Sadly yesterday my Spyder was hit from behind while stopped with turn signal to make a left hand turn waiting for traffic to clear. The car has minimal damage and, guessing, under a few $K. I’m still in the process of getting a repair estimate.

However, I’m worried about depreciation since the car was in a three vehicle collision (the car that hit me was hit by another vehicle) and will show up in the carfax since the damage to the other vehicles was much worse, police reports filed and going through insurance.

How much will this depreciate the value of the car?
I live in Florida. Has anybody been able to get insurance to compensate for the depreciation?

Heres some pics - as you can see minimal damage.

 

If it were me, I'd go after "diminished value" from the party that hit you. There are professionals who advertise in the Panorama who could help you on this matter.

 

Tell me how this works... if you were to pay out of pocket to fix this- as you say it is MINIMAL damage, like... I can hardly see it in these close-up pics- it will still show up on a Carfax or some other method? That would be news to me.

My wife ran into a stanchion in a parking garage and scuffed up/dented the door of her car, I paid $1500 out of pocket to fix it and never mentioned it to insurance. As far as I know, it never showed up on Carfax and I got a pretty solid value out of it when I traded it in... unless there's a way for dealers to cross reference police reports or 3rd party insurance records, paying for the fix without involving insurance should avoid a diminished value, right? (Assuming it's actually fixed to the point of not being reasonably easy to detect post-fix...)

You'd still go after the diminished value claim but I'm wondering what actual diminished value you'd recognize if you sidestepped insurance.

Also worth mentioning, I submitted a claim on a car in the past but didn't follow through with the fix- sure enough, it popped up when I went to get it evaluated. So lesson learned, do NOT involve insurance whatsoever if you want to avoid diminished value, even if you don't actually have them fix it. I'm also wondering if this is part of the problem- if the VIN pops up from these other fools reporting to their insurance, if you'll be an innocent bystander...

 

Ugh. I’m sorry that happened. I have never tried a diminished value claim so can’t help there. I would just state the obvious which is to document everything with photos and receipts for all the work that is done. A reasonable buyer won’t be concerned although they will likely use it as leverage in negotiations, but if it wasn’t that it would be something else.

Forum/BaT types may sweat it but imo they are a small percentage of the actual buying population, are often the stingiest, and generally a PITA to deal with anyway.

 

Thank you all. Sadly, the person that rear-ended me was in a beater 2003 Honda Accord and (self claimed) he bought it for $1000 2 years ago. Since he was hit by another car (and then he hit me), he *wants* the claim to go through insurance for many reasons in his favor. He was already on the phone with the police by the time I got to his car and was very active with insurance on the incident. I will likely be selling the car and looking for a brand new one. Need to decide if I sell it "as is" with only 3800 miles on it which might be better so people can see it before the repair since the damage is so minimal.

 

I would caution against haste here. Getting a "brand new one" seems rather unlikely at this point, unless it's brand new to you only.

I smashed up an AMG a few years back and the 22k in damage never appeared on carfax. Ask your insurance agent about the company's policy on reporting to carfax.

 

Oh that's a really good point. I'll give my insurance agent a call next week.

 

Its going to show up on carfax if it goes through insurance. Keep the car. Hire someone to do diminished value. Theyll likely get you 10k or even more.

 

Sorry it happened, but worrying about diminish value for that is 100% ridiculous. No perspective buyer in his right mind would care one iota about that. Dismissed valve for such minor damage is a fabrication that only exists on rennlist. 100 people will now say I'm wrong, but it's the truth. If you trade it, sure dealers will offer you less, just because they can, but you'd be able to sell it privately without issue if you keep the photos and can show the actual repair.
The damage is to only the plastic bumper cover. Who cares? It will be fixed 100% like new.

 

Bummer. Really sucks. However, just a car and you are OK.

Not sure if you will be able to get a new 718 Spyder at this point. Are any still available? This seems to be the last NA drop top with a manual available. So for me, a forever car. Even the Spyder RS does not seem to have a stick available? 718 Spyder is a phenomenal ride not available in most sports cars. Why not just keep this car and drive it? Isn't this why we all purchased this car, to drive it and enjoy it?

Either way, get it repaired and keep the bumper as proof that whatever damage that dimwit did to your rear was minimal. I think the bumper is polyurethane and very light in weight. That way, if you ever sell it, you have proof. Pisses me off that so many people are distracted and not careful when they drive. My 2 cents worth.

 

I agree with DFW01TT you have a unique car, possibly with options you can no longer get If you even get another allocation, which at this point is unlikey.

It is a bummer to get hit at any time, but the damage is minimal and likely confined only to the bumper cover, there is no way I would be selling my car when it can be repaired completely.

My 2 cents, is go for fair compensation of diminished value and get it repaired.

 

You will sell the entire car...? For THIS damage?

 

That is very minor. Document the damage, document the repair, and keep records from the shop that did it. It will potentially affect the value in that some buyers will just not buy it, but anyone looking for htat specific car that is ok with that will not devalue the car because of that. Spec they want with a bumper repair and repaint vs the spec they don't want? Odds are the spec tehy don't want has an off the record repair anyway. People damage cars all the time.

I'll always remember the guy with a 993 I dealt with that insisted that since his car was all factory paint with no accident history and he got rear ended that no paint work be done to his car. It took me about 2 minutes to realize his car had a significant amount of it repainted and evidence of a light/moderate prior rear end accident being repaired before. So many 'clean virgin cars' have work done to them.

 

Sorry to hear about the accident John. I cannot comment on the diminished value point, but agree that the car's history will likely show up on Carfax, AutoCheck, or similar reporting service if you go through insurance.

Here's another thing to consider-

I previously had a Macan I was looking to sell a couple years ago. When I was searching for a buyer, I was shocked to discover that my closest Porsche dealer mentioned that an out-of-state accident came up for my Macan on AutoCheck (an Experian company). This was obviously a data error since my car had never been in an accident and certainly never left the state. Regardless, the dealer didn't care and offered me about $20k less than wholesale value, which I politely declined. Out of curiosity I checked Carfax to see if their information aligned with AutoCheck, but Carfax's report was accurate with no history of an accident. The company I ultimately sold the Macan to also was aware of the accident reported through AutoCheck, but did a PPI to verify it hadn't been repaired from an accident.

My point of that story is there are other repositories of vehicle history that you need to worry about besides Carfax. I suspect that these companies are similar to credit reporting agencies where one agency might have slightly different vehicle data than another due to the manner of reporting and tremendous volume of data they handle.

 

First off, really sorry this happened.

The way I look at it, until you get into repainting the metal parts it isn't serious. The plastic bumpers are painted separate from the car originally in most cases, anyways. So even if it wasn't 100% matched perfect, it doesn't look like anything has been done. Just find a shop that cares and is capable, and it will look and be fantastic.