Buying a hail-damaged car

We had a pretty bad hailstorm out here last week. Golf-ball sized. My car is a 15-year Mazda Tribute. 225k miles. It’s still a good car, but I’m wondering how long it will last. (Yes, it got some dings last week too, but there’s zero chance that I’ll pay $1,000 to fix a $500 car.) A coworker has a brand new Nissan Murano. She bought it five months ago. And she has 15k miles on it. (She drives a lot, but mostly highway miles.) Hers got banged up pretty good. Basically, every single panel needs to be replaced for it to look brand new again. The insurance company has totalled her car. They are planning to give her a $23k check and take the car away. I’m debating on giving her the $23k and let me have the car. I’ll probably try to get most of the dents out, but I’m fine with a few dings here and there. Advice? Opinions? Does anybody have any experience with hail-damaged cars? Is it purely cosmetic, or does it lead to bad things later on? (For the record, I live in a dry area–West Texas.)

When your friend wises up to why she shouldn’t make that deal with you, you can count on it she will grow to resent you. That’s her pay day, let her relish in it. If she doesn’t care about hail damage it’s in HER best interests to keep the car, and come up with the rest to buy it out from the bank (assuming she financed). The insurance company is hoping to GOD she doesn’t do this option (because obviously insurance companies are evil and they want to screw everyone). When she she wakes up, she’ll understand you’re the insurance company there and your friendship is over. Instruct her to have the insurance company pay the loan off, and then have her buy it from the insurance company.

and not sure if you’re serious, you think hail damage screws up the functionality of an engine? No.

Sounds like a bad deal. Muranos tank in value. Go on autotrader, look up 2018 CERTIFIED Muranos. You can get a CPO one for like mid 20s, list price, before negotiations, if you really want one of these. Why buy a salvage, hail damaged car for a few grand less than a CPO with an extended warranty and no damage?

I hear the electric cars depreciate the most! You should get that Chevy volt!

If she doesn’t want to keep the car and is prepared to take the $23k deal with the insurance company, she should negotiate with them to take $23k less the salvage value $S of the car (since it’s deemed a total loss), keep the car, sell it to you for salvage value $S plus premium $P. In the end of the day she pockets net $23k + $P and you pay $S + $P where the constraints are $0 < $S + $P << $23k, $S is fixed and $P can be made arbitrarily close to zero as long as it is sufficient to offset transaction costs and induce the counter party to participate in the deal.

In other words, if you pay $23k, you are absorbing the entire loss less salvage value, instead of letting the insurance company be responsible for it.

That car undamaged is worth $23k (I’d provide comps and negotiate higher if it were me but I wouldn’t get in her business).

from your point of view. he really shouldnt care about waht she is receiving from the insurance. all she is really looking for is if your offer is more than the insurance.

  1. look at comps, then reduce it by the cost of repair, apply a margin of safety. so your offer should be way below comps.

  2. but ultimately, you need to see if the car runs great, if it depreciates fast, if maintenance cost is high.

1 is important in the short run. but 2 is more important!

Also, is this the specific model of car that you want to drive for the next 10-15 years?

It’s pretty simple… pay $23k for that car and you’re paying for an option someone sold to someone that expired in the money. Just go and buy the stock if you want it and let the insurance company eat the loss like they were paid to do.

FYI - I’ve already test-driven it. I like it a lot.

It’s a 2019 Nissan Murano. (No idea what trim.)

And I plan to drive it until it’s virtually worthless. I don’t care how much it depreciates as long as it has four wheels that keep turning.

And I’ve tentative decided against it–with one caveat:

If I can get her to take a settlement with the insurance agency (say for $17k), then I’ll pony up the difference and buy it from her for $6k. She gets made whole, and I get an almost brand-new car for $6k. Then I take it to Dent Wizard and get them to repair as many dings as they can for $2k.

what a great idea!

that is exactly what I’m telling you to tell HER to do. Be a “financial advisor” and put her before you.

No upside… if she goes though with the deal, gets the car fixed, something randomly goes wrong with the car, anything at all, and she has to pay for it out of pocket because the waranty is null and void, she’s going to resent it. Just let her enjoy her new car.

What? Her upside is the same thing that Greenie is trying to do. She right now, is financing a $25K car (I guessed on the amount), or she could let the insur. co. kill it, and then she buys it back from them for like $6K

IDK how else to explaint the upside to you: she has the potential to pay $6K for a car that is worth far more all else being equal without the hail damage.

Try it yourself, take out the excel spreadsheet and calculate monthly payments for a $25K loan, and then see how much less it is for a $6k loan - boom, there’s her upside.

lol this made me think of gap insurance. those dealerships love to sell those at ridic prices. highest margins for the most useless shit. $500 to protect 4k dep gap that declines as you pay it off.

i bought a samsung edge once, and some guy asked if i wanted to buy insurance. i told him nope, i live life by the edge, the samsung edge, you feel me. me and the sales rep was cracking up. my sister thought i was a weirdo.

i ended up returning it for an iphone! thx god i didnt buy insurance! 150 bucks to protect a 800 phone.

the only insurance i buy:

medical, cuz cancer is a biznitch and is kinda random.

life, cuz i want to protect fam. and protect my potential earnings.

disability, so that whoever takes care of me has an incentive.

actually imagine if you have life and no medical and you get sick. maybe ur like yep i can just die its coo. would the life guys be like. bro i got you. i pay for your cancer. does that happen?

no upside to OP

You can say that again. My mom has lung cancer. And she never smoked a cigarette a day in her life. life is pretty fucking ghey sometimes.

Dude. . . The entire point is to not take advantage of a co-worker/friend. I swear dude - reading, you should try it sometime.

One of my homies got gap insurance on his car. He was badly upside down. City was evacuated due to a hurricane. Left town and “accidentally” left his car in the lowest part of town #artofthedeal

but he still paid full price + tax for the car and lost it? its like he rented the car for transaction fees.

gap is just the gap between what you owe vs what the car is worth. you dont win