Jetta Wagon Totalled (probably)

My wife flipped our Jetta wagon into the ditch today. I just got back from the body shop. A preliminary look is not pretty. Shop manager said "if it's not totalled, it will be very close". His eyeball guess is at least $10k in damage. At a glance:

Rear suspension trashed (right rear wheel is bent to a cockeyed angle)
Front suspension trashed
Flat tire bent wheel
Rad support ruined
Entire front end: bumper, grille, hood
Entire right side of car from front to rear bumper
Roof
Windscreen

are all badly damaged. No airbags though. Luckily, nobody hurt. But I am some pissed. Last August I was hit by a tailgater in our Passat, which inflicted $5000 damage. With no-fault insurance and two heavy claims, we're likely to see a major rise in premiums.

The only good news is that I have replacement cost insurance on the car, so I actually hope they total it, better that than dealing with a seriously rebuilt wreck. But a new wagon is not likely to be findable. So I have it narrowed down to an '06 Jetta TDI or an '07 base Passat wagon (yes, gasser). WITH ESP THIS TIME. They have a used '04 base Jetta wagon on the lot, but since I've paid for replacement cost, why settle for a used car?

Anyway, RIP to a fine Jetta that was 100% trouble-free other than the driver-inflicted wounds.

Buy it back, keep it as a parts car.

Can you find a 2006 Jetta wagon that's still on the lot anywhere in Canada? Any trim level... If you keep the 04 as a parts car, you can always retrofit anything that survived.

Sorry to hear about your problem. I'm glad nobody's hurt. Have you done a search through VW Canada or through your dealer for a new or demo O6 Jetta Wagon?. Perhaps one of those car buying services may help also. Best of luck.

WOW, bad break, Mike. You've clearly suffered some bad luck this year. Let's hope it's the end of it for a good long time.

Remember, cars are nothing but a bucket of bolts riding around on 4 rubber donuts. Humans are not.

Take care.

So, how is your wife. I hope she walked out of this without any major malfunctions!

Thanks, my wife is 100% OK physically, fortunately, but understandably somewhat shook up; the accident occured at less than 1 km from our home, and at low speed (40 km/h), but the spot has deep ditches and trees. I went to see the car yesterday and it's a bloody mess. There's coolant everywhere, and it looks like a major amount of oil is coming out of the intercooler so I'm worried about engine damage. I didn't ask her if the engine stopped suddenly or kept running afterwards (hydrolock is my worry if it ingested oil through the intake). I'm going to push real hard for the insurance to total the thing. We have replacement cost insurance through the stealership (wasn't sure if it was a good deal at first, but the ins. co. offered it only for 2 years and the dealer, for the length of the 5 year loan, so it appears it may pay back). Stealer confirmed yesterday that we will be covered if the car is written off. Of course we'll be stuck ordering another VW and he still has a good selection of late '06 A5 TDI sedans on the lot (but I may opt for a base Passat 2.0T wagon...Jetta wagons are extremely rare at the moment).

It being New Year's weekend, it appears I won't know for sure what the status is until late next week.

Glad your wife is okay! She is not replaceable. The Jetta is.

Sorry to hear about the wagon, dude. Glad to hear that the wife is ok. Why not used? I saw some stuff on craigslist:

http://montreal.craigslist.org/search/car?query=tdi

and fleabay:

http://motors.search.ebay.ca/tdi_Automotive_W0QQfclZ3QQfsooZ2QQfsopZ3QQsacatZ6000

I guess I will avoid used for the simple reason is that my insurance, which I paid for, will spring for new. So if I go used, I don't get my money's worth.
That said, I'd opt for a used VW certified B5.5 Passat TDI wagon if one turned up. But good luck, folks who have 'em aren't parting with 'em.
My wife confirmed that the engine stuffed suddenly while the car flipped. Whether it just stalled in gear, or hydrolocked, I won't know until the shop reopens after the New Year's festivities, but it's slowly spewing all its fluids as we speak.

Edit: I just stopped by the garage. The car was in the yard, though the garage was closed. There was sufficient oil in the crankcase, so I cranked it and it turned over, but I did not attempt to start it. So no hydrolock, but the intercooler is heavily damaged, the intake line is broken off the intercooler, and there's a large puddle of oil at the broken end of the intake. There is also coolant all over the engine compartment. And to add to my list, my e-code lights are shot. If they fix the car, I'm going to have to fight with them to spring for new e-codes and not crappy DOT lights.
I am going to be VERY reluctant to accept this car back if the insurance company opts to fix it. It also looks like there are damaged wiring harnesses, and many plastic and metal brackets in the engine component broken. The skid plate is of course toast, but the oil pan looks intact. Looking at the crash site, it appears that she made contact with a large rock in the ditch and ended up 180 degrees from her direction of travel.

Unfortunate news, Mike. Glad your wife is OK. What a terrible way to spend the holidays and end the year (esp after the damage to the Passat).

As to replacement, I think you should try to get what you want, regardless of new replacement value. Maybe a cash settlement would be an option, and you could come out with some money in hand after finding a used TDI wagon (Jetta or Passat), if that's what you'd really like to have in the driveway. Maybe that would help a bit with future premiums as well, if the payout is less than a brand new car.

Don't know about the laws there, but here, they owe you the cost of the replacement. What you chose to replace it with and even if you choose to replace it is then up to you. Of course, practically speaking financing plays a roll too. If you have a lender, they have to be taken care of in the process.

But here, you could take the fair market value of the replacement value and buy a used car with no loss of the difference. You bought insurance to be paid the replacement cost if there was a covered loss. That has happened. The insurance owes.

What happened? Innatentive driving? Just curious.

The cause: we have had a lot of freeze/thaw lately. It happened on a dirt road. When the dirt road thaws at this time of year, there's no place for the water to drain as the ground is frozen, so deep ruts form. Then when it freezes, those ruts become solid railroad tracks in reverse...anyway, she got caught in a rut. Happened to me too but my instinct was to ride the rails; the ruts went more or less straight, so apart from some side-to-side wiggling, I was going to go straight.

She on the other hand panicked, and I think, yanked the steering to get out of the rut. She then lost control, spun out and flipped into the opposite ditch on the wrong side of the road, at 180 degrees. The road was icy as well which didn't help.

There was a large rock in the ditch, which fortunately didn't hurt her, but somehow the bottom of the car got trashed.

The irony, and this is where I'm kicking myself, is that I had toyed with the idea of installing ESP on her car, but I just didn't have the time or technical savvy to do it...now the next car WILL have factory ESP, assuming it is a write-off.

My choices at the moment lean towards an A5 Jetta TDI with leather/s-roof/mags, or a 2.0T Passat wagon with 6-sp manual. Both work for me. I lean towards the Jetta at the moment. We have a large transport box, and with the large Jetta trunk and one kid in college, we should have plenty of room, plus we have our old Odyssey van for bail-out during large moving needs. That crate has been dependable though, bailed us out twice now, but it needs a couple of $1k work.

Anyway, I can live with an A5 TDI or a Passat 2.0T. Both will come close to the settlement value (around $30k CDN; base Passat wagon starts at $31k)

Wow. Thanks, just the former insurance agent coming out in me. I saw LOTS of accidents....

Then you'd appreciate the stat that most accidents happen, what is it, within 20 miles from home? This one happened about 1 km (0.6 miles) from home.

Since you're an ex-agent, how to I ensure that the ins. co. totals the car? They can fix it all they want but damage will be well north of $10k on a car worth about $18k (CDN dollars), and involves many critical systems (cooling, turbo, intercooler). I will have no way of assuring that all systems have been returned to 100% normal. Last thing I want is to be stuck with an unreliable lemon that I can't sell because it's an ex-wreck.

I heard if airbags deployed this facilitates declaring a write-off but unfortunately no airbags deployed. The front end, right side, roof, front and rear suspension and engine compartment took the brunt of the hit. Presently a large puddle of oil formed at the broken intake, and there's coolant everywhere in the engine compartment.

Over here anyways, roof and windscreen (and therefore likely A-pillar) damage would write most cars off.

The irony, on my way home from Mass this afternoon, another car did exactly the same thing as my wife, on my road, barely 0.5 km from where my wife had her accident. In today's too there appear to be no injuries, but the car wiped out a power pole and is enough damaged at both ends that I can only say it is some sort of Japanes/Korean model but I can't make out the make.

If either the roof or floor panels are bent the car is likely a total loss. I would buy the car back from the insurance company and part the car out. This method will reduce your loss and out of pocket expences.

The roof is dented.

Go see it and make a list of stuff you think is crap. Compare it to theirs and make SURE EVERY part is on the estimate. They often omit LOTS of stuff and it magically re-appears as add-ons to the bill as they go along. An ETKA would be REAL handy for doing this. Remember, they will underbid it with junk aftermarket or used stuff that they often can't even get and then the bill will shoot up 30% when they order OEM parts.

Well, I've already had an extensive look and noted many many small items, like virtually all underbody plastic north of the firewall. I'm especially concerned though, with engine compartment stuff like the intercooler and busted air intake lines. FWIW the same garage that repaired my Passat came in slightly UNDER estimate at the end of the day, by about $400.

PlaneCrazy said:

I guess I will avoid used for the simple reason is that my insurance, which I paid for, will spring for new. So if I go used, I don't get my money's worth. (snip)

Click to expand...

__. Man, you're going to be BIG lucky if you can pull that one off. My '02 Sedan (totalled 9 November, '06) was NADA book at $11K (plus or minus a couple of six packs or two). That car had been *loved* to death and was PERFECT, including almost new Michelin Energies. Insurance co:
"We're going to give you $9,900 - you can't expect book; that's for a car in very good condition". "Very good condition" - um, duh. Insurance co: "well, we're judge and jury and that's what you get. If you don't like it, you can hire an independent assessor and we'll consider what he has to say if it's different from ours -- no promises, though". I just took the check. Bast@rds - I hope all insurance company people burn in hell while they live in sh!t up to their knees.

__. I found an '03 with fewer miles, a wagon, and alloys/sunroof (which I'd rather not have, just having slid about 65 feet down a ditch on the roof of my sedan), and CWP. It's in *totally lovely* condition and I got it for just less than book but it has sh!t tires (but with lots of tread left so I'm finding it hard to justify throwing them away to put decent tires on it) and only a valet key. Plus the selling dealer says that the timing belt has been changed (it had ~110K when I got it) but can't provide date or mileage ... so I guess I'm in the barrel for a belt too.

__. So, I get hit by a drunk driver and I'm out THOUSANDS of dollars that I wouldn't have had to spend otherwise. Not to mention the $500 in sales tax on the new car for the title. Oh, yeah, State DMV guys can spend eternity on their knees next to the insurance guys. But the drunk was in a rentacar with AIG insurance - my lawyer and I are going to do our best to ensure that the AIG guys think "MrG" everytime they sit down for a while.

__. Not that I'm really upset about it all ....

I'll find out today. The body shop is a "partner" of the insurance co. but they do good work, and this is a small town with reputations to keep. The Ins. Co. is local as well and have been decent to deal with in the past. Anyway I pointed out my e-code headlights to the body man, and gave him the phone no. of where he can get a new set and he replied "oh, I don't think we'll have to bother calling them". So we'll see. I talked to him at 17h00 last night and he promised he'd have the estimate early this morning so I can get the ball rolling, hopefully on finding a new car.

One thing I did this time: I took my replacement cost insurance with the DEALER and not the Ins. Co. The insurance doesn't know I have replacement cost. If I took it with the the insurance company, no doubt they'd try to do $20k in repairs to avoid a $30k payout. Ughh. This way they only have to compare the loss to book value, and with book near $18k, the estimate has to come up to $13.5k for a write-off (ins. co. policy is 75% of book value or non-repairable is a write-off).

Moreover, the insurance co. only offered replacement value for 2 years, the stealer for 5. It wasn't cheap. Kind of an expensive lottery ticket really, but it may end up paying off.

We're getting close to decision time: new '06 Jetta TDI with leather/roof/mags, or new base '07 Passat wagon. I lean towards the wagon at the moment, simply for family practicality. It's rated at 6.8 L/100 km on the highway. With a more realistic 7.5 expected, and a 70.0L tank, that's still a respectable 866 km highway range with 5 L reserve (541 miles). For a gasser with a car with this kind of practicality and 200 hp, that ain't half-bad. We're talking Honda Accord 4-cyl fuel economy with 40 extra horses to play with. If I go Passat wagon, it will have 6-sp. manual. Gawd I wish they had offered manual in the B5.5 Passat.

I still think the B5.5 Passat is a better looking car than the new Passat though (can we call it a B6 since it no longer shares the Audi Platform?). And if a Passat TDI comes up in 2008+ (I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it will be during the last two years of the current body style's model run), no doubt I'll be ripe to trade the B5.5 by then as it already has 70,000 miles on it and by then will be close to 120,000 miles.

PlaneCrazy said:

(can we call it a B6 since it no longer shares the Audi Platform?)

Click to expand...

Seeing as we call the B3 and B4 the... uhh... B3 and B4, yes. B3 and B4 Audis are totally different from B3 and B4 VWs - the Audis are the same layout as B1, B2, B5, Audi B6, and B7, the VWs are the same layout as A2 (for B3/B4) and A5 (for B6).

Confused enough?

Then, let's add that the A/B designation doesn't exist any more! It's PQ46!

(Passenger car, Transverse mounting, D class, 6th generation)

"A5" is PQ35, Passenger car, Transverse mounting, C class, 5th generation.

Actually, this system was devised for A4 and B5, but VW internally used both systems. No more for "A5"/"B6".

B5 is PL45 - Passenger car, Longitudinal mounting, D class, 5th generation.

Now the fun starts. The estimate is in: $12271. I need $13500 to total.

But numerous items appear to be left off the list. No skidplate, side protector plastics. No front suspension subframe, and no front tires. The two front tires are flat as pancakes and the wheels have serious dents in them. I fear for the tire sidewalls and I told the body man that I won't, for safety reasons, drive on those front tires (they happen to be my Nokian snow tires).

I also called VW to ask about the substantial amount of oil that leaked out of the turbo intake. He thinks it might just be because the car was on the roof, that it was oil leaking past the valves. Still I had them note this on the estimate.

I also asked that the car not be moved until the adjuster sees it: I want him to see the puddle under the car.

They also put cheapo shocks on the estimate. I want OEM. But as it happens my replacement cost insurance also ensures that I get OEM parts. So that's small consolation.

Still I'm not happy about driving a car that came to within $1000 of being totalled. It will have zippo resale value and is likely to be a pile of hassles afterwards.

EDIT: Just got off the phone with the stealership. Book value for the car, which is used by insurance companies, is between $15,000 and $16,000 depending on mileage.

That means I need $12,000 damage to have it declared totalled, and I have $12,271 with some missing items, and the engine is leaking oil. So my chances of a "hull loss" as we say in aviation, are still good. Adjuster comes to see it tomorrow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This is one time when I want book value to be LOWER than what I think is fair market value! Gawd what a stressful day this has been; phone calls, visit to the body shop, etc. I put nearly $10k down on this car when I bought it, and I certainly don't want my $10k invested in a wreck!

Sorry to hear about your problem. If they do not total it shop around for the best shop you can find. I had a very large stolen SUV run a red light in Baltimore 2.7 years ago which hit me on the front wheel doing over 9500$ US to the car because the car was in show shape where it was not damaged the Ins. decided to repair it. Ended up costing them 11500$ to fix it back with all my mods plus some new ones like the heavy skid plate and FMIC to name a few because the cost would have been the same. I am glad I did it the shop had it on the frame machine for 5.5 Hrs alone, and the list of parts takes up about 20 pages. But the car was like new with only a few small problems. If the INS Co. had known it was going to cost 11500$ they may have totaled it. But if you find a good shop most cars can be put back into like new shape. I do not fear driving this car a bit. IF you get lucky and they total it good luck on finding a another wagon. Shame to loose something you really like then can not replace it.

Well I'm out of luck for another new Jetta wagon. My two choices are get a wagon and settle for a 2.0T Passat wagon (base model) or get an A5 Jetta TDI and live without the wagon. I'm waiting for my wife to give me input (she's away visiting the outlaws at the moment). I lean towards the Passat. With our family, property in the country, etc, a wagon is mucho practical. I've done my research and the 2.0T, though needing premium fuel, is economical for its class. It's a slick car even in base trim. I'm going to test drive one this afternoon.

My annual mileage has dropped from 60,000 to 30,000 km since I work from mostly home now. So a TDI, while it would be nice, is not mission-critical. And we still have our Passat TDI to keep us "in the club" as it were.

If it does get fixed, the shop it's at is as good as they come. They fixed our Passat last summer when it got hit by a tailgater and they did a fine job, with only a minor door adjustment needed afterwards.

However, my guess is that they will total it. It's already at or over their threshold. Plus the engine is spewing oil. I have pointed that out to them and reminded them that if I have future engine problems I will sue to have the claim reopened if I have to. It's also a local insurance company and the body man says they're the best he's worked with.

I bet you can get it totalled. Just keep complaining, be insistant. Go to the insurance office discuss your problems accepting a car with so much damage. They will do it. Just be persistant and push.

I'm working on it. I phoned them today afte the ajuster saw the car and told them to get a move on as I had my eye on another TDI and they are very rare at the moment. I also insisted I would not accept a car with that much damage. Also mentioned some damage that's not on the estimate, like two blown front tires and the oil leak. I also did some test driving today.

Test drove a Passat 2.0T automatic (that's all he had available to drive). Sweet engine for a gasser, but the TDI feels stronger off the line. While peak torque starts at 1900 or so for the 2.0T, there's not much below that. I was surprised at how economical it was for such a large car. I had a 10 km chunk of autoroute on the test run. Undulating, but net downhill. I reset the trip computer and registered 5.8 L/100 km at 100 km/hr. After I was finished at the dealer's, I did the same run in my Passat TDI and registered 4.6. So if I average 6.3 or so in the Passat TDI, I can expect 7.5 average in the 2.0T, give or take a bit. But it quaffs premium.

Then I tested a base '06 Jetta TDI. To be frank I preferred the Jetta. Interior is more germanic and less jaguaresque, ride almost as good as the Passat, but it seemed more agile. Plus it's nice and diesely, just enough clatter at low RPM (I love a diesel soundtrack), smooth at speed, effortless torque, nice clutch takeup and shifting. I don't know if it's the gearing but it felt spunkier than our A4 wagon which is lighter. Great car.

If it were my money only, I'd just get a Jetta TDI; the insurance payout on the replacement cost would give me leather, sunroof and mags. But I have to factor in the Mrs. If she insists on another wagon, then it will have to be a Passat 2.0T manual (and they are few and far between).

I could easily live with either choice, but almost feel treasonous driving the 2.0T

I guess the insurance here in BC works different then- once upon a time I wrote off a mk3 Jetta that was covered by replacement value. All I did was show them the bill for the car and all the mods (including ecodes) and they cut me a cheque. I coulda bought a ford, volvo, or honda.They didn't care. Insurance just cashed me out.

You're locked into a VW then through the dealer? or you could get cash on go get what you want on the used market and keep the change?