The G Man

If you have to pay deductible, doesnt that mean both party is at no fault. If it was her fault, you should not have to pat detuctable at all. I guess you need to prove that she ran a red light.

jfelbab

If you don't want to wait for the other parties insurance company to evaluate the car and make you jump through hoops then you are much better off using your own collision coverage and let your insurance make the repair and subrogate the charges back to their insurance. You pay your deductible and your insurance gets that back for you too. That is, if the other party has been charged with a traffic violation. Happens all the time.

froggersrx

G Man, my insurance company has not received the police report yet. There was at least one witness present (the car driving next to me) that stopped and coroborated that my light was green. Another witness left their information to be called if necessary. The police also told me that the report would reflect no fault on my part.

jfelbab, thanks for the info. I will be looking forward to re-couping my deductible.

The G Man

Its a good thing that there was witness, otherwise it would be just her words against yours. Was that 07 RAV4 a V6, those things are fast.

SugarRush

^But not fast enough to get out of the way of this accident. It is fast but not a 911-turbo fast .

kewobrian

My understanding is that for a car to be totaled the cost to fix the car has to be a certain percentage of the cars value. I think it is 70% or so.

Assuming the car's value is 29k, if damages total to around 20k, it will be considered totaled.

If they do decide to get it fixed, make sure you are picky about everything. Do NOT settle for an 'okay' job.

JasDmw

I had a 3 week old Frebird totalled by a freak tornado in 1980. The way it worked then was the cost to repair was more than the slavage value of the car plus the payout of the coverage (i.e., relacement) minus the dedutable. It actually saved the insurance company money to write it off, sell it to a scrap yard and cut me a cheque for a new one than it was to repair the old one. I would bet this is likely the case here as well, with the price of parts and the cost of labour. If the doors don't open, it's bent pretty badly. I would not want it back.

BTW, I was sitting in the car, stopped by the lack of visibility, watching through the T roof as trees fell on the hood and trunk. Drove the car home and then to the scrap yard.

Pjjohnson

My front end looks very similar. Radiator shoot for sure. Rest of car is fine. Do you think this 2004 is totalled?

RedGemini

If yours is hit to the point the radiator broke and airbags were set off, then I'd say yes. An '04 is 13-14 years old. Depending on the miles and condition, it may only book for around $9-10,000, and that repair, even with used parts, would be approaching $7-8,000.

I'm guessing the OP's was totaled, since he never came back to update this thread.

I've seen older vehicles being totaled lately with a lot less damage.