Hi everyone, I'm after any advice/opinions/experience on what I'm about to go through.
I was in a car accident where the at fault driver t-boned me as I was preparing to exit a roundabout while he was entering it. It was like he came out of nowhere as I caught a glimpse of his roobar and instantly was hit and spun almost 180°. Lucky only very minor injuries for us both but the left side of my car is crumpled in. I have taken it to 2 smash repairers for a quote and one said after a quick look $6000-$15000 so a repairable write off, and the other said he wouldn't even waste his time doing a quote.
I have no insurance (please do not have a go at me, I always thought I would never need it as I'm a careful driver, I realise now anything can happen and I wouldn't want to put someone else in this position without being able to compensate them, my next car will properly insured).
The other drivers insurance company has accepted his claim and admitted fault. They have had my car towed to their "assessment centre" which I've found out to be a local auction house. So I'm assuming they will write it off and then auction the wreckage to try and offset their loss on my cash settlement.
Which brings me to why I'm here.
I understand they will offer their own sum that they'll say is market value (I think according to Redbook/Glass guide)
I understand that I'm never to take their first offer.
I understand to ask to see all reports to make sure they're using the correct car details (year/make/model/variant/kms)
I understand I'm to argue my car is worth more using sale adverts for comparable cars.
The problem I can see I'll have is the fact the interior is not in the best condition, and I cannot find any advertised cars with the same problems. Don't get me wrong it's not trashed, the things are minor and fixable. For example, replacing inner door handles and gear knob that the chrome has peeled off of, replacing the master window switches where one has broken off, a good detail of seats and floors etc. These are all things I would fix up if I had any intention of selling the car so I could fetch a decent price for it. I'm thinking though that the assessor would only assess the car immediately pre-accident and would greatly decrease its worth due to these minor things. (Note the exterior of the car is perfect, no dings, scratches, anything).
What I'm wondering is if I could still use the ads of comparable cars as my asking price and then when they point out no because of these things then I could say "okay you're right, so how about I take off the cost of replacing the door handles - $105 and take off the cost of replacing the master switch - $85 etc off my asking price and drop it to $X (whatever that would end up being)….. do you think this would fly?
If anyone's interested it's a 2010 Hyundai i30 SLX auto hatch with 160,000 km - perfect outside just not so much inside
Why not wait and see what they say.