Gurus,

Greetings !

My car was damaged for being in a unfortunate T-bone junction, when two other cars collided, and hit my standing car. one of the north or south bound cars , didn't yield to a left-turn.

its a blessing, family is safe & no one was hurt.

insurance company estimator said, the repair-amount crossed 70% of the value, and will be flagged as "Total".

browsing few threads, iam assuming Insurance-co will LOW-ball the car's worth.

I like to prove, that my car is worth more than what insurance-co will quote.

car profile :
Certified , 2007 ES350, 28,000miles with Nav, owned it for a 1 year now. Certified warranty with 3yrs or 100,000 miles.

Gurus, kindly share pointers, on how to equip & prove car's true worth.

- found 6-8k difference when searching "used cars" vs "certified used cars"

- should i match the price of "certified used cars " ? .

- also, taking print-out of similar certified-cars from the dealer's website



thanks a lot in advance.

 

Being certified in itself means nothing. The inspection they do to make it certified simply assures that the vehicle is in a certain condition (assumed to be very good). The other part of certified is the extended warranty. This adds nothing to the value of your vehicle for insurance purposes. That is a separate entity. It might mean more to a person wanting to purchase your car, but not to determine value for insurance reasons. You may be able to get a pro-rated refund from Lexus for the unused portion of the warranty. The mileage, condition, features (e.g. nav, ML stereo, rear view camera, etc...) and selling prices of comparable vehicles in your area will determine its' value. You can check this for yourself. Edmunds.com will give you a good value indicator. You can also use KBB.com. You can check local dealers and publications for sales information, but remember that it's what the car sells for, not what is advertised that counts. Hope this helps.

 

in addition to that, you will not get "Retail Vaule" or "Private Party Value". You will get trade-in value. hopefully you get something close to good condition value from kbb.com. Good luck.

 

Thank you very much MDames2 & KILLERGS4.

will browse edmunds & kbb's Trade-in value.

Have few more q's.
- would lexus-dealer help appraise the true-value ? is it worth the cause & time to engage dealer or Independent appraiser ? (if insurance low ball the price)


- does this mean, the advertised price from local-dealer website for similar car, will not help ?

- what other options are available to search the selling-price of comparable vehicles in and around my zipcode?

- will Insurance allow to keep rental-car for time-being, till replacement-car is purchased ? what do i need to know regarding this ? please educate.

 

So glad to hear that you and yours are safe. As for the value of your car, your best bet is Kelley Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com/). Hope the auto insurance company comes around!

 

Glad to hear that you're ok. My mom's 2010 ES350 was just totaled and the value she received for her car was comparable to the trade-in value from KBB.

 

quick update:

first, thanks for all the input. helped to get a fair loss-value for my car.

these were chain of events happened over 4+weeks of negotiation.

insurance : priced the car-loss-value, sent it. value=$x
I: didn't accept. requested them to add the optional-equipments for my car & adjust ZIPCODE for comparable vehicles.

insurance: priced the car-loss-value, again, with optional-equipments. value=$x+2000
I : didn't accept. requested them not use "pricing" based on their database from 100's of comparables . Sent "two dealer" advertisements in my zip-code for the similar car.

insurance: didn't accept it. Said, they will use only the database & not any dealer advertisements
I: will not accept the price quoted. what is your next step

insurance: okay, we will get in touch car-dealers, and get a quote for your car. It will take a week or two. the oother option is, both parties hire independent appraisers.
I : can wait for a week. for the dealers quote

insurance: priced car-loss-value based on two dealers. value=$x+5000
I : accepted it.

it was close to the market price for a similar-car. One downside is the TIME that we spent to go thru this situation.

this link helped : http://www.edmunds.com/auto-insuranc...-adjuster.html

someone will find these useful. thanks again everyone.

Peace.

 

What insurance company do you have? In my recent accident (see other thread) I got a very good value for my car from State Farm.

The total loss department called me and I gave him a rundown of all the options on my car along with the mileage and he priced it well above KBB value. In fact, it was $4k more than what I paid for the car a year ago.

Sounds like you got things worked out in the end though.

 

In March my wife totaled her non cpo 2007 es350 with premium and navigation. It had 41k miles on it and the insurance company gave her $29k plus tax, no negotiation necessary.

You are meant to get the replacement value for the car. If all else fails, tell them to find you a comparable car to what you had, including the CPO.

 

wow , no negotiations, that is incredible.

yep, that's what i fought for. Close to replacement-price of the car, around $28K+ tax . they took Average dealer selling price from two dealers in my zipcode.

Both the insurance & dealers said CPO has no value add , when it's a "total loss".

all is well, and iam so glad that this is all behind me.

thanks everyone.