My son owns a 96 Toyota Corolla.He was at his friends house and his friends dad hit his car.What are my sons options in this case?

 

Depends if your son wants to fix it or not. I would politely ask his friends father if he could pay for it. It's not your sons fault he hit it. If he doesn't care about his car then I would leave it be.

 

1) You bring it to a proper Body shop for an estimate, friends' dad pays for the repair himself, and doesn't have his insurance costs go up.

2) You tell your insurance company what happened, they will have an adjuster look at the damage, and you will get a check to get it repaired.
His insurance company will reimburse your insurance co. and he'll get hit with higher premiums for having an at-fault accident.

Either way you're due the car returned to its previous condition.
Unless it's a verge-of-scrapping s***box, then he should just give you what it was worth, and leave it as a lesson learned.

My .02
MJB

 

The car is in very good shape.My son only carries liability insurance on his car.The dad claims he will call his insurance company today.He has the lizard coverage.

 

You should be careful with insurance at this point. The car might only be worth a couple of grand no matter what state it is in. Make sure that the car is not going to be totaled.

 

The left rear quarter panel was scraped pretty bad and the bumper is seperated from the panel.

 

If the dad has Geico then just have your son contact the dad's insurance and they will initiate a claim.

They will contact the guy and move forward from there. It is likely the car will be totaled as it is probably not worth much and it doesn't take much to run up a couple thousand in a body shop.

 

If its totalled u could always buy it back and still get it fixed.

 

If your friend's dad was smart, he'd pay for it out of pocket. And if your son was smart, he'd keep the money and not fix it. It's a 15 year old car... the estimate to fix it is probably going to be close to what it is worth.

 

He's a claimant, he shouldn't be forced to have the car fixed or totaled. He should be able to take the check, (he might have to take a check that is the difference between what the car is WORTH and what salvage is worth, without it being written off as "totaled" and having to buy it back.) sign off on the claim and go his way, if he's willing to take less than "estimated repair cost", if necessary. As a claimant your in a different position than as an insured claiming under your own collision insurance.

 

Could you possibly post a photo of the damage?

Toyotas tend to hold their value really well, but at that age it wont take much to total the vehicle. I would defintely get a couple estiamtes to see what the repairs will cost. Go to nada.com and check the blue book value. Try to enter as much data as possible such as mileage and options. Look at the "clean retail" value of the vehicle. Normally an insurance company will consider a vehicle a total loss when the cost of repairs reach or exceeds %75 of the "clean retail" value displayed on nada.com. That is just a general guide to go by, but it will tell you if the vehicle is going to be a potential total loss.

If the vehicle is still driveable you may look at having the other kids father reimburse you a figure that you can both agree upon to keep it out of insurance hands. This way you can put just as much money as needed to throw a bumper cover on and get it back on the road and maybe pocket a little cash. Just call it compensation for mental anguish

Other wise just make a claim on the other kids insurance and let them send out an adjuster to look at the vehicle. He will write an estimate and evaluate the condition of the vehicle to determine if it is a total loss. If it is a total then they will give you an offer on the vehicle as to what they think it is worth. You can either take this figure and be on your way or you can dispute it and go back and forth with them until you reach and agreement. Also, you can choose to retain the vehicle and take a small hit on the amount they give you for the vehicle. They consider this buying the vehicle back from the insurance since they technically own the vehicle once you accept compensation for it being a total loss.

 

Having learned to drive in a '95 Corolla, those things aren't worth much. The drivetrain is solid, but what do you care what the body looks like?

 

Out of all of this.. I'm with Zach on this one.... like completely. Just makes sense.

 

It's a 15-year-old Toyota -- at this point, scrapes and dings only add character.....

 

Yup... like when a towel head played bumper cars in our parking lot and hit my Crapalier. I turned it into his insurance, got a check, and pocketed that sucker.

KBB puts a 1996 with 170K (average miles for a car that old) on it in good shape at about $1700-2000. Any estimate is going to be in the $1000-1500 range. Why would you want to spend that much money on a car that isn't worth much more? A ding like that is to be expected in an old car like that, and won't hurt resale too much.