B4V Value?

Just finished a 2 month long appraisal process with USAA for the value of the Goblin. I activated the Appraisal Clause in late January and then spent hours on the phone with their independent appraiser. He eventually gave me a value of $4600. Plus taxes the final settlement is just under $5000.

I will use the money to buy the goblin back, and have a B4V specialist rebuild the wrecked front end.

My wagon was originally a GLX, so the final value was determined by averaging TDI B4V values with GLX B4V values. I sent him bills of sale from other conversions done by KMH Motors to eventually drive up the average, along with listings that I found for TDI wagons being sold in the northeast. It was a lot of time and effort on my part, but hopefully it will result in enough money for the repair job. In the end, I will be stuck with a salvage title, but at least I will get the TDI back!!

-Scott-

Thanks, all, for the info and ideas! Will be having Nice Cars do an appraisal for me and see what State Farm does with that. Hoping to get a few thousand more out of them if at all possible!

Thanks again!

Good luck! Keep us posted.

Sent SF the post from TDiclub of a B4V that sold for $6K. They weren't impressed... said to get a licensed appraiser to submit something then they would do the same. Let me guess... would they have a "captive" appraiser who might just not be totally impartial?

I was able to get $4175+TTL out of a 373k B4 sedan with peeling clearcoat from State Farm after about 4 months. What I did was find every B4 and B4V for sale in the country and average the prices. Came out to about $5500. I tossed out non running or heavily rusted cars from the average but pointed out that even non runners had asking prices of $2000 in some cases. I typed about 8 pages talking about why the cars are so special, why the value is high, showed them everything I had fixed or upgraded and why it would cost so much to duplicate. I printed all the ads in full color, noted any issues with cars that made them of lower quality than mine and then bound the 100+ page book and mailed it certified mail.

You will need to figure out your state laws concerning salvage vehicles which vary by state. I was able to avoid a salvage title because paint labor, paint materials and sales tax don't count towards the 100% of value that requires a salvage title. They paid me just above the salvage threshold as I demanded a clean title. I then retained the salvage for about $250. In Texas if you get a salvage title and fix the car you have to document where the parts come from and then have it officially inspected to prove it was fixed correctly. It's a big pain in the ass but doable. Better to just avoid the salvage title in the first place. Your registration and state inspection also get revoked on issuance of a salvage title.

I sent you a PM with my contact info. I can e-mail the writeup and spreadsheet minus the ads. No reason you can't get $6k.

I would be interested in the info also for future reference. Thanks for commenting and giving us some sign of hope.

BTW, what's TTL?

Jeremy

kooyajerms said:

I would be interested in the info also for future reference. Thanks for commenting and giving us some sign of hope.

BTW, what's TTL?

Jeremy

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PM Sent. Willing to send it to anyone who PMs me.

TTL= Vehicle sales tax, title fee, remaining portion of registration and remaining portion of state inspection. If they are paying to replace your vehicle you obviously have to pay tax on another one so that's something they should pay you.

I highly recommend that anyone dealing with this find the section of the law that governs salvage titles and the criteria for issuing them for your state. I was able to download a .pdf of the Texas Titling and Registrations manual and find out exactly what it said in addition to the applicable statutes. I sent copies of the appropriate sections along. Don't trust the insurance company or the person at the DMV.....they almost never know their own rules!

You might also want to see if your state has a Steering Law. Steering is the insurance company practice of trying to steer you to a particular body shop. It's illegal in quite a few states. They will try it anyway and quoting the law will generally put a stop to it. The Texas Insurance Commissioner recently sent out a "friendly reminder" to insurance companies to remind them of the law. Most companies want to send you to a Designated Repair Program (DRP) shop. This is a huge conflict of interest. The insurance company has signed a contract with said shops. The contract normally states that in exchange for them getting more insurance business they MUST comply with the way the insurance company wants to fix the car even if doings so uses low quality parts, poor workmanship and substandard materials. YOU are no longer the shops customer even though it is your car. You should be able to find many articles on steering with a Google search. Body Shop Business magazine has had many, many articles over the years on how to combat steering and get paid for a quality repair.

If your car is fixed, hit them up for a Diminished Value Claim too. Even if the car was fixed good as new it's worth less since it's been hit and may have Carfax history. If the body shop did poor work, you have a diminished value claim against them too. This normally takes hiring a person who specializes in such claims. The insurance company won't take you seriously until they are served with the lawsuit.

My wife and I just went through all this with her 99 NB. The at fault driver's ins co totalled it and then lowballed us on the value. We went around and around for three weeks. Talked to a lawyer who said you will nerver get anywhere with the ins companies arguing value. Said the only way to get them to move is to play the personal injury angle. So we settled the vehicle part of the claim and bought the car back. For $500 in suspension parts, I put it back in running condition. We are taking it in for bodywork this week. (mainly paint since there was very little body damage) Our lawyer is going to file a PI lawsuit and said he can probably get about $3 to 5 thousand more out of them and keep 35%. I hated to play the PI card but their insurance co were complete a-holes. We were only about $1500 apart on the value of the car but they would not budge. Now after dealing with them, I hope our lawyer sticks those MFers for all he can.

Tom what company was it? Also, why didn't you have your insurance company go to bat for you? I heard that's a produced some positive outcomes for folks.

kooyajerms said:

Tom what company was it? Also, why didn't you have your insurance company go to bat for you? I heard that's a produced some positive outcomes for folks.

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Their insurance was Liberty Mutual. 2 different body shops and 2 lawyers all said Liberty Mutual was one of the worst to deal with. We did try letting our insurance co (Geico) pay for it but their value on the car was worse than Liberty. Geico was not helpful at all. I have been with them for 20 years but I don't think I will be for much longer.

Has anybody gone stated value? I'm in PA using Erie insurance gotta get aggresive as soon as my project is near complete.

I refer you to post #25 Gus =p.

Hagerty will actually insure you as a modified vehicle policy, because you have the e320 as your daily driver. If this car does not go on a commute to work, you may be fine. If you DECIDE to take it to work and it gets in an accident, all bets are off.

For the rest of us, if we daily drive our wagons, no agreed value policies out there till someone speaks up.

bigtom111 said:

Their insurance was Liberty Mutual. 2 different body shops and 2 lawyers all said Liberty Mutual was one of the worst to deal with. We did try letting our insurance co (Geico) pay for it but their value on the car was worse than Liberty. Geico was not helpful at all. I have been with them for 20 years but I don't think I will be for much longer.

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I will second that. Liberty Mutual plays hardball when their insured hit my truck. In the end, I got what it took to fix my truck, but they branded the truck with a salvage title.

Buy it and fix it

I'm coming to this discussion late, but I want to echo something that another poster mentioned: agree to their best offer on the condition that you can buy it back at salvage. Then shop around for a bodyshop and get it repaired yourself.

NHDUDE, you didn't mention the exact nature of the damage. Front-end is more easily repairable than side or rear hits. Clean, "square" impacts are easier to fix properly than angled ones.

If you liked the car that much, and it's fixable, and you are comfortable with getting into it and driving it again, consider this: insurance estimates by appraisers and bodyshops are done at insurance repair rates. What the body industry doesn't want you to know is that these prices are retail ++.

Unfortunately, many shops don't want to work for anything other than insurance rates. But some still will. Ask around, in particular ask mechnanics or people in other branches of the auto trades who they send people to.

It's hard to generalize, given that I haven't seen the nature of the damage to your car. But you ought to be able to find someone to repair it for easily 1/3 under the insurance price. In some instances, maybe less. This is an extreme example, but I had a turbodiesel Benz I had just imported from Texas written off by a red-light runner. Ins co wrote it off when the estimate hit $8k (specified new front clip). My neighbour at the time owned a bodyshop. He offered to fix it for $2500 with me supplying the required body parts (probably $500-700 used).

Hope this doesn't come too late, given the time frame on this thread.

Cheers

Mac

the outcome?

Sorry to bring back an old post but Does anybody know how NHdude came out in this situation?

Back from the dead... has anyone had any luck recently? I just got rear-ended in my B4V TDI and they want to give me $2,300...

Bob S. said:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1996-Volksw...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

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That's spectacular...

Steve

Steve Addy said:

That's spectacular...

Steve

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As I posted that last night, I thought to myself that I should probably print that before rolls off the Ebay platform & place it with tile.

Bob S. said:

As I posted that last night, I thought to myself that I should probably print that before rolls off the Ebay platform & place it with tile.

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That wouldn't be a bad idea...start a file folder of such things.

Steve

Wow, there's a great start. Thanks!

Also, Diesel_Aggie responded via e-mail with a pretty good write-up and extended his assistance.

Bob S. said:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1996-Volksw...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

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That screams Nice Cars.

The brake hose mounts are new but the caliper bolts rusty?

Spray painted plastic fuel tank AND straps?

Fog lights were an add on.

It may not be, but this is TOO good and TOO clean, and we all know the verbiage from them.

Still, that's a very nice vehicle if it can be verified. If it is/was a Nice Cars, they have been proven to change clusters and falsify VIN's, so I'd look it over with a fine toothed comb prior to acceptance.

That almost looks better then my complete ground up restoration! I agree, first thing that came to mind was NiceCars. Avoid!

Whoever sold this car, knows what sells... cosmetics. It's a proven fact that clean cars pull more money. If the maintance history is documented, that definitely helps, as well.

If I had access to a lift, I'd probably do the same thing. The cost of a professional detailing and a few cans of spray paint go a long way.

-Todd

I just looked at the seller feedback. Seems he bought this car (or another German car) within the past 6 months.

Doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the car. The seller may just flip cars.

-Todd

My instincts tell me this my be the same person that purchased Peter's (IBW's) B4V a few years back & flipped it. Early to mid '16, there was a white B4V listed for sale in NJ that did not a receive much interest. It had slightly higher miles. I wonder if that might be the same car. http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=454029&page=2

Tripl-e, do you know what happened to that car.

Totally forgot about that car...

Did a bit more feedback searching and this car was a flip. Car went from CA to MO.... did it start in NJ...?

Originally listed for $6,800, but a best offer was accepted, then sold for $11,100. This guy may have doubled his money. It wasn't relisted, so I can only imagine it actually sold.

There was another white B4V that sold in November... different vin. Listed for $5,000, but a best offer was accepted.

-Todd

I also think this is the same fellow who purchased IBW's car. As I recall, the buyers location was Montana. We have seen a few nice looking TDI's sold for very nice prices by this seller. Think if you do some searching here, you will find a link to this guy's web site.

john.jackson9213 said:

I also think this is the same fellow who purchased IBW's car. As I recall, the buyers location was Montana. We have seen a few nice looking TDI's sold for very nice prices by this seller. Think if you do some searching here, you will find a link to this guy's web site.

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Was this the guy who promised he was buying it for himself and then turned around almost immediately and flipped it?

This recent auction at $11,xxx smells fishy.

Steve

Steve Addy said:

Was this the guy who promised he was buying it for himself and then turned around almost immediately and flipped it? Steve

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That is the person that I suspect it is. If the same car as the one from NJ, noteworthy is the lower odo mileage at the later sale.