minor park lot fender benfer and "diminished value

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Hi,

Several weeks ago I had a minor fender bender in a mall parking lot. I was parked and NOT in my car at the time. I can out and a car that was backing out of his parking spot hit my rear bumper and left tail light assembly, damaging both. My car was recently repaired using OEM
Honda parts. This was my 2013 MINT condition Honda Civic EX sedan with just 18,0000 miles.

The repair was done expertly and looks like it never happened. The driver was honest and stayed at the scene and waited for me to return to my car. He sat there and waited 45 minutes.
He immediately admitted fault to myself and the police. Obviously, since it was his fault, I went through his insurance for the repair. Even though this was minor and repaired perfectly, my Civic now has "diminished value" My question is if I was to sale privately or
worst case a dealer trade in, how much LESS is my Civic now worth??
 
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It's really not worth anything less. However, a dealer can use it as a bargaining tool to offer you a lot less on trade in ... and they will stick it on the lot next to another "undamaged" car for just as much.
 
Originally Posted By: flinter
How could it NOT be worth a bit less? Wont the accident show up on a CarFax Report?


What the car is worth is an arbitrary value. If the part that was hit shows no scratches, the paint matches and there are no rust issues, it's as good as new.

People (especially dealers) will use the Carfax to run the price down.
 
Diminished Value- Insurance companies will pay out for it ! If there is carfax history, I think there is a real impact.. now maybe the impact is only a few hundred bucks, maybe its a grand. My daughter was driving our 2012 Impreza about 18mo ago, so this is maybe when the car was still work high teens. She got rear-ended, 100% other driver's fault. Had the work done at preferred body shop (by the at fault driver's insurance (State Farm) with OEM parts; new bumper cover, a few parts, I think it cost them about $1200. I collected about another $1200 in diminished value. I spoke to my carrier (Amica Mutual) first to inquire about the concept and they explained that themselves pay it when asked/pressed but never voluntarily; it is not payable under collision to their own pollicy holders. So I wrote a letter with some kind of explanation/calculation for the ~$1200 diminished value and got a check within two weeks with zero questions. They may have been relieved that I wasn't like the other car/people their driver tagged that appeared to be going for nuisance medical payouts..
 
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Deanm11,

Thats great for you! The guy who hit me had NJ Manufacturers, which is BOTH a good thing and a bad thing! The good is they
use OEM parts for cars 2 years and new and the bad is they are
very reluctant to pay out for "diminshed Value".

I also used an approved NJ Manufacturers body shop (through his insurance, of course) and the total was just $1062.00, which NJ Manufacturers of course covered, along with my rental for
3 days. The repair was a new rear bumper, left tail light assembly and repaint.
 
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Originally Posted By: flinter
Rust issues??? Its a MINT condition 2013 Civic EX!


But if the repair was done poorly, etc, it could start rusting there. As long as it doesn't happen, it's functionally no different.
 
Originally Posted By: flinter
Rust issues??? Its a MINT condition 2013 Civic EX!


If you were to visit Onondaga County, you would understand. Rust on a 2 year old car would not be out of the question, especially if sub par repairs are done. We recently sent an older semi-rust free Southern PA van up there for the tech stationed up there. I told my boss to go ahead and order a replacement after this winter, lol.
 
It depends really. If you were to sold it today your car would worth less because of the damage record. But if you keep the car for a few more years in a similar mint condition it would probably worth more than a typical 6y year old Honda with dents and scratches all over.
 
Christi,

I see LOTS of 6 year old Hondas WITHOUT "dents and scratches all over."
 
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The only way to really collect diminished value is to trade the car in soon after the repair, and get the dealer to note how much less they gave as a trade in. Since you are not selling the car, there is no loss in value, until you do.

You may not think this is fair, but you have your car back in essentially the same condition it was in before the biff. Try to be happy with that.
 
If two identical Civics were on a used car lot, one was original and the other had a $1000 tail light/bumper repair, which would you choose to purchase? How much less would you want to pay for the car that had been damaged? If it's a late model Civic, I'd say the average person would pay $500 more for the undamaged car. That's your diminished value. I was in the new car-used car business for 40 years, I have seen this first hand. It's a legitimate claim, especially if the accident shows on CarFax. Save your body shop receipts and any photos you have of the original damage.
 
I take pictures of any damage to the vehicles *before* they are repaired.

If when it comes time to sell, if there are any questions or issues, I show the pictures. If there's no question or if it doesn't come up, then no problem.


The 2007 T&C that I just sold had the tailgate replaced under warranty for rust-through. For some odd reason, Chrysler refused to pay to have THEIR emblems replaced... they insisted that the body shop re-use the old ones (which are little letters that are individual and about 3/4" tall). It would have taken a half a day for the body shop to reattach all of those and make it look right.

I told the body shop to forget it. It Chrysler wasn't worried about putting THEIR name back on my van, then the heck with them. It looked better without it, and the buyer never noticed that they weren't there.
 
IF you trade it in and the "like new" repair is not reported on CarFax nor noticed by the dealer, wouldn't it be morally correct to return this money?

Or, if sold privately, take what you think is the correct and fair price, minus the insurance money?

Otherwise, it seems that you would be scamming the system, something that we all pay for.
 
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