well, today I gave a 3-series bmw a 30something mph love-tap.

he cut me off, I chased him, he went heavy on his brakes... and the rest you can figure out on your own. :cry:

anyway... here's my question.
I looked up the blue book retail value of my car (96 GXE with ~84,000 miles), and it said ~$7500.

I'm no mechanic, but after a good look at the car, I could obviously tell that I'm going to need:

-new hood
-new front end
-new passenger side front fender
-POSSIBLY a new radiator. the guy that towed the car away said he noticed it was leaking a bit after they took me to the hospital (I'm fine, but after I told the cops I had a headache from smacking my forehead on the steering wheel, they insisted on calling an ambulance to cover their asses, I guess).

correct me if I'm wrong, but for a car to be totalled, the damage cost needs to exceed something like 90% of the car's total value?

if that's the case, what do you guys think?
totalled? I hope not, I'd really like to keep my car.

 

did the airbags deploy?

 

Anything over 50% value and the body shop is required to call the ins co for a decison. Someone rearranged the front of my altima for me a few weeks ago, thats why I bought the Max. The est. came to $3500 for a hood, bumper, bumper cover, fender, 1 headlight, 1 turn signal, 1 sidemarker, 2 fog lights and all the painting and crap. Body shops tend to bid everything high, all new factory parts, blah blah blah. Its all a big racket. I bought the car back for $700 and am going to fix it for about 500 + paint.

 

nope.

(10 chars~)

 

around here they keep it if it has 60% or more.

 

if the airbags went your screwed most places charge around 3K for them. which is 35% of your cars value plus all damnages/repainting. thats why some people disable there airbags....unless you can convince them to use reconditioned airbags or buy some from a junkyard?

 

dont go shadey with the airbags... in my car accident (not in a max) the air bags didnt go off because they had been stolen...concussion, go smart.

 

well like I said, the airbags didn't deploy... kind of suprised that they didn't though. I thought about that after the fact.
my seatbelt definitely saved me a face-first trip through my windshield though.

 

this is kind of stupid but.... ur at fault right ?

 

I believe so.

working out the details of the police report tomorrow morning at the station. there was a lot of chaos just after the accident with them loading me on to a stretcher and whatnot.

in hindsight I guess I should have done more talking with the police about how this guy cut in front of me the way he did... but when it comes down to it, I rear-ended him... so the chances of me getting off without fault are pretty slim to none.

 

Why not just let it go? I know people cut us off all the time, but it doesn't sound worth it to me to go after the guy. Sorry to hear about your incident and hope you're up and going soon. Good luck.

 

again... hindsight.
I know I shouldn't have chased him... it was heat of the moment. it annoys the **** out of me when kids drive daddy's brand new BMW around like a god damn fool.
I'm just a kid myself.. I'm 18... but I paid for my car myself, and I (normally) drive responsibly.
I love my car, and respect it because of that.

next time I'll just flip him off and let him go, I guess. =p

 

I hear ya, we've all done the same thing. I know what you mean about kids and daddy's car. P!sses me off too.

 

your saying a lot of after thoughts...which is good. the whole situation sucks, but trrrry to learn from it

 

if u learn something for it ur a better person in the long run cuz of it