R&R them.....
Go get it painted & pocket $900!

 

What!! wtf, thats a bodyshop 4ya
I agree, get that check and do it urself and make it good as new.

 

haha ya deffinately thats an easy 1 hour project if that.

 

Yea I'm aware its not a huge job and I can do it myself. The only thing I'm curious about is if they are gonna total it out because if they did I would probably just buy it back for cheap and fix it then.

 

Car is FAAAAARRRRR from totaled i wouldnt even suggest that to the insurance scammers. take advice from Stephan and do what he said.

 

and if the insurance scammers total it. they take your title and its more of a pain in the a$$ to get the title transferred again. and a big mess that you dont want to deal with. I repo/tow cars and deal with insurance companies all the time. Dont let them scam you for anything. good luck

 

Good to know! thanks

 

Oh and I forgot to add that the supports behind the bumper might be tweaked.

 

 

If you pay attention to the pics(1st pic) you will notice the deck lid isn't even close to sitting flush with rest of the car..... Is that an easy fix? What's the solution?

 

Easy fix. Just hit a junkyard and pick up a new hatch, prep and paint. Around here total cost would be around $50 including the paint and gas to and from the JY.

OP - As said above, just take the check and do it yourself. You might not even need a new bumper cover as it doesn't look cracked to me. Just prep and paint. As for the supports, even if they are tweaked, the cover doesn't mount to those. They are for the impact bar. As long as the cover lines up with the quarter panels you'll never notice it unless you look under the car. I can't see them totalling the car for that much, but if they do I would be looking for a new insurance company.

 

No parts are needed if u look closley(pic #1) they don't need any cosmetic work....... Frame is out of alignmen??? from reading the Stickies on the hatch moters for 3rd"s they are not cheap and Used are hard to find....... Let me And the owner of the nice car, tangible solutions to fix the offset of that back hatch >>> In short >>> BUYING A NEW HATCH WILL NOT SQUARE THAT UP !!!!

 

bitchin_buick - If you looked that closely, you would have noticed that the glass is still flush with the quarter panel and that the metal part is more out of alignment at the rear of the car than at the base of the glass. This means that the hatch metal was twisted upwards in relation to the glass from the impact. The easiest way to repair that is to replace the hatch as I suggested.

 

There is nothing wrong with the hatch that cant be fix.No replacement is necessary.There is a rubber adjuster at the base of the decklid.Try turning that in & see how it looks then.Also the decklid is bolted to the glass, by removing the plastic trim piece.You will see about 10-12 nuts holding the decklid in place.There is limited adjustment there as well, but first wait & see what your/hers ins tells you.Regardless, DONT let them write it off.Its not totaled.

At worst the frame rail is tweaked & could be causing the qauter panel/decklid to pop out of alignment.What probably happened.The frame rail was push down & since this is a unit body.The rail, floorboard,qtr panel are welded togther.If the frame rail is pushed down.Its also pulling the qtr panel down.Causing the decklid to appear higher.When in reality it might still be level.

Re-aligning the frame will pop the qtr panel back in place & resolve most of the decklid lid issues.Make sure the claims agent is aware of this or they will just try to write the vehicle off as a total loss.

 

My advice is to let the bodyshop and the insurance company fix your car. You didn't post a copy of the estimate but I'm sure the shop told you they only estimate what they can see. There is probably damage hidden by the bumper cover and other things may be discovered when the car is disassembled for repairs. Insurance companies start looking very closely at the estimated cost of repairs when it approaches 70% of the value of the car. I don't know what the actual cash value is for your car in it's pre accident condition but there is always the possibility that it could be a total loss depending on the amount of damage found and the agreed cost of repairs. In the event that your car is totalled then yes I would buy the salvage and do the repairs yourself if you're capable.
I'm not knocking your pics but it's impossible for us to see the damage to your car from pics. Good luck.

 

Yea I know its hard to see the damage because the car is black. Also, its not my insurance company that is handling this. I only have liability so the its the person who hit me insurance. I am probably going to let the body shop deal with it because I don't wanna pull the bumper off and find even more damage that is beyond my ability to repair. My car is probably only worth $2,500 so $1,110 is already almost half the value of the car.

 

I work in the autobody industry and I believe, from personal experience, that as a claimant on the other person's insurance you have a little better chance of getting your car fixed, rather than totalled, if it gets close to that. But never forget that it's the insurance company's intent to get this claim handled for the least money possible and they work hard to do just that. The autobody shop that you choose to do the repairs should be able to work closely with the insurance company and help you with advice about repair options if it comes close to totalling out.

 

Thanks your advise has been very helpful. I wont know anything til monday so I will post something when I know whats up.