soontobered84

USAA told me when I questioned their valuation based on erroneous comparative cars, that I could send them an email contesting their valuation and also additional comparatives to use. One caveat was that the ad or listing could not be from EBay or Craigslist. No idea why, but it worked to my advantage. The sale of BC's car and Greg's endorsement can only help you.

James Bailey

Because those adds are often higher and cost nothing to post but as the world is today craigslist and E-bay are as close to an open market as you will see. The blue book and wholesale reports are less relevant and Haggarty's estimates are not widely accepted.
Point is the "actual cash value" is for an average car. On a thirty year old average car just about everything is 30 years old !! Now factor in that in the last year something like $20,000 has been spent renewing, restoring, improving it. Just like having new tires is better than average and trust me if the tires were half worn the adjuster wants to "adjust" for their reduced value.
So the adjuster who SAW THE CAR has a different opinion than the Underwriter sitting in his office looking at Kelly Blue book

docmirror

Yeah, I'll put my 85 up there for sale, but the price would be about $3000, so that's no help.

Rennlist Editor

Yikes. Glad you're okay. Maybe the front page crowd can offer some different perspectives on what to do next...
https://rennlist.com/articles/928-porsche-catches-fire/

ROG100

These injectors were supplied by myself and we have obviously supplied plenty without issue until now.
They are the later Design III 4 hole Bosch injectors as defined by others on Rennlist with the correct groove at the top to locate the clip as per the design II and original injectors along with the right size O rings. These are not the injectors where you need to Dremel a slot for them to fit with the injector clip.
The only difference this time was that the injectors were shipped Express from my supplier as Van was in a hurry. We test all the injectors here on a bench test before shipping as does the supplier before they ship.
I am gutted this happened and want to learn from the experience if something can be done in the future so this type of catastrophe does not happen again.

Randy V

Damn.

I feel your pain, Van.

GB - pretest my replacement injectors!

Jerry Feather

So far in this discussion everyone seems to be assuming that the 11K tentatively offered by USAA is based on total loss of the car. And, it might be; but Van has not said.

In fact what Van is most likely entitled to, based on his insurance policy, is the lesser of either the cost of repair or the total value of the car as a total loss, and that is even less the salvage value of the car if he were to keep it.

So, the higher Van might be able run the value of the car up the less likely they are going to be to total it, and at this point I suspect that if Van has shown them some of his recent invoices, such as for the engine, the $11K so far suggested is merely the cost of repair. In other words, if he has a $30K car that can be repaired for $11K they are not going to total it and give him the $30K less about $2500 salvage value.

I think Van needs to be shopping around for the expensive place that he can find to write him an estimate to repair this car then start looking at some realistic car value numbers.

So, at this point we are talking about just the chicken and need to start including some discussion about the eggs.

NIACAL4NIA

My 1986 32 valve 928 has 180K miles on original fuel injectors.
A mofified fuel pressure upgrade, old rubber fuel hoses, leaky power/transmission fluid, sticky relay, and wrong type of freon can cause fire.

vanster

Jerry has a good point. USAA's "suggested offer" because the car is considered a total they would like to give me $11,100 plus tax. They said they would contact me again on Monday or Tuesday. So far nothing about letting me buy it back. I will show them comps from BAT and maybe they will talk to GB. But I think they just looked up an '86 and called it a total. Now it's my turn.
If the numbers work and I keep it which at the moment is my intent but I do need to get some sort a number to budget on the rebuild.
What I can see is I need the entire left corner including upper A arm. The Koni and the spring might be Ok
Everything under the headlight including the head light assembly. All the soft bits, brake booster, ABS
fan shroud, ( top) fan blade. Most likely the steering rack boots are gone. Everything in the left wheel well

If the numbers work, I would start the ugly task of taking it apart and cleaning everything, inventory as much as I can before taking it back to GB to look at the motor. I will document as I go with lots of pics.

I know i'm a blind optimist but I just can't see it going to the crusher.

However all this being said, if I end up with a bunch of cash in my pocket and we will be in Monterey in a few weeks time....something might pop up. I'm open.

Jerry Feather

Van, I would not touch it much at all at this point. I would find one of those kind of rebuild places like you see on TV like "Overhaulin", but not on TV, and have them do an estimate of a complete repair of the damage. Don't take it apart at all. Then I would demand that amount from USAA. To support that I would show them the basic $11k the car might have been worth the way you bought it, but I would then show them you have about a $25K GB engine in it with 6k miles and overall outstanding condition. I would show them that the $30K to do the rebuild is much more reasonable than the $40K the car is really worth. Then I would take them to court for the cost of repair and prove the value with support from all the experts on here and around that justify not totaling it. That leaves the Jury to decide whether the car is worth $40K or whatever, and if the cost of repair is reasonable. Just as I said before, start with the highest cost of repair that you can get, and don't start doing any of it now including the deconstruction. Other than keeping it secure and free from any further damage from weather or anything, do not do any work on it!!!!!! As soon as you start doing stuff with it you are destroying the evidence.

Call me.

docmirror

If you go that option, I'm hoping you have the car kept nearby, and not sold to a breaker yard, or at least let us know here so we might be able to buy-through you from the ins and someone else can save it. If your buy-back is $2800, and you wanted $3k to get it to another rennlist enthusiast, I think that would be equitable, and in best interest of this car.

Once it goes to the breakers yard, the price for the whole car would likely go up some, and there's no reason to enrich a breaker ahead of the good folks here. Frex, for $3k, if it makes its way to N TX we have parts and people to set it right without a lot of effort. Others might feel the same. Others in MI for example, or FL.

Charley B

As stated in the dictionary next to your photo.

You are an inspiration Van.

SMTCapeCod

so did this thread prompt the 928 well-done image on the Rennlist landing page?

docmirror

I would say yes. But I am not privy to the inner workings of rennlist forum.

Hilton

Sure looks like it:

Or to paraphrase.. "maybe we can get more traffic by putting this on the front page"