keithwatson

Yesterday, as I pulled off my street to go to work, a young lady slid into my lane at approximately 35 mph in her honda accord. She struck the front left of my 06 landcruiser, sending me up onto the adjacent sidewalk. This broke the axle as both front tires are pointing out. Reportedly, total repairs are just over 7K, and the vehicle is showing a value of 31K. Her insurance is obviously paying, but my question is how to I get compensated for the diminished value? I now plan on trading this toward my new 911 turbo, but I am sure to take a 5K hit at least after this accident. BTW, she broke her arm, but I am fine.

linklaw

It depends on where you live as to whether you can make a diminished value claim. Some states laws allow these claims and others do not. If the law allows you to make a diminished value claim, you will need an expert appraisal of your vehicle, giving the fair market value of the vehicle with and without the accident history. If you are planning to trade in your car, I don't think the accident history will make a difference to the dealership where you trade it, as long as the damage is properly repaired. Where you might run into trouble is if you want to sell the car privately. Private purchasers are oftentimes looking at carfax and an accident history can put them off.

At Law

You will have a bit of a challenge getting compensated for diminished
value for your minimum damages.

There is a Supreme Court case (State Farm / Georgia) which lays out the formula for collecting diminished value after an accident.
Significant frame damage is required.

Your best angle would be to talk with the Porsche dealer with whom you
are planning on purchasing your new 997 from and have him write a
trade-in value of your truck before the repairs and after the repairs.

You will have to show actual damages in order to claim diminished value.

aaks38

You will take a hit when trading the car in, just about every dealer runs a carfax/autocheck and the appraisers look for prior damage. I would estimate about a 10-20% hit off of the trade in value..

The diminished value is to be compensated by the insurance company and you need to ask for this prior to getting the claim settled.

stevepow

The last claim I made in GA in 2008, from a State Farm insured driver, paid me diminished value automatically - $250 for a scraped bumper on my BMW 550i. The repair was about $1000 - maybe. I didn't even think about asking for it and it was a lease car - and one black bumper is the same as the next, but they paid it out anyway. All that stuff seems very automated, run by computers, these days - at least in GA.