Help - pretty sure my 100 series is about to be totaled (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Jul 31, 2006
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Location
Colorado
LC Pic 1.jpg
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O.K. Here is the deal. Wife was #3 in line pulling away from a green light the other day and a Tesla ran a red light and clipped her front end. Other driver was clearly at fault, cited by LEO and there were a number of witnesses. Our 1999 LC has 292,000 miles and is in excellent mechanical condition and pretty darn good cosmetic condition until this accident. Progressive is the other drivers insurance company. The vehicle still drives normal (steering wheel still straight) and there are no leaks, but the bumper, corner lights, head lights and grill are all toast. The hood and driver's fender are also tweaked. We've had this vehicle for 18 years and absolutely love it, like most 100 series owners do. I'm gearing up for Progressive to say the vehicle is totaled, but as far as I can tell, it's easily fixable and will look better with an aftermarket bumper anyway. Does anyone have advice or suggestions on how to deal with being told your vehicle is being totaled and how to get fair compensation for it. My intention is to keep it (buy it back) and have it become our next off-road toy, but that plan was to be 3-5 years down the road. Thanks and much appreciation for any advice you can offer. Adam R
 
Tesla pic.jpg


Pic of the Tesla for those interested. Thanks again, Adam R.
 
Well that sucks. 292k is just getting broken in.

Buy it back, and hit the hard trails. You now have a good excuse to cut panels and fully raisin it. Go wheel with @ga12r1 and total it again. Or cover it in bed liner like the bed liner king, @atnolan94.
 
Well that sucks. 292k is just getting broken in.

Buy it back, and hit the hard trails. You now have a good excuse to cut panels and fully raisin it. Go wheel with @ga12r1 and total it again. Or cover it in bed liner like the bed liner king, @atnolan94.
Or do both👍
 
Deal with your insurance not the other driver's. Your insurance will work with you and do their best to try and do what you want.

Jim
👆🏽This. My insurance co. (Liberty Mutual) worked with me to prevent mine from being totaled.
 
If you want to reach out to me via PM i work with insurance companies everyday ( work for a bodyshop) id be happy to answer any question you have and help you with the process.

glad everyone is ok
 
Just make sure that if they try to "total" it that you get what it'd cost to find yourself a replacement. That alone might warn them off that course of action a bit. Have a conversation with your agent and let em know what you want to do. It'll work out.

What I see is nonstructural damage that can be repaired relatively cheaply (couple thousand bucks of parts, total), a 100 series that did its job well, and a tin can in shape of an electric car that has a gang of work coming up on it. :D Personally, I'd just take the check from insurance minus my deductible, buy whatever parts are needed, and bolt them back up. You'll probably end up pretty much square at that point. Only thing to be careful of is if there's something bent on a mounting point somewhere.
 
I chatted with my company tonight (USAA) and got some good info from someone who seemed very knowledgeable of the process. We only carried liability on this vehicle, so there are fewer options that they can provide for us since we didn't have comp. They offered to review the offer from Progressive once it comes in and see if anything was missed/overlooked in the estimate of our car's value. Some may ask why we only had liability, but with the age of this vehicle (22 years) and it's pre-Covid value of around $6,000 we decided to drop down to liability about 5 years ago. The value is now significantly higher, maybe around $10K in this current used vehicle market so maybe we should have put comp back on but hindsight is 20..... However, in 26 years of insurance with USAA and well over 1 million miles of driving, this is our first ever claim across any of our vehicles. As an aside, we bought this LC about 6 months before child #1 was born and she just turned 17 the other day. I've been saying for years that we drive heavy vehicles for a reason and my wife and all 3 daughters were together when this happened. It easily could have been a much more direct hit, but I'm certain my family would have still been fine. My wife drove home from the wreck while the Tesla literally shut down and the owner couldn't even get her insurance papers out of the glove box since it locked and refused to open.
 
Just make sure that if they try to "total" it that you get what it'd cost to find yourself a replacement. That alone might warn them off that course of action a bit. Have a conversation with your agent and let em know what you want to do. It'll work out.

What I see is nonstructural damage that can be repaired relatively cheaply (couple thousand bucks of parts, total), a 100 series that did its job well, and a tin can in shape of an electric car that has a gang of work coming up on it. :D Personally, I'd just take the check from insurance minus my deductible, buy whatever parts are needed, and bolt them back up. You'll probably end up pretty much square at that point. Only thing to be careful of is if there's something bent on a mounting point somewhere.
Agree on all points. The plates at the end of the frame horns are folded slightly, but I can straighten those out easily enough to put a Slee bumper on it. I already have a 4BD1T diesel with compounds powering my 1993 LC, so I wasn't quite ready to start this new project. I figured her 100 series would last another 3-5 years before we upgraded her to a 200 series and I would inherit the 100.
 
I get it. My cars are all old too, and that's totally understandable. I used to carry liability only but found out a few years back that that was actually the expensive part, for me, since I'm not a big wrecker of cars. Insurance is lame, overall, especially when you figure out that half what you pay for is other people's idiocy on the road/ non-insurance-having/ etc.

Anyway. If that's where it lands - just buy yourself that ARB you've had half an eye on and get a couple new headlights and call it good. Fender and hood look able to be banged back into quasi-shape.

My wife was in a bad wreck in her Sienna a few years back, and as much as I hated having to pay to replace it in a hurry, deal with insurance, etc., when I went and looked at it in the tow yard I forgot all that stuff right away. That thing saved her life (she was banged up but not permanently hurt) and it looked it. Cars can always be replaced.
 
Glad you're all ok.

It's interesting you work for USAA and insure through Progressive. Are employees not eligible?

My vote is to keep and repair it. No reason it can't remain a daily driver.
 
Hey man, pull the trigger and keep it! That looked almost exactly like mine. Check it out. Before and after. All within 4 months waiting for parts from this forum, eBay, and multiple trips to the toyota parts dept for the damn part numbers for the screws. If it makes you feel better, mine was a total loss. Local Collision Center asked 6k parts and labor. Decided to do 80% of the work myself and saved about $4100. I know it's still alot, but it think it was worth it.

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Hey man, pull the trigger and keep it! That looked almost exactly like mine. Check it out. Before and after. All within 4 months waiting for parts from this forum, eBay, and multiple trips to the toyota parts dept for the damn part numbers for the screws. If it makes you feel better, mine was a total loss. Local Collision Center asked 6k parts and labor. Decided to do 80% of the work myself and saved about $4100. I know it's still alot, but it think it was worth it.

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Shout out to user AlpineAccess above me for helping me with some of this project!
 
Glad you're all ok.

It's interesting you work for USAA and insure through Progressive. Are employees not eligible?

My vote is to keep and repair it. No reason it can't remain a daily driver
Alpine Access, I work for the USAF and my insurance is USAA. The other vehicle is insured by Progressive. Also, what part of the repair above did you help with?

VFib, yours does indeed look a lot like mine. The end result looks perfect.

No doubt I'll keep it, but what a PITA to deal with something that isn't your fault.

Adam
 
Alpine Access, I work for the USAF and my insurance is USAA. The other vehicle is insured by Progressive. Also, what part of the repair above did you help with?

VFib, yours does indeed look a lot like mine. The end result looks perfect.

No doubt I'll keep it, but what a PITA to deal with something that isn't your fault.

Adam
That makes sense on Insurance. We have been really happy with USAA. It sounded as described that you worked for them but insured through progressive and it was just curiosity.

I'm not sure what @VentricularFib means other than potentially contributing to his repair threads.
 
So, the verbal offer from Progressive arrived a few moments ago. Still waiting for the hardcopy of the report to be e-mailed to us. They are offering $7261.34 with a salvage value of $2900.

In looking at 1998-2001 LC's on Autotrader.com and Cars.com. There is only 1 LC being offered for sale in the entire country at a price lower than $7200 and it is a clapped out POS. Needless to say, we'll be in discussions once the agent is kind enough pick up his phone so I can talk to him. Oh, and he's told my wife she can only have the rental car for 2 more days. Yea, sure, no problem. We'll just skip on down to the local Landcruiser used car lot and pick up a replacement. There are 3 within 500 miles of where we live and only 33 in this age range across the entire country at the moment. Adam
 
Good luck trying to find a decent 100 series at ~$8k, during the pandemic/chip shortage craziness that’s going on right now.

This is the type of listings that I see for that price, and they’re somewhat rare post coronapocalypse.


But you’d have to come to the “dark side” (Lexus).

When I picked up our “old beater” 99 LX470 as an extra vehicle, I contemplated just getting liability coverage on it. I found that the cost difference of liability only to full coverage was fairly trivial, and figured in a situation like you’re currently in, I’d really prefer to deal with my insurance company.
 
the insurance will come up with some BS comps that don't reflect the actual value of these trucks. The only go by car lot dealer listings and just about all of them are dealer auction vehicles that are rough.

I was able to get $16k and change out of my moms 2000 earlier this year, going through her insurance. I think their initial was 12K, and I kept arguing. I bought it back and repaired it, was really easy as the damage was not bad.

You should be able to get at least that cash amount and the truck back out of it, keep arguing and don't accept anything you aren't happy with.
 

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