All I know is that the independent insurance company under which I was insured at the time gave me $28,000 for my 1993, JDM, 2jz Supra when I totalled it and I had paid it just a little north of $20,000 at the time. It struck me as a little odd.

As far as a beater goes I'd say any Mazda sedan or heck even a Hyundai Accent hatchback would be pretty good. But honestly nothing beats a 1998 Honda Civic beater. NOTHING.

 

I am pretty shure the Quad-Four was discontinued a long time ago[/QUOTE]

Yeah, the newer Saturn Ions have an Ecotec engine.

 

Thanks. I think you may have gotten me on that one....you may be right. I confused the Quad 4 with the Ecotec.

The main issue here, though, as it relates to the thread title, was the fact that I was (possibly) recommending one of the older Saturns because some of them used chains rather than a timing belt. Pvmike1 said that apparantly was an issue with his friend...she didn't want to end up having to change a timing belt.

 

And I appreciate your input Mike! I've driven a lot of cars, but I'm sure nowhere near the number you've driven.

 

Mike with Saturn closing, not sure a woman wants to own a car no longer made and with their own dealership network. Surely they can get serviced at other GM brands but I can imagine the hassle a Saturn owner gets there.

As for PVMike (how many Mikes in this thread lol) I can assure you that car will be fixed and sold again with a salvaged title or moved to another state to be sold. You can basically get a title in Utah for like $25 and act like nothing happened.

 

00 Toyota Camry, 4 cyclinder model.

 

You should be able to get at least try to ask for more on the settlement. Did she recently do any maintenance purchase anything for the car?

This guy I know had his car totaled and was offered $31k and he said he just had gotten new tires and some other stuff done and then he was able to get a settlement for $33.5k. $31k would have been fair for his car by his own admission based on KBB prices, resale values, other cars on the market similar, etc. but he also figured there was no harm in asking and pointing those things out to see if he could get more out of it. Bottom line is that it doesn't hurt to ask, though I'd just make sure you have some basis/facts to justify your position.

 

Agreed......but there are not that many cheap, used, well-built cars with timing chains instead of belts. And many of those are older, crappy, American-built cars that fell apart in a couple of years.....the Saturn S-series cars, though American-designed, were generally a cut above that.

 

Good golly.....33K and TOTALLED?!

Man, that's a LOT of damage. With that kind of damage, I hope he walked away from it without any serious injuries.

 

What about a Scion?

 

I don't think there are many Scion going around for $4-6k.

 

Not sure what the damage estimate was but it had frame damage and what not. No injuries until he got out of car then he nicked his hand on piece of glass; I think he was given a band-aid for that... haha

 

For 4K? Possible, but not likely. Best candidate would be an old xA with a LOT of miles on it.

 

My point was, that for an insurance company to settle for a figure like that (33K), it had to have been on a pretty expensive car, probably new or almost new, a lot of damage, or, more likely, a combination of these. Also, the fact that there was little medical expense involved also showed it was mostly vehicle damage, not a medical settlement.

 

^^^ hhmm Maybe I've misled you. He was offered $31k for the loss of his car, not in addition to any other sort of settlement. What he ended up getting after stating his case for more money was $33.5k, again for the loss of the vehicle. No medical expenses were considered as there were none.

He paid like $40-41k for the car and it was ~1.5 years old when this happened with relatively low mileage.