You were doing well until the back half of your statement, then ignorance prevailed. Insurance companies are actually legally required to "care about safety " our estimates can't knowingly cut corners or ignore damage, if an adjuster either independently employed or an employee of a provider were to display a habit of "ignoring safety" they would lose their license and face some pretty significant fines. It is my experience that it is body shops who often coach owners into cheaper repairs to bank the "extra " from insurance checks. Which leads me into your final statement. There is no guarantee that the insurance company will satisfy the loan. They will pay the value of the car, if thats more than what is owed, great, you bank the equity, if its less, than you better have GAP. As for buying the car back, salvage buy back on newer cars tends to be around 20% of acv, thats a chunk of change on 20 to 40k car. If you finance the car and dont have the equity to cover that much coming out of the settlement its 100% upto the lender to permit retention and if they do, often times GAP will not pay, and they will NEVER pay for a discrepancy created by retention. So in your genius scenario your dropping anywhere from 2 to 8k on keeping the car, taking atleast a 50% depreciation from a salvage title (some states dont offer), then spending what ever it may cost to create a drivable chassis and "build a race car" or hope to swing a profit parting it out while competing with national chains that can part the car for less.The firewall is the metal that separates the engine from the interior of the car.
It's called a firewall, because it's literally there to, protect you in the event of a fire or engine explosion.
Pretty much everything on the mustang chassis is replaceable. The body is just a bunch of panels bonded together.
You can purchase a new firewall from ford and a bodyshop simply drills out the old seam welds then spotwelds the car back together...
Its just alot of work, and you need to have the car supported on some sort of jig so the body doesnt deform during the welding and cooling process.
But yeah anything can be fixed. The only question is how much.
Insurance companies dont care about safety, they just get a estimate from the body shop which they will low ball to pay out as little as they can, if the damage is more than the value if the car they total it.
The good news with that is insurance pays off ford. Then you can buy the crashed car off them for very little money. Then you can part it out, or rebuild it and get a salvaged title for it or make it a race car.
The hood needed to be worked and repainted.How the heck is that 7600 in damage? I can buy and have painted gt350 front end for under 1000 and I doubt a hood repaint is 6600 dollars. Or is there something IM missing here?
Thanks for the corrections.You were doing well until the back half of your statement, then ignorance prevailed. Insurance companies are actually legally required to "care about safety " our estimates can't knowingly cut corners or ignore damage, if an adjuster either independently employed or an employee of a provider were to display a habit of "ignoring safety" they would lose their license and face some pretty significant fines. It is my experience that it is body shops who often coach owners into cheaper repairs to bank the "extra " from insurance checks. Which leads me into your final statement. There is no guarantee that the insurance company will satisfy the loan. They will pay the value of the car, if thats more than what is owed, great, you bank the equity, if its less, than you better have GAP. As for buying the car back, salvage buy back on newer cars tends to be around 20% of acv, thats a chunk of change on 20 to 40k car. If you finance the car and dont have the equity to cover that much coming out of the settlement its 100% upto the lender to permit retention and if they do, often times GAP will not pay, and they will NEVER pay for a discrepancy created by retention. So in your genius scenario your dropping anywhere from 2 to 8k on keeping the car, taking atleast a 50% depreciation from a salvage title (some states dont offer), then spending what ever it may cost to create a drivable chassis and "build a race car" or hope to swing a profit parting it out while competing with national chains that can part the car for less.