I Was Told My Car Was a Write-Off; We Fixed It Anyway

I got into a car accident in October where I was rear ended and pushed into a car and a barrier in front of me. My car was pretty banged up. It was at the repair shop for a month and a half during which time I had a lot of expenses because of the necessary rental car. And now that it is back from them, finally, I’ve had to bring it back to the repair shop twice, and still need to again.

Is it worth it?

Yes. I’ll tell you why.

When I first asked my mechanic about my car after the accident, he told me it was not worth fixing it, because the repairs would cost more than the car was worth, so from a purely technical standpoint, it “didn’t make sense” to fix it.

But then I started looking at what that actually meant in practice.

According to the insurance company’s book value, my car was worth $4,000. If it was written off, I’d get 70% of that, which came out to $2,850.

That already felt ridiculous, because I paid $5,400 for the car. And when I started looking around at what similar cars were actually selling for, I couldn’t find anything comparable for anywhere near $2,850. Everything similar was at least $6,000, if not more.

And that’s before factoring in the fact that I had just spent $2,800 on a brand new engine.

So let’s say I accepted the $2,850. I’d then need to also spend at least another $3,000 to buy a similar car, assuming I could even find one at that price. And that still wouldn’t include a new engine.

I tried to see if there was an ability to compromise because the people who hit my car wanted to handle things privately instead of going through insurance. They offered me $2,850 for the car and wanted to take it for parts. I said that if they were willing to let me keep the car, I might accept that amount. My thinking was that I could take the new engine and swap it into a cheaper, older car. I had already seen one selling for around $4,000 with very high mileage, but with a new engine it could have been worthwhile.

They weren’t willing to budge.

At that point, I realized that if I was going to lose money either way, I might as well go through insurance and see what happened.

And here’s where things got ironic.

His insurance company ended up deciding that they were willing to fix the car. The same car I had been told was too expensive to repair, not worth fixing, and a total loss. They spent more than the car’s book value on repairs.

So yes, on paper, this makes no sense.

But now I have my car back. My car that I specifically bought because it fit my lifestyle and my disabilities’ needs.

At first glance, it looked great. They put a brand new wrap on the outside, so the car looked beautiful and almost new from the outside. It very much gave the impression that everything had been handled properly and thoroughly.

But once I started actually using the car, it became clear that while the outside had been made to look perfect, the inside work was sloppy.

Since getting it back, I’ve already had to bring it in twice, and there are still things that need fixing. The entire instrument cluster (the dashboard gauges) wasn’t working, and it turned out to be a fuse issue that needed fixing. Additionally, the fuel gauge wasn’t working properly because the fuel sensor was broken. They never replaced the broken backup sensors so new ones needed to be added. So far I’ve paid $425 in repairs since I got it back from the insurance’s mechanic.

There still are some more repairs needed that didn’t get taken care of yet. There were wires in the back that were ripped in the accident and need replacing. The trunk doesn’t seem to latch perfectly. One of the back bench seats doesn’t lock upright. (I’ve also had to replace the battery, though at least that wasn’t because of the accident.) There are probably more things that will need attention over time.

Am I annoyed about that? Absolutely.

But I’m not going to complain. The insurance company could have done what was expected of them and just given me a small amount of money and I would have needed to buy a new car. They, in my opinion, went above and beyond by fixing the car instead. (They probably didn’t realize how expensive it would be until they were in the middle of repairs and then it was a sunk cost for them.) I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So it costs me more money. But it’s cheaper than having gotten the money from the insurance and needing to buy a new car.

If I had gone that route, I would have been out thousands of dollars immediately, for a car that likely would have needed its own repairs, and without the benefit of a new engine.

Instead, I have a working car. One I know. One that already has a lot of money invested in it. One that, despite its issues, exists. And I didn’t need to go through the headache of looking for a new car and all the headache a purchase entails, checking out multiple cars until you find the right one.

So is it annoying that I’ve had to bring it back to the shop multiple times? Of course. Is it frustrating that things weren’t perfect when I got it back? Yes.

But financially, this was still the least bad option available to me.

Sometimes “worth it” doesn’t mean good, or ideal, or what you would choose in a different situation. Sometimes it just means that, when you actually run the numbers and look at reality instead of theory, fixing the thing you already have costs less than starting over from scratch.

And in this case, that’s exactly what happened.