Crashed my aveo!

My Aveo is my winter car. I took it in to work today, however, as I had the kids' car seats in there and didn't have time to move them over to my regular car.

Left work. Coming off one highway and merging to another. Two cars in front of me hits her breaks. Car behind that one hits the car and obviously comes to an abrupt stop. I happened to be looking over my left shoulder to clear oncoming traffic. When I turned back I didn't have a chance - hit the middle car.

I'll fight it out with my insurance company but it's unlikely I will win. They will argue I should have had proper space in front of me and perhaps they are right. I did not have collision. Simply not worth it with a $500 deductible and a car that is worth $1500. I'll accept the loss if that is how it shakes out, which I suspect it will.

The blue book on my vehicle is $2500 in good condition (obviously prior to accident). However, I looked on craigslist and ebay about a month ago and I think $1500-$2000 would have been the price I could have got for it. Looking at the pictures, is asking $500 for it insane?

On a positive note, no one was hurt. On another positive, I have been pondering for a few months now whether to ditch the Aveo completely and simply get a nice set of snow tires for my Camaro and drive that in the winter. Looks like I have my answer. The Aveo was nearly dead, anyway. Had a bad oil leak - always smelled like burnt oil. Tires were bald (would have had to get them replaced this month for inspection). Has 130,000 miles on it. Small rust spot. My mechanic said underneath had quite a bit of rust, too. Point is, now was a good time for this to happen versus a few months from now when I might have sunk several hundred dollars into it.

Dave

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Originally Posted by DaveA

My Aveo is my winter car. I took it in to work today, however, as I had the kids' car seats in there and didn't have time to move them over to my regular car.

Left work. Coming off one highway and merging to another. Two cars in front of me hits her breaks. Car behind that one hits the car and obviously comes to an abrupt stop. I happened to be looking over my left shoulder to clear oncoming traffic. When I turned back I didn't have a chance - hit the middle car.

I'll fight it out with my insurance company but it's unlikely I will win. They will argue I should have had proper space in front of me and perhaps they are right. I did not have collision. Simply not worth it with a $500 deductible and a car that is worth $1500. I'll accept the loss if that is how it shakes out, which I suspect it will.

The blue book on my vehicle is $2500 in good condition (obviously prior to accident). However, I looked on craigslist and ebay about a month ago and I think $1500-$2000 would have been the price I could have got for it. Looking at the pictures, is asking $500 for it insane?

On a positive note, no one was hurt. On another positive, I have been pondering for a few months now whether to ditch the Aveo completely and simply get a nice set of snow tires for my Camaro and drive that in the winter. Looks like I have my answer. The Aveo was nearly dead, anyway. Had a bad oil leak - always smelled like burnt oil. Tires were bald (would have had to get them replaced this month for inspection). Has 130,000 miles on it. Small rust spot. My mechanic said underneath had quite a bit of rust, too. Point is, now was a good time for this to happen versus a few months from now when I might have sunk several hundred dollars into it.

Dave

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wow, my Aveo in the same condition (albeit a 2010, and with 41,500 less miles on it) as yours pre accident is pretty much worth Double than yours, even with my current front bumper damage! how fast were you going when you hit? if the underlying structure wasn't damaged (I have a Thread with a picture showing what its supposed to look like undamaged: http://www.aveoforum.com/forum/f94/h...o-sedan-20148/) you could probably ask a little more for it.

From looking at your pictures I think you could repair the damage. Parts from the wreckers are pretty cheap & it's not much more than unbolting the damaged pieces & bolting on the undamaged ones. Of course with it needing tires & maybe other repairs, you'll have to decide if it is worth the effort. Just as an added fix - your burnt oil smell may be coming from the valve cover gasket which leaks oil onto the exhaust manifold. Another easy fix but a little patience is needed to fix it. If you decide to go ahead & need some pointers just shoot me an email.

Ask for Blue Book or NADA .

God bless
Wyr

You live in Boston, road salt? I'm sure there is, what year Camaro do you have?... thats why (back in the day) I drove my Cutlass to New Hampshire and not the '64 Nova... didn't want to watch a classic car get ate away by rust.... just my two cents.

Most likely the radiator support was bent. I f'ng deer took out mine and bent it. If the radiator support was bent then that is going to need a shop to bend it back. I drilled out mine and spot welded it back together. Not worth it for a beater commuter

Not too long ago my wife rear ended a car with her 2003 Dodge Stratus. Hood was bent, bumper torn and I think the frame may have been bent and one of the headlights was cracked from the housing. We bought this car for $1700. As far as insurance we only had liability, not full coverage because well, the car was not worth that much anyways. I took it to the body shop and their quote was $3,500 to repair the car. So we took it to this shady tree body shop. I mean this place looked pretty bad and these were old world body shop guys. They pretty much told me if I wanted to repair the car and not replace any parts on it they quoted me $300 to fix the car. I thought about it and I said sure why not. It can't possibly look any worse than it already is. Well three days later and the my car looks better then it was before it was crashed. No parts were replaced, just repaired. They used bondo, silicone to seal the head light from the back, straighten the radiator support and hood. Of course they prep and painted front end half of the car to match. I mean exact match no less! I was floored on how well these guys repaired the front end. For $300 I was expecting them to use duct tape to hold up something. Who knows, maybe they did but you can't tell. These guys were old body shop men and knew what they were doing. My decision to get that car repaired was based on how good the engine and over all the worthiness of the car. I figured this car was worth $300 in getting fixed. If it was a car that kept giving me problems and a money a pit I probably would want to use that money towards another car. I would shop around for these small mom and pop body shops and see what they can do for you.

That place is in McAllen ? I would almost drive down to get some body work done , at that price . How long did it take them ? Three days ?

You had better hang on to that contact info and hope they do not retire any time soon .

God bless
Wyr

Hey WyrTwister! Well it's actually in Edinburg, north of McAllen. The work was done about a year and a half ago and the paint finish looks great! I swear if you drive out there it looks like your driving into a car salvage yard. A big V8 engine hanging off a tree branch with a chain around it. It's just awesome lol.. And like I mentioned, zero parts were replaced. I don't know how they managed to unbend that hood but it looks like new and it open closes with no problem. Oh and it took exactly 3 days to fix it. I will try to find pictures we took of before and after. I think I may still have those pictures.