Back to the totaled/not totaled thing.

I had a 2000 taurus with 100k+ miles. My wife hit a kid who ran a light on the way to school. The blue book was about 3.2k and there was about 3.6k of damage. The insurance company elected to fix it. At first I was mad, then I thought about it. Since I owned the car outright, I sold the car broken, took the cash for the repair and had a rental for a week (I was straight up with the adjuster and we worked it out).

That way I got more than the car was worth and I got rid of the car. A fixed car would not have been worth as much as the combo of the money and the wrecked car was. Had they given me just blue book on a totaled car, I would have been out 1000, which is roughly 1/4 the value of the car.

If I were to total my truck, I'd be in a bind. I dont have gap insurance because I dont have a note. I'd probably only get blue book, which I dont think would put me a 1-2 grand away from a new comparable truck. I bought my truck in may and to me its still new and will be for a while.