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View Full Version : Wrecked Charger, is it worth it to part it out?


loosewheelbob
05-28-2008, 11:27 AM
Sunday I was driving along with my girlfriend and this a$$ in the oncoming lane attempts a left hand turn right in front of me when I had the right of way. I was doing 35-40 mph and I reacted as best as I could but still hit him. Thankfully we are ok, my car isn't doing so hot right now. It's in the body shop right now getting the estimate. Before this happened I was trying to sell the car and now I know it'll be an even harder sell so I'm sort of hoping for it to be totaled.

If the insurance company totals it is it worth it to buy it back and part it out? If they don't total it but give me enough money to pay it off is it worth it to take the money and part it out? Now that it's been in an accident it'll be harder to sell and I won't be able to get a better price than what I'd get if it gets totaled out. I'll give the car's specs and current damage below.

Specs: Silver Steel Metallic 2006 Charger RT with Road & Track perf group, Nav, Factory sunroof, and all the bells and whistles that go along with it (It's quite loaded, the only things that It doesn't have that I know of are steering wheel radio controls and side impact airbags.) On top of that the windows are tinted, it has Mopar Performance headers and cats, Flowmaster catback, Airaid intake, and Superchips programmer (it's currently not programmed so I think I'll be able to sell that)

Damage: Impact was concentrated on the Drivers headlight. The headlight, bumper, hood, and front quarter panel are the obvious damage. The Front drivers wheel was nearly ripped off, pushed into the wheel well and won't rotate, lower control arm snapped, upper possibly bent, strut shot. The rocker panel trim appears to be bowed out by the rear tire so something up front shifted that back (not sure what). Red fluid was draining from the car by the damaged area (i assume power steering though I'm not positive). Both airbags did deploy and that nasty dust is everywhere inside. The drivers door is hard to open (I only glanced at it but it does not look like the fender is binding it up so I wonder if the door frame is damaged).

I know there are people here that work on these cars. The area I live in only has a small handful of LX cars on the roads and the body shop said that they don't have much experience with these cars, but then no one in the area does so there isn't anyone better to take it to. With the description of the accident and the obvious damage does anyone know of any particular damage to look for that the untrained eye may not see?

Thanks for all the help! If I end up with the wrecked car to part out I'll be sure to make it known on this site, it's been a great help to me since I've owned my car and I'll be sad to leave the LX community.

402 Motoring
05-28-2008, 11:47 AM
Hard to really comment on the damage, but most Insurance companies will total at about 75% of the ACV (Actual Cash Value) of the car. We just bought an 06 Charger R/T for 21K so just taking that as a starting point a car valued at this figure would have to close to 15K of damage before they would total it. You will have no say in whether or not the car will be a total. If it fits the formula then its a total, if not then it will be repaired.

loosewheelbob
05-28-2008, 03:37 PM
Ok, I just got off the phone with the body shop a while ago. The damage isn't enough to total it. It is enough to pay off my loan and then some though. Now I'm wondering if it would be worth it for me to take the money, pay the car off, then sell the car as is. It has $13,000 in damage although possibly $1000 or more could be deducted from that in parts that don't really need to be replaced. For me to sell it I would want to get at least $7000 for it. Is that unreasonable?

CoolVanilla
05-28-2008, 04:03 PM
Hmm have you checked with your local pick and pull? They should be able to give you a handle on what the car as a whole is worth. Obviously, parting it out yourself and selling it here or somewhere like eBay will ultimately net you more than the pick and pull will pay (probably by far), but is your time and effort worth it? If it were mine, I'd probably take the money, pay off the loan, sell off select parts and then the rest to a local parts puller. I don't think I'd expect to net $7k out of the car though. Probably a grand or two less and I'd be happy.

bandaid
05-28-2008, 04:15 PM
If you repair it and sell it you may be ahead. At even $18K, you pay off the loan and have $5k in your pocket!