Totaled Not Totaled?

[Tom C]

He is certain he was headed straight at the barrier but I’m guessing was still spinning at the time of impact so the car hit and spun off?

That was my first impression when I saw the pics and read your description. The initial point of impact appears to be the passenger side front based on the crush, and the remaining damage to the nose appears to be of a glancing blow nature. The car might have been still sliding at an angle and that's probably what caused the car to decelerate more slowly as opposed to an instantaneous sudden stop (think Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500). It's also the reason why I think the airbags didn't deploy...the angle, speed, and area of initial contact may not have met the sensor and computer module criteria for activation.

It's difficult to appraise damages from photos...admittedly nothing beats an on-site, hands-on inspection, but based on the pics you provided the sheet metal and structural misalignment seem like they'd be easily addressed. If the car impacted the undercarriage on some object remains to be seen.

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[D24112]

USAA told me more than 65% they total it.

 

[GT Pony]

The body shop not being a Ford dealership maybe they thought it should have gone off but since it did not they want Ford to do a diagnosis? I’m not sure as to the exact why but they are not going to touch the car until there is a determination made.

That's weird, I've never heard of a body shop doing that before. So is the body shop going to contact Ford directly about their concern?

Hope it's not as bad as it looks ... and glad your son it basically OK, except for the pain of seeing his car wrecked.

At first I thought your son might have been driving your car until things unfolded a bit more.

 

[Houston Kid]

That's weird, I've never heard of a body shop doing that before. So is the body shop going to contact Ford directly about their concern?

Hope it's not as bad as it looks ... and glad your son it basically OK, except for the pain of seeing his car wrecked.

At first I thought your son might have been driving your car until the things unfolded a bit more.

The body shop is working with USAA to have the car towed to a Ford dealership for diagnosis. I'm guessing based on what they saw they don't want to be held liable if they repair the car and the airbag fails to deploy in another wreck?

They want Ford to verify as to why the airbag did not go off or if it should have. If the Ford determines the bag should have gone off, then who knows.

Pure speculation on my part but about the only logical reason I can come up with as to why they won't touch the car. They see it as a possible liability.

Thanks for the well wishes on my kiddo. Greatly appreciated.

 

[Tony Alonso]

Glad your son is ok. I hope he feels better and the car situation gets straightened out sooner rather than later.

 

[Anthony 05 GT]

Looks like someone took the garbage out on this thread addle:

 

[Houston Kid]

Update is the body shop won't even open the hood until the airbag issue is resolved. USAA says do a visual inspection and estimate, with out touching the car, damages. WTF!??!!

Once USAA gets the visual inspection/estimate, USAA will decide how to more forward be it have the car towed to Ford for airbag diagnosis or just total the car. I highly doubt from the visual inspection the estimate will reach a totaled value, so the wait continues.

Body shop is supposed to do the visual inspection today. I told my son to dump the body shop and have the car towed to Ford. He said he gave USAA control over the the car and that is how they want to proceed at this time.

???????

 

[EJS2016]

I’ve been with USAA for over 25 yrs and have received nothing but outstanding response and customer service from the insurance/claims staff.

Your son is in good hands with USAA.
They will do the right thing.

 

[Houston Kid]

I’ve been with USAA for over 25 yrs and have received nothing but outstanding response and customer service from the insurance/claims staff.

Your son is in good hands with USAA.
They will do the right thing.

Thanks and I agree. I have been with USAA for 19 years. He is fairly new to them since he is now paying all of his own bills, but he was on my policy prior to that. USAA has always been very easy to work with.

In this case I am stumped on the visual inspection. Seems like a waste but they are the experts so we will see what happens next.

 

[ctandc72]

Pretty normal. They want to get a quick and rough estimate of damage before proceeding. Reason being, if the quick estimate is close to totaling it they'll likely forgo anything else and total it out.

I have USAA as well. I've been very pleased.

 

[FirstGT]

That's what they did on my truck 3 years ago. He estimated repairs from visual only and made determination to total it. Through USAA as well.

 

[Houston Kid]

I guess I have been lucky to have never wrecked one bad enough to come close a total loss.

 

[sigintel]

Totalled. The energy absorbtion structure has been deformed. It is incapable of being restored to provide the same absorption of energy and softening of deceleration.
Nothing wrong with drivers airbag not deploying in this. It was a hard hit, but airbag was best not triggered till higher threshold.
Instantaneous (de)acceleration was way higher for passenger as from the damage. Notice the unibody “rolled” under opening the hood/fender gap.
Totalled 100%.
Airbag/ecu logs will show correct non deployment.
If you lose 20 mph in 18” distance, then Id expect it, but looks way milder than that even if you are sore.

 

[mrblanche]

Another consideration can be the finance status of the car. If you're upside down on it, the insurance company will go to great lengths to keep you in it so you don't have to put out a slug of money to the finance company.

 

[Houston Kid]

He is ahead by a few grand.

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