The end of my ride for me

[Steve540i]

This past Tuesday, May 1st, I was broadsided by a large pickup truck and my 1995 540i is now totaled. The other moron ran a red light and smashed into me. Does anyone have an idea what the insurance company will pay me? It has 236K miles on the clock, 40K on the rebuilt auto tranny, pretty decent body. The front drivers side was smashed. I'll post pics as soon as I can. I'm in the city of La Puente. I just picked up a set of 18 inch AC Schnitzers too!

[PorscheH6]

I had a '94 540i with 160k miles that was rear-ended at a red light. Insurance cut me a check for $5800. This was back in '09.

I'd expect them to offer at least three grand. Make sure after the adjuster comes you take off anything worth while. Don't like take the engine, but misc upgrades you might have on the car like wheels (swap to stock) and sways, strut bars, engine chips...etc...

[Steve540i]

Three Grand?! Egad!! That other bastard is going to get off easy.

[PorscheH6]

This is how the ins. company sees it:

17 year old sedan with 236,000 miles.

[jehu]

This past Tuesday, May 1st, I was broadsided by a large pickup truck and my 1995 540i is now totaled. The other moron ran a red light and smashed into me. Does anyone have an idea what the insurance company will pay me? It has 236K miles on the clock, 40K on the rebuilt auto tranny, pretty decent body. The front drivers side was smashed. I'll post pics as soon as I can. I'm in the city of La Puente. I just picked up a set of 18 inch AC Schnitzers too!


I was totaled rear end when at a stop by a 20 yo in a Ford Edge doing 45 downhill... They paid me $3,800 and I got my wreck back for $500 so the total without buying the wreck back was $4,300.

car had just under 200,000 540 six speed.

[Steve540i]

Oh man, I am hoping for at least five. Very wishful hoping.

[jehu]

Despite all the insistence from folks here that I should be able to make them pay more by citing things like CD changer, Allow wheels ( which come stock btw technically) and all the recent upgrades like Koni adjustable shocks etc.. the Ins. Co went strictly by NADA eschewing KBB.

[Steve540i]

I'm having the car towed back to my house (Per the insurance company's directions) tomorrow. When can I start parting out?

[PorscheH6]

After the adjuster looks at the car and after you tell your ins. co you want to buy it back.

Dove interior? :shifty

[jehu]

Not until you agree to their buy back price which they'll deduct from the total payout figure you accept..

[Steve540i]

All black interior, leather.

[jehu]

Well if its in great shape people seem to like Black Interiors you may find that will sell..

[AquilaBMW]

Sorry to hear about your car. Good luck with the resolution. What think you can do in California is to go find a bunch of ads that show retail pricing for you car if you feel they low-balled. If the prices are higher, they might be pressed to show "good faith" to you and increase the value / pay out.

Also, see if you can ask for your "Limits of Liability". Most will say they can't disclose it, but they are required to if you ask them.

[Steve540i]

Hmm.., very good advice guys.

[K Fox]

.. the Ins. Co went strictly by NADA eschewing KBB.

That's because you didn't really push them hard - you just accepted what they told you. You can disagree with them and fight for more if you feel your car is worth it. You apparently didn't feel strongly enough about it. :dunno


Sorry to hear about your car. Good luck with the resolution. What think you can do in California is to go find a bunch of ads that show retail pricing for you car if you feel they low-balled. If the prices are higher, they might be pressed to show "good faith" to you and increase the value / pay out.

Also, see if you can ask for your "Limits of Liability". Most will say they can't disclose it, but they are required to if you ask them.

And this is truth. If they lowball you, start doing some research and find out what similar models are selling for and present it to them. Here in the forums (if any are for sale - I don't really look much) and classifieds. Also dealer cars - these are great for being on the high end of the price spectrum. But if you want decent money from the ins company you'll have to work for it - do your research and argue the point well (meaning both enthusiastically and properly - present yourself and your info well). Then you'll get a fair value for the car. Otherwise they'll just tell you they won't budge and leave you to think you'll get nothing if you refuse. You have the power here if you were hit and not at fault - make sure your comfortable with the numbers and their offer. Be realistic though - research will tell you what realistic is once you find some cars for sale. Keep us informed.

Fox

[atl530i]

Sorry about your car. I lost an S13 240 the same way. Such a dumb way to lose a car.

[skittle34]

thought this was the other steve briefly, but that sucks to hear about your car man. Hopefully things work out for you!

[gixxerboy63]

This is how the ins. company sees it:

17 year old sedan with 236,000 miles.

Mine has 180k... but I am spending a lot of cake to get it nice.

What happens if someone takes you out and your car is that type of condition?

I'm keeping a record of receipts and photos to chronicle the work.

Sorry to hear about your car, Steve. It was nice too.

[EuroPartConnect]

Buy it back and part out what you can. With that being said I call dibs on the door panels if you do end up parting.

[jehu]

That's because you didn't really push them hard - you just accepted what they told you. You can disagree with them and fight for more if you feel your car is worth it. You apparently didn't feel strongly enough about it. :dunno



And this is truth. If they lowball you, start doing some research and find out what similar models are selling for and present it to them. Here in the forums (if any are for sale - I don't really look much) and classifieds. Also dealer cars - these are great for being on the high end of the price spectrum. But if you want decent money from the ins company you'll have to work for it - do your research and argue the point well (meaning both enthusiastically and properly - present yourself and your info well). Then you'll get a fair value for the car. Otherwise they'll just tell you they won't budge and leave you to think you'll get nothing if you refuse. You have the power here if you were hit and not at fault - make sure your comfortable with the numbers and their offer. Be realistic though - research will tell you what realistic is once you find some cars for sale. Keep us informed.

Fox


Maybe in your neck of the woods .. When the adjuster says essentially take it or leave it, I don't have to offer you any more than I have there was quite obviously no reason to expect that posiition would yield to my whining.. In my case I still profited $1,500 AND got my wreck back. Since that time I have sold off enough to have come out on the plus side still.

I held off as long as I could but the adjuster was perfectly clear that they simply were under no obligation to offer me any more for my car than they had. The only accomodation they made me was coming down from $800 to $500 on the buy back. The check was cut right quick though..

[Gravik]

If you get a check from the insurance company, then you could lways start looking for another 540.

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/ctd/2995547388.html

If you aren't afraid to do a little road trippin'

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/cto/2940901244.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/ctd/2954338723.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/2992370383.html

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/ctd/2995905303.html

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/cto/2994189785.html

[M5W]

Gather every single receipt you have spent on the car in the past year, gather car ads of the same model with similar mileage , and put it all together in a pdf or fax and send it to them. When my M5 was written off 3 years ago the insurance offered me $7200. I fought and gathered information on every e34 m5 in my province with around the same mileage and then gathered all my receipts for mods I had done to the car, sifted thru them and determined which ones could be considered "maintenance" and submitted it all and got $16,000 for the car instead. Its totally worth it to fight. When it comes to mods you have to be careful, only submit purchases that would have been necessary if something failed , ex. motor or trans rebuilds, bushings, swaybars, anything that was an oem ish part and would have come on the car. No turbo kits or superchargers lol , but my eisenmann exhaust got covered as did my motor rebuild, my swaybars, alot of my parts as they replaced oem parts.

Don't give in and submit every penny you can in purchases and you will receive much more than they are willing to pay out.

[mpaganr34]

I just went through a similar situation and was able to work an extra grand or so out of them by showing what 5 speed tourings are going for. You might give it a try, with 540s obviously.

[Glove7]

Here in MA I pay excise tax on my car for an amount the insurance company surely would not think it is worth.
Sorry for the loss nevertheless.

[Steve540i]

My head is still spinning from the impact. I decided to crank it yesterday to see if it starts and it did briefly for a few seconds. Oil started coming out from where the filter used to be so I stopped. I'm going to start doing my research then and print stuff out. It's sad, I really liked the look of my car and seeing it bashed up really sucks. This was my first "decent" car. BTW, the other guy's insurance company told me that he said that I ran the red light. Time to get a lawyer?

[PorscheH6]

Time to contact your witness (if you got any) and get their signed written statements. Lawyers are expensive.

If this ends up being word vs. word that will be unfortunate.

[Steve540i]

NADA pays less than KBB?

[MacR]

Hopefully you'll get an agent that understands your/our love for the car and helps you out. Good luck, sir.

[Gator325525]

You guys actually pay for full coverage on these old cars? To me that's a waste of money.

[jehu]

You guys actually pay for full coverage on these old cars? To me that's a waste of money.
Full coverage for me which includes my home coverage is around $600/yr.

If I hadn't carried the coverage I wouldn't have recovered anything when it was totaled. Well at least I would have had to wait for the other guys company to cough up and who knows how long that would be.

One year before the total I was rear ended by a 20 yo ditz ata a slightly lower speed which busted a rear bumper strut/mount and cracked the bumber . I was not carrying any collision coverage then believeing my uninsured motorist coverage was adequate for any damage by other drivers. She was uninsured but we were in New Hampshire and apprently the uninsured motorist coverage can not be applied here. I got nothiing.

I reactivated the collision portion on the car whhich was totaled a year later and am damned glad I did.

[PorscheH6]

You guys actually pay for full coverage on these old cars? To me that's a waste of money.

Not when you get rates as low as I do. Also makes more sense with an agreed value policy.

:menani

[richinvan]

I will be purchasing an agreed-value policy on my next car - use a 3rd party 'classic' car insurer, and you'd be surprised at how reasonably priced they can be.

Steve, get in touch - we can compare notes/ads/etc. I've been compiling a large, large "just in case" for when the insurance company attempts to low-ball me.

[BavarianFanatic]

I went through this last year for my mother's pristine Touring. Most insurance companies use 3rd party sources such as Autosource to evaluate the condition of your car and find comps nationwide. The value is weighted based on condition as well as actual retail and auction sales for a given car. The problem is that E34s are so old there isn't a hell of a lot of data. They pretty much default to NADA or similar.

Finding piles of cars listed for sale doesn't really do you a whole lot of good. There's a difference between an "asking" price and a "selling" price. I'm not saying you won't need some examples, but make sure they're inline with the condition of YOUR car. Also, make sure the condition is rated accurately. Adjusters tend to be a bit lazy and accept all of the defaults which are based purely on mileage and age.

In the end, we ended up at a number that I felt was quite fair for the car. But I had assistance along the way with a friend who happens to be a total loss claims handler for a major insurance company.

Just remember that your insurance company isn't obligated by law to pay you anything more than "fair market value". These are old cars that very rarely move through retail channels. There just isn't a heck of a lot of data to draw from. This is the price we pay for loving and maintaining these old cars. We're a collection of enthusiasts. It would be completely illogical to put any effort into fixing/improving these cars otherwise (from a monetary standpoint). Best of luck to you.