Short story, brother was in Sacramento at a house party. Brother n' friends were inside the house when they heard the *skirrrrrt *SMACK* Brother's car was in the middle of 2 other cars all parked near their right side of the vehicles.

Cars were lined up passenger side next to the curb, my brother's car was in the middle.


ShowBoatShmo here, somehow hit car 3's front bumper + wheel, undrivable. My brother, so unlucky, in the middle of 2 cars, get the brunt end of the impact, his rear left tire SPUN 2 AROUND and his whole left side got RAPED. Then knocks his car onto the curb, and hits car 1 and shatters car 1's rear window! SHATTERED.

Any who, by the time everyone looks, car is tailin' it down the road, where it becomes dead and undrivable, dude gets out and starts tailil' it on foot. He has the hazards on in his car down the block. Cops come, get info from host, so he's ****ed for a hit and run for 3 cars and DUI.

He turns himself in later at the PD after his friend lets him know they know him.





The car is at the tow yard in Sacramento.... 2010 Corolla 16k miles on it only... think it'll be totaled?

Anyone recommend a good shop in Sacramento? Lookin' for DBTuned and others for suggestions. Thanks.

 

WOW!!!
Any more pics or a better description of the damages? (To informally estimate if it's a total or not)

 

Brother didn't get anymore photos, his phone died. Anywho, obvious alignment damage, front bumper, unaligned trunk too. Major part of the damage is in the photo, 4-5 panels

 

I can only see the rear wheel and suspension, rear door, quarter panel, and bumper in the photo. Can't tell the degree of damage to the other panels or to the unibody overall. Maybe someone can make an estimate with this little info, but I can't (even with my professional experience). Sorry.

 

The only thing he has going for him is that it is a newer car, so it is a tough call, but I'd say they might not total it. Depends on how much damage there is to the unibody, since that is the hardest thing to fix. With paint and repairs, it will probably come close to half the value of the car. If it is on the other guy's insurance, I'd have them replace it.

 

Looks like an ish ton of damage. Sorry someone decided to be dumb and your brother had to pay for it. At least dude turned him self in. Looks totaled to me but I am no estimate guy.

 

for the wheel to brake off like that ima assume the impact was rather large and the car has frame damage.. since the car is less then 2 years old and less then 20k ur brother is gonna get a new car..

 

Yea, they totaled that ****. Looks like it's worth around 13k on kbb.

 

Brother thinks that the adjuster is going to try and lowball the price he can get back, is there any way to battle that? You're supposed to get KBB price right?

 

The adjuster will almost certainly try to low-ball first.

Your brother needs to get kbb, craigslist & yahoo listings together to show how much replacing the vehicle will cost.

 

That is a bent frame and will be totaled in my experience.

KBB is not reliable. If you need an estimate, please use Edwards.com or Blackbook, KBB is a sales tool, not a consumer agency.

My experience :

If he owes money on the car, the insurance cannot pay less than what he owes (I had a 4 month old car stolen once, owed more than Blackbook said it was worth, but the insurnace had to pay the bank full loan value since they covered the car from new).

Use Edwards/local ads either online or paper to value the car, I did this and got full retail sale price of my Infinity ($6000 vs $2700 insurance company offered).

Good Luck.

 

What insurance company is your brother with? I use to be in the insurance field and may be able to help you guys.

 

Back when I worked as an adjuster for a certain major insurance company, we used to ballpark car values on NADA.
N.A.D.A. Home Page
If the value of the repair came close to the NADA value, then we ran it by the total loss value estimate guys -- they would scour the state for cars of a similar make, model, and mileage to the vehicle in question, and base the value of of that a few other things (i.e. car's title, etc.). We didn't hassle the total guys first because it cost the company time and money, so we'd use NADA first -- and NADA was usually pretty accurate (it was company policy to check that way first anyway). The only thing that could really throw a wrench in things was if the salvage value was high, but I doubt it'll be exorbitant considering it's a Corolla (it was usually high-end cars that could rack up unusually high salvage values).

TL; DR: Use NADA to estimate your bro's car's value.