Douglas Sorrells

I recently had my near mint condition White 86 951 w/ a Maroon Interior totalled when a 16 year girl plowed into me at over 40 mph without even hitting the brakes. The insurance company has initially valued the car at around $8700 before any aftermarket upgrades. I sent them a list of over $8000 in upgrades shown below and they told me that that would only add about $700 of value.

Here is the details on the totalled car.

White 86 951 w/ 105,000 miles - Excellent overall condition, no dash cracks interior perfect.

Headgasket replaced with widefire 300 miles ago.
New Stage II Turbo from Turbonetics
Swain Coated Exhaust Headers, Intake Manifold, crossover pipe as well as intercooler pipes.
3" Lindsey Racing Ceramic Coated Exhaust w/ test pipe & stainless steel muffler.
Twin Turbo Big Red Front Brakes w/ adapters and chiro-treated cross cast vented discs all around as well as stainless steel lines all around.
17" Turbo Twist Wheels w/ brand-new Yokohama tires
Authority Mass Flow w/ Arm I & Arc II fuel/air controller
Manual boost controler w/ boost/vacume guage
Tial 38mm waste gate
Brand new clutch installed about 10K miles ago.
Recent air conditioning refill
European Fog Lights.

What I am hoping for is a couple of professional shops that would be willing to give me their professional estimates of what the car was really worth. You can find poorly maintained 951s all day long for $6 to $8K, but not a nearly perfect 951 with those upgrades.

Is there anybody out there - (Speedforce Racing?, Lindsey, Vitesse?) that would be willing to give me an estimate? I just need some ammunition to justify our claim that the car was really worth more like $12,500+, not $9,300 as Nationwide is trying to claim.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks Doug

streckfu's

Be sure to pick up a few recent copies of Panorama and the last two April issues of Excelllence (April has the 944 valuations) and show them to the adjustor as evidence of market value.

Those sources tend to value the cars well above what the insurance companies claim.

Then buy your car back from the insurance company and turn it into a track car (if possible), save teh upgrades you can for your next 951, or part it and get a lot more money from it.

Good luck.

blown 944

I would try to get them up to about 10k then buy it back at 1500 to 2k and put all the parts on another 951. You can negotiate this ahead of time.

Sorry to here about this

Peter Badore

I own an 89 952 that the former owner needed to hire a lawyer to help in obtaining the proper
valuation for his claim. The insurance company took more than a month to agee to an acceptable
settlement amount. Do not be surprised if your insurance company drags its feet and needs to be "pushed" really hard to offer a settlement that you consider fair. Also, you might want to pay for a collector car special apprasial to support your position--I think I paid about $100.00 for my last one.

xsboost90

-Rock held out and got 6000 for his totalled 86 951 and it was a fire rebuild, and he had 3000 in the car, and they let him keep the car! Talk to TomR about this- i believe he has some good info on this.

Keithr726

I'd say $11k-$12k. That sounds like it was a great car.

turboted

Doug, sorry to hear about your situation. Do you have receipts/records for all of your upgraded parts and recent work? If you can prove how much extra $$ went into the car, it might help you with your argument.

For future reference... Many insurance companies will insure your car at an agreed-upon value that you negotiate when you purchase your policy, even if it's higher than what they claim is 'fair market value' for the car. I have done this with several insurance companies in the past...you just have to ask them about it. Currently, I have a $15k policy on my 951, and I can increase the value of the car as I upgrade/modify parts. Of course, I pay a higher premium for this...but it's money well-spent for peace of mind in my opinion. Not trying to add insult to injury with this point...I just figure this might be helpful for others, considering how much $$$$ most of us spend on these cars.

Douglas Sorrells

No more track time for this one. It's done. I'm stripping it and will be keeping most of parts and junking the chassis





Thanks for the suggestions. That will help.

d

streckfu's

I tried that. Few will unless you meet several restrictions. Principle was that another vehicle had to be owned that was less tahn 5 years old. Both of our other cars (though in great condition) were over 5 years old so no coverage at any price for us.

streckfu's

Holy crap!!!

Good to know your OK after that. How fast were they going when hitting you and with what?

shaheed

ok, speaking from experience you will not get back anywhere near the value that you spent on upgrades. but you should be able to get some back. you need to get a professional appraiser (not speedforce, vitesse etc) and pay them to do an evaluation of the car. make sure you give them full documentation of all maintenance/upgrades, as well as recent photos before the accident. they will probably come back with a value in the 10-11k range. they will give you a detailed assessment report which you can submit to the insurance company. i seriously doubt you're going to get near 12,500, but you can definitely get more than 8,700.

shaheed

lucky him...it took me 8 months to get the insurance company to agree to an acceptable value, but i finally got what i felt was fair.

Douglas Sorrells

I was completely stopped and waiting for traffic to clear so that I could turn left into a store. The 16 year old girl was traveling at what looked like 40 MPH when she hit me. Yea, I was lucky not to be hurt seriously, as she knocked me about 55 feet across oncoming traffic and into the store parking lot.

Burma Shave

Mine was totaled back in May. I was paid $10,650 for my 87 w/113,000 miles. None of my upgrades were figured in but I was paid high retail based on NADA online. The adjuster used NADA as well but showed a lower value. I brought him into my office and pulled it up online and they paid it. I bought the car back for roughly 20% of what they paid me. I didn't push the upgrade issue as I knew it would be a battle and I was buying it back anyway. I wouldn't call my car mint but it is in very good shape with a recent high end paint job. If you want to take this offline I can share a bit more, just pm me and I 'll give you my shop #. I'm in the collision repair business so I can probably give you some tips depending on what ins company you're dealing with.

nkgosselin

It was a battle but I got $8,900 for my stolen 86. Call everyone of the comps they are using. Some of them are a joke. A couple of the comps they used for me were salvage titles. Get any thrown out that are not good. AllState didn't care about PCA valuation or my mechanics valuation at all.