Leather, navigation, new secondary battery, new michelin defender tires. Got hit at about 15mph from behind on the freeway. Back fender and trunk lid are smushed. Not a salvage title. Is there any market for buying a car with damage? I do not know. Figured I'd see. It doesn't make sense for us to sell it for less than $8500.
If it doesn't make sense to part with the car for $8500, I suggest you don't part with it. The way the car looks now, it would sell for significantly less than $8500.
Yeah I figured. Just getting all my facts straight. It's probably around 4k in the condition it's in? What do you think?
For a no cost appraisal, you can bring your car to carmax and see the wholesale value. For a private party value, you can bring your car to a body shop to get an estimate of the repair. Look up your car's value on KBB.com and minus the body shop repair estimate. That would give you a ball park figure, plus or minus $1000.
If you are going to drive the car "as is", I would suggest you go and get another bumper cover and slap it on the car. That would be very low cost and it would look 10x better. The crushed hatch doesn't seem so bad.
We do have insurance. We were just thinking of selling before the accident and I'm debating what makes more sense: sell with damage and use that money plus insurance money to upgrade. Or repair and sell. Or repair and keep. Currently repair and keep seems to make the most sense. I think the hit took 2k off of the price no matter which way I go. The car has very low miles and we got the bells and whistles. Seems to make more sense to run it into the ground now. If we keep it going for 6 years we should be good, I think. I just got a phone call from a "buy damaged cars" place and they offered $3500.
Has the insurance company appraised the damage? It looks to be over $2000 if you were to replace with new parts. You have to remember this car is a hybrid and there's an expensive battery in it. That battery will fail, just a matter of time. Since your car is still under warranty you won't have much to worry about. But after the 10 years warranty, the cost of the battery can be over $3000 at the dealer. If you do plan on selling the car, you should be able to do better than $3500. The damage looks bad but if you were to get a replacement hatch for $500 at a salvage yard and a new bumper, there wouldn't be much damage left that you can notice.
You are awesome, thank you for all of this help. I'm waiting to hear back from the insurance company. We shall see.
Got the price in, repairs for the back are at $5500. Looks like market price here is $11k. So if I could sell it "as is" for $5500 I'd break even. Thanks again for everyone's advice and help.
