Well, after a year and a half of looking for a truck that was nice enough and in the right price range, I finally found a super clean 2000 100 series in August for my mom. After doing all of the PM's, new tires, shocks, bushings and putting a nice stereo in it, I gave it to her in September.
Since then she put less than 100 miles on it. last night she got rear ended by a work van 3 blocks from her house...
The rear section of the frame is bent down 2-3", the hitch and bumper (frame) took the vast majority of the impact. Driver seat back is bent pretty good, as is the steering column. Fortunately she is ok for the most part, but it was a hard hit. Totaled the van for sure.
I looked the truck over fairly good in the day light, there are a lot of frame creases and cracked paint, hitch is split and pushed into the spare, the hatch does not line up, no body creases that I could find but the drivers side rear body mount is pushing on the body pretty bad and the rear most vent window doesn't close square. Exhaust/resonator is smashed, the sunroof switch panel broke, door locks don't work anymore, and the rear axle is 1/4" closer to the front of the fender on the driver's side than the passenger side.
I'm looking for some advice on what to do, as I have just over 11k into the truck, not including my labor. As clean as it was and with the massive pile of dealer receipts (100% dealer maintained) and recent maintenance (just had a t-belt and water pump, starter, CV's, battery, plugs, trans flush, diff service, tcase service and a toyota windshield done in July). I'm guessing I could have sold it for $15k prior to 8:45pm last night. My guess would be the insurance company is going to total it and low ball for 7-9k, even though they are selling for much more than that. Any advice from the astounding number of locals who have recently had to deal with insurance companies on their 100 series wrecks?
Best case scenario for me is a payout of 8k or so and I keep the truck, replace the tailgate, add a 4x4labs rear bumper, straighten the frame good enough for it to drive true, replace the steering column and seat frame, fix the little stuff and give it back to my mom, she drives it 10k miles over the next 20 years
2nd best - they total it and pay me what I have into it, then I buy it back and part it/put the drivetrain in my 80.
likely scenario - A long and frustrating fight about the value, and me losing a bunch of hair.
What do you guys think?
Since then she put less than 100 miles on it. last night she got rear ended by a work van 3 blocks from her house...
The rear section of the frame is bent down 2-3", the hitch and bumper (frame) took the vast majority of the impact. Driver seat back is bent pretty good, as is the steering column. Fortunately she is ok for the most part, but it was a hard hit. Totaled the van for sure.
I looked the truck over fairly good in the day light, there are a lot of frame creases and cracked paint, hitch is split and pushed into the spare, the hatch does not line up, no body creases that I could find but the drivers side rear body mount is pushing on the body pretty bad and the rear most vent window doesn't close square. Exhaust/resonator is smashed, the sunroof switch panel broke, door locks don't work anymore, and the rear axle is 1/4" closer to the front of the fender on the driver's side than the passenger side.
I'm looking for some advice on what to do, as I have just over 11k into the truck, not including my labor. As clean as it was and with the massive pile of dealer receipts (100% dealer maintained) and recent maintenance (just had a t-belt and water pump, starter, CV's, battery, plugs, trans flush, diff service, tcase service and a toyota windshield done in July). I'm guessing I could have sold it for $15k prior to 8:45pm last night. My guess would be the insurance company is going to total it and low ball for 7-9k, even though they are selling for much more than that. Any advice from the astounding number of locals who have recently had to deal with insurance companies on their 100 series wrecks?
Best case scenario for me is a payout of 8k or so and I keep the truck, replace the tailgate, add a 4x4labs rear bumper, straighten the frame good enough for it to drive true, replace the steering column and seat frame, fix the little stuff and give it back to my mom, she drives it 10k miles over the next 20 years
2nd best - they total it and pay me what I have into it, then I buy it back and part it/put the drivetrain in my 80.
likely scenario - A long and frustrating fight about the value, and me losing a bunch of hair.
What do you guys think?