By your decription you where hit pretty hard. My guess will be you very close to being total loss. Assuming he is covered. You could buy the total back and rebuild it but it will be a R-title. Also the Value of your car is negotiable. All you need to do is find adds for similar cars in your area that shows a higher value then their first offer. Remember when they tell you a value it is a offer. They will make it sound like here is what its worth. Trust me they could never prove the exact value of a used car. No one can.

What I would do if it happened to my car is let them total it. Buy it back find the correct car with a wasted motor and swap in all my good parts. This will take time but you should walk away with a nice piece of change or a lot of upgrades to your new car.

 

hey auto, man im really sorry to here about this dude but im sure you can rebuild. I wreaked my 'maro dude to my fault ( bad mistake i know) any ways i replaced everything myself and just had to pay for chassis to be jigged out.

Im sure you can rebuild it but it depends on the whole insurance thing or if not, if you have enough to do it yourself. If the insurance will write it off and you get the money back try to demand to keep the car. I dont know how it all works in the US though. Keep us updated

 

When a car is "totalled" by the insurance company, you have the option to "buy" it back. They will offer it to you for considerably less than they are paying you off to total it. Basically you have the option to walk away with $x amount, or a little less than $x amount plus your car. If you're handy with car repairs, you can really make out financially going that way.
The air bags are an option for you. Depending on the state, body shops can't (legally) put in used undeployed air bags, even though doing so can be perfectly fine. If you fix the car, you can put in used and save a ton of money right there. Also, here in IL, you're not even required by law to HAVE to replace the air bags at all, don't know about what your state allows? And that's up to you whether or not you want to drive without bags. If your cars get safety checked (we don't) trying to go without would present a problem.

 

I edited this and some how it ended up as two posts. Sorry, see next post!

 

Your AGENT is the one you should be posing these questions to, not the forum, if you want REAL answers.

His insurance SHOULD provide you with a rental until this is resolved. There is a possibility his insurance will not pay BECAUSE he was DUI (just as your insurance probably does not have to cover you if you are the one to be DUI), in which case your insurance will have to cover under your Uninsured Motorist. Insurance regulations vary so much from state to state.

When it's the other guys' insurance company paying your in the "driver's seat", but it is your insurance company who should be dealing with his insurance company, not you. If it's yours' you are totally at their mercy, good luck fighting them! And either way your probably gonna end up with an accident on your BMV record.

Best of Luck!

 

well......****. spoke with them and they said they have to process paperwork and the other insurance company will have to cover damages... they way he was sounding he seemed a little unsure

 

i put up a pic in my profile, what you guys think?

 

I've had insurance total 2 cars, and both didn't look nearly as bad as that. Sorry to say, but I would say insurance could very easily total that. Does the frame have any damage? Good luck with it all, hope it works out for the best.

 

Yeah that looks pretty bad and i would assume they'll total it. I had an accident not as bad and it was estimated over 3k to rebuild the front end. You need to go to your insurance agent and talk it over with him. It could be a long process depending on what ins. company he has too, hope you have a dd.

 

Ya that is a 8 to 10K repair. I'll bet their is a 100 hours of labor with atleast a day on the frame machine. Thats not enven one I would mess with. There could be all kinds of damage to even the drive line. Just let them buy you a another one and save your any good parts you might have put on it.