eric.dewhirst

Hi fellow shark owners,

I was wondering if I could get some advice from anyone who has gone down this road. Last week I damaged my 84S and the news back from the insurance company is that they are writing it off. I am not interested in repairing it myself but I know it is far from written off. My back end, (passenger side), took out a fire hydrant and the front fender, (passenger side), hit a 4x4 wooden signpost. Sounds bad and looks nasty from a bodywork perspective but I was still able to drive the car back to my house some 4 blocks away without any issues. The car still starts fine and all but the bodywork is scaring the local body shop and insurance adjuster. The car was in mint shape (25K Miles) and always well maintained – the thing I want to know is should I buy it back from the insurance company and part it out. I can probably pick it up for 2K and then I was thinking of parting out the rest over e-bay.

If anyone has done this can they give me their honest opinion as to whether it is worthwhile or not? I do the simple math like new Devek Rad and Becker CDR210 CD Player and 6 CD changer (From a 97 911) alone comes close to 2K. But do people really want seats and all that?

Also if any of you out there need stuff for an 84S and want to show interest in picking up parts off of me let me know – you can e-mail directly at edewhirst@hgn.ca - this is what the car is like - http://www.hgn.ca/eric.dewhirst/pers...28s/index.html

This is of course a really crappy time for me and as I found in the past whenever I had a hard time finding the way with my shark the group seems to give me the best guidance.

Cheers,

Eric

Garth S

Eric,
Sorry to hear of the crunch suffered by your immaculate car: As most of the world is open to negotiation, opt to do better than a $2K buy back - then take the time to see what it 'really' costs to bring the car back on the road. If you do not like that prospect, then entertain parting it out, or selling the whole car. I suggest that you stand more to gain than lose in this approach - your investment is low risk, and you have purchased decision time. On the down side, there may be some extra hurdles to recertifying an accident rebuild in Ontario ( talk to 'Watercooler' on this board, who managed a fantastic rebuild of his S4).
Hummmm - if you were closer ...

sublimate

The main question you have to ask yourself is: "Have you always had a burning desire to get into the junkyard business?". If the answer is yes, go for it. If not, take the money and walk away.

rixter

let's see the damage

all4woody

25K on the engine should be wourth something to someone, but an 84 auto may not be desirable. If you don't want to part it yourself, find someone willing to do it, I would hate to see good parts go to the junkyard.

karl ruiter

I recently paid about 1.5K for a complete interior which was not quite as nice as what you have there. So, if you could get the whole car back for 1.5K you could probably break even with the interior and it would all be bonus from there. But perhaps not a huge bonus as the motor, trans, and breakes are not very much in demand (since they last forever).
Having said that if the unibody is basically straight I would fix it. The front fender you would just replace with one for M. Anderson et. al., but the rear might be more of a challenge. But still very do-able as long as the uni-body is basically staight. After you are done the car will likely not be as perfect as it was before, but perhaps that is just the push you need to get this thing out of the garage and start putting some miles on it. After all, it is good for another 200K miles or so.
If you post detailed pictures of the damage up here you might be able to get more solid opinions on the 'fix it' option.