ALE

Bad day - another driver caused my 911 40th AE to sustain damage (front end impact). It is not enough to total it. It will have an estimate of $27k worth of repairs. Do any of you have an idea of the percentage decline in value?
It is with a great shop, with a loyal p-car following. I will be seeking diminished value from the responsible party.

Would you keep it and drive it?
Or, try to sell it and buy another one?

Thanks all & Merry Christmas!

theporscheguy

That is a bad day. Wow, 27K worth of repairs. That is extensive. With that high of a repair I would sell it and buy another one.

Macster

If the car isn't a total then you have to fix it unless you want to dump it as is and take a huge loss.

Fixing the car right means ensuring it is fixed to the highest standards.

This involves among other things a teardown of the car -- bumper covers, wheels/tires, whatever the body shop needs to remove, with the car then placed on a Celette Bench and the body/chassis hard point locations checked for position integrity.

Any found out of place need to be brought back into their proper position. The tolerances are quite small.

Then replacement parts ordered. To me (and to Porsche) the only acceptable parts are factory new parts.

These must be purchased from PCNA through an authorized dealer.

All mechanical systems work: suspension, steering, drivetrain, A/C, coolant system, etc. should be done by a qualified Porsche tech at an authorized dealer.

The paint and paint system used must be one of the 3 (Standox, Spies-Hecker, Glasurit) recognized by Porsche.

iOWs, you want to the car restored to its pre-collision condition as good as humanly possible.

The risk you face is focusing on DV and failing to get the car properly repaired. You get a DV check which feels good but you end up with a car that has suffered more DV that won't become evident for a while. Then the amount of DV will found woefully inadequate.

Get the car fixed. Get it fixed right.

Take lots of pics of the damage, the repair process, replacement parts (with the factory part number sticker in clear view), and so on.

You want to document the extent of the damage and the thoroughness of the repair.

Then file a DV claim.

Whether you keep the car after or not is up to you.

ivangene

AWE MAN!

that's a hefty amount of damage
as a prior accident record car owner I will tell you that when it come times to sell it and the phone conversation gets to "any accident history" and you answer Yes - they will hang up

took me a year to sell my car and the guy I sold it to was the previous owner - who was was OK in the first place with it because it was there when he bought the car the first time

2K7TTMIA

Sorry to hear the news....IMO, you're better off trying to get it totaled. Another member just put his 40 AE for sale, 22k miles, one owner...asking $50k obro.

But that's also decent Turbo money....

When my C2 was repaired to the tune of $16k, the DV check I rec'd was roughly$3500, which I didn't want to fight over since I sold the car. An independent appraiser valued the DV at $7k

ivangene

none of that made sense to me

mike1111

accident damaged cars loose 5-10k and 80 percent of the buyers.

I would take the money and sell the rest or part out, safe yourself a heartache later

producerjohn

$27k in damages and it's not totaled?

Push the adjuster to total it. Selling or trading in a 996 (or any porsche) with accident history is an insane PITA.

Good luck and glad you didn't get hurt.

rpm's S2

Agree. Push for a total. But if not possible you must be a total and difficult bastard with the insurance company. Only OEM parts, strict inspection of work, etc.. You are smart to get the shop on your side. If they are good you will need them as an ally to make sure no corners are cut. You may want a third party inspection before you accept the final result.

No matter how good the repair, the future Carfax report will be a disaster. No one in their right mind will ever buy the car or offer you anything on trade in. Insurance companies often play dumb when you first ask about diminished value, even denying the concept exists. They may also try to push any discussion of it until after the car is repaired. There are specialized companies/attorneys that negotiate DV for a percentage. At these amounts you may want to go that route.

In the end though, you are not injured. That is all that really matters. Good luck.

Macster

That was my point with my post though I was not as succinct as you.

Push for a by the (Porsche) book repair which raises the cost of the repair greatly. My local dealer charges $150/hour and doesn't discount even to a body shop with which it has a working relationship regarding accident repairs.

Salvage parts are generally horrible and often not in as good a shape as the parts they are replacing yet priced nearly as dear. Or offered on eBay where the seller wants the money first and gives a promise to ship the parts. (My body shop ran into this when trying to replace a damaged bi-xenon headlight the listed for around $1800 from the factory. It ended up buying a new headlight.)

The initial estimate is always low. A good body shop will want to do as much tear down of the car as it believes is necessary to ascertain the extent of the damage.

After I hit a mule deer with my Turbo the body shop removed both bumper covers, the front trunk lid, the headlights, passenger side A/C condenser, radiator (they were clearly damaged from the impact), the vapor recovery system under/inside the passenger fender, the fender, the passenger side door (even though it was undamaged this provided access to the very critical hard points for the door hinges), the rear bumper cover, and the engine cover.

The extent of the chassis/tube/structure damage was determined -- thankfully limited to a bent fender shelf that runs along the passenger side of the front trunk and but some minor paint scratches -- and the basic body chassis/tub/structure was deemed undamaged/sound and a good platform for a repair.

The true extent of the damage needs to be determined and then the cost to repair the car properly can be estimated better and then likely a decision to total the car will be made. It has some salvage value but this is not necessarily a recommendation to retain salvage title.

I retained salvage rights to my totaled (the estimating stopped at around $45K) 08 Cayman S (with just 2200 miles from new) and sold it at a salvage car auction for $20.7K. The circumstances of the other driver's insurance coverage -- underinsured (one should carry more than $50K insurance if one plans on running into $60K cars!) -- forced me to retain salvage otherwise I would have had to either file a claim with my insurance company which said insurance company then would have had more leverage to force a substandard repair or sue the driver/owner of the other car for the remaining damages. The cost of this would have eaten into the settlement to the point I would have come out worse.

02TX996Cab

Based on what colleagues have told me from their experience, DV claims seem to get settled for 10-20% of the cost of the repairs. As an example, repairs of $30K would yield a DV settlement of anywhere from $3K to $6K.

More important that getting a DV check is ensuring the car is repaired properly. Macster nails the process on the head. Doing so has two benefits:

-- if you keep the car, you know it is safe to drive, and can expect the same performance, feel and longevity that the pre-collision car had

--if you sell the car, you can demonstrate to prospective buyers the care and expense that went into repairing the vehicle, which can help minimize the dimished sales value from the collision (although there will be some potential buyers that won't be interested, nothing can be done about them)

As others noted, you were not hurt which is the most important thing. The car took the abuse, which is what it is designed to do.

Good luck

sptschoice

27000 worth of damage is enough to total this car what the year of vehicle and cost to replace!

rpm's S2

Sadly this is not necessarily the case. Different states have different total loss percentages. Some are surprisingly high. And states also have different diminished value laws.

spender

Just out of curiosity, has the other driver accepted responsibility yet? Also, how do you get $27K in front end damage in an accident where you aren't at fault? Sounds like it's about 90% of the value gone, based on recent eBay sales. Bad day indeed.

I think you should press your company strongly to write off the car. It may be helpful to get statements from your local Porsche dealership, indy shop, and local enthusiasts to the huge effect this will have on the car's value.

Good luck and Merry Christmas to you in any case! It doesn't sound like anyone got hurt, so that at least is lucky.

rpm's S2

You must tread carefully... You don't want to argue that the car is worth less to bolster total loss and then later try to argue it is worth more to get higher diminished value.