Need some insight and opinions Options

[00 SS]

I had both of my daily drivers hammered by hail last week. I go to see the insurance adjuster on Saturday. Both are older cars and not worth much and I am anticipating both will be totalled. I have a few choices. I can let them be totaled and combine the money and go buy another car. I can total one and fix the other or I can take whatever little they give me and keep both cars. I don't have much money right now to kick in over the insurance money for repair or replacement. One is a '99 malibu with 204K and the other is a '88 Park Ave with 120K (don't laugh it's actually a nice car).

Both cars are well dented but the glass is intact and both are still mechanically sound.

1. If I keep both I will not be able to afford to fix either properly and the insurance will force me to drop my comprehensive coverage on them. Plus, they likely won't give much money on either one.

2. If I keep one, the money from the other might be enough to fix the other properly.

3. If I total out both I might get enough money to buy one half way decent replacement.

I'm leaning toward number 2 or number 3. If I go with 2, I'll probably keep the Buick and fix it. If I go with 3, I might have $5K or so to buy a car. With the $5k in mind I did some searching and found a few prospects. The most promising one I found was 2002 Lincoln LS V8. It has just under 79K miles and looks to be OK in the pictures. Obviously if I get serious about buying it, I'll check it out as thoroughly as I can. I've drive one of these before and it was a nice car. But other than that, I don't know much about them. Does anyone have any first hand experience with these? Any major common problems? Anything to look out for? I also found a 2000 park Avenue with 83K that looked interesting.

What would you do in this situation? Do you have any suggestions for a good car to look for? I need a larger 4 door for the family and I prefer American. I also prefer sedans since it's a daily driver and the gas milage is generally better in cars than SUV's or trucks. I commute about 70 miles per day round trip. Both of my current cars get 25-27 mpg on my drive and like to stay at least at that level.

[FBody383]

What would you do in this situation?

Get every dollar I could from the insurance settlement while keeping the cars and just drive them.

Says the guy driving a 206k mile '98 M3.

[1meanZ]

What would you do in this situation?

Get every dollar I could from the insurance settlement while keeping the cars and just drive them.

Says the guy driving a 206k mile '98 M3.

I think thats great advice and I agree.

Mike, it sounds like those cars are worth way more to you than they are to the insurance company. I say keep them and stay the current course. Getting rid of both and only ending up with 5K to show for it is terrible IMO.

Says the guy daily driving a 91 Trans Am 120k, 86 IROC 113k and 98 Tahoe 176k.

[roostmeyer]

The most promising one I found was 2002 Lincoln LS V8. It has just under 79K miles and looks to be OK in the pictures. Obviously if I get serious about buying it, I'll check it out as thoroughly as I can. I've drive one of these before and it was a nice car. But other than that, I don't know much about them. Does anyone have any first hand experience with these? Any major common problems? Anything to look out for?

I had a friend that had one for a bit he bought from a fly by night dealer, of the 2 months he owned the car it was in the shop at least 3 weeks. Luckily he bought it with some sort of short term warranty. After taking it in for the third or fourth time the dealer was nice and let him basically get all his money back and put it toward a four door s10 he had on the lot. For some reason I remember coil packs being an issue and misfire codes that never seemed to go away for more than a couple days. That was 3-4 years ago and their may be permanent fixes by now.


If you can stomach being the guy that drives "that" car I say keep one of them and mile it out since you'll be in it for next to nothing.

This post has been edited by roostmeyer: Jun 2 2010, 05:16 PM

[00 SS]

That's probably the smartest thing to do. Maybe keeping th Buick and just driving it and cashing out the Malibu is the way to go. Who knows, maybe the heat gun and dry ice trick will actually get some of the dents out?

[cccbock]

What would you do in this situation?

Get every dollar I could from the insurance settlement while keeping the cars and just drive them.

Says the guy driving a 206k mile '98 M3.

I'll offer a ditto here. The cars are worth way more to you than anyone else. If the insurance co. will let you keep them, drive them till the wheels fall off, presumable saving a little dough while you're at it till you need a new car.

This happened to me with 1981 Honda Accord with 180K. Insurance paid me off and let me keep the car. I drove it for another 40K, then sold it for $1000 to a guy from Ohio to be his winter beater because it was a Florida no rust car.

Best and cheapest wheels I ever owned.

bock

[CrashTestDummy]

Either or both are good as a daily-driver, so you can keep a nice car saved for weekend trips and keeping the SoccerMoms from careening off the doors in their Surburbans. I'd opt for 1. or 2. Keep one or both as daily-drivers. If you get plowed into at some intersection in one, they just crashed into a $1000 car you may get $1200 settlement from.

That Park Avenue, does it have the 3800 V6, or 305 V8? Either way, it'll be running long after all the exterior plastic bakes off the car. Drive 'em with the dimples, tell people it's using the 'golfball effect' for added gas mileage. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/rotf.gif)

If you get rid of one, donate it, so you can get the tax credit for it.

[marka]

Howdy,

Take whatever money you can get for both, keep driving both. Hail dents give them character.

Plus Mythbusters says you'll get better mileage.

Mark

[00 SS]

Tax credits? I hadn't thought of that. I'll look into it, although I'm not sure our income this year will be high enough to make that worth much. The Buick has the 3800 V6. It's one of the first years with the sequential port injection and a mass air sensor. I took both cars to be estimated on Saturday. As I suspected both cars were considered total losses. Unfortunately, since this was a "catastrophy" center, they don't settele total losses on site. The paper work was sent to Dallas and I'm expecting to hear from them sometime next week on the settlement.

Oddly, after the estimate on Saturday, I went to the oil change place with the Buick and the was talking to the guys about what happened. One of them wants to buy the Malibu after I get the settlement from the insurance. He was able to look it up their computer and see the maintenance history, so he knows it's in as good a shape as I say it is. So I may keep both and sell the Malibu.

The more I look at the Lincoln I found in my price range, more it looks like a money pit. In one of the pictures, if you look very closely, the airbag light and the check engine light are on. The tach shows the engine was at idle when the photo was taken. I'm guessing if those were simple fixes, the dealer would fix it and sell it for more money.

Believe it or not, I think the Buick is getting about 1 mpg better than before the strom. Golf ball effect? Who knows. I also noticed it's developing an exhaust leak (near the cat I think), so that may contribute as well.

[nape]

Keep 'em. Cheap beaters are the way to go for daily transportation if you don't need something that looks nice.

Bought a '97 Saturn with 178k miles for $1200 about 3 years ago, still going strong with 217k and only about another $800 into it in that time frame (tires, clutch, WP, exhaust). Gets 30+ MPG beating the crap out of it commuting downtown everyday. Been in 2 hit-and-runs and it still looks nice because the plastic body bolts up and they're plentiful at the junkyard. Can't beat it for less then a cheap down payment.

[souseless]

A few years ago we had a bad hailstorm (bad for buffalo anyway) and dent wizard type guys were showing up everywhere. They were fixing the cars pretty cheap too. One guy came to where I work and fixed like 15 cars in our parkinglot. Keep what you have if you can.

[00 SS]

I will definately be looking onto paintless dent repair on the Buick, but I was told it's not likely they can fix all the dents. I was also told that it's likely 2-3 days work. I was planning to sell the malibu anyway before the storm hit, so I think it goes away one way or another. I will keep the Buick. The rest of the money, whatever it is, will go to more useful purposes.