Yeah, I had an insurance company tell me the same thing when their driver totaled my 4Runner several years ago. They wanted to pay me trade in value. I wound up getting full retail, a rental car and $1000 for the time I had to spend off work dealing with it. There low ball offer just made me ask for more and more and I wouldn't give in until I got what I wanted. My ex wife sustained some chemical burns from the air bag and some cuts from the seat belt. I wouldn't even discuss that with the insurance company until I got what I wanted for my vehicle. I.didn't even need or think about asking for money for a rental and compensation for my time off until they tried to lowball me on my vehicle and tell me that was just the way it was. Pissed me off so I asked for more. The insurance company was Travelers.

That sounds about like travelers. I total out a couple hundred a year I would say. I offer everyone high retail unless they have just totally ragged out their vehicle and taken no care of it. Then it's obviously not worth high retail. I almost never have an issue settling with anyone on a totaled vehicle. If say most get more than they were expecting right out of the gate. Then again I don't work for travelers.

Most of the people I see that are upside down screwed their self when they bought from some easy credit tulle place and paid $5000 more than the car was worth. That or hey have money rolled into their vehicle loan already and that gets them farther in the hole.

If he has a good payment history with the loan why would the bank not loan him money to buy his next car? I haven't dealt with this issue before but it looks to me like they would be more willing to forgive the $1300 if they are going to make money on his next loan.

There's a member on here, who I won't call by name/screen name, who had State Farm. Just recently his wife was hit by a guy who also had State Farm. It totaled out her vehicle. State Farm offered him $9k when KBB had its value at over $14k. So it doesn't matter how big of a name the insurance company is, at the end of the day, most of them are going to try and pay out as low as possible. That's a nice way of saying they are going to try and screw you. Companies that offer the top value in the first offer don't stay in business long.

He went with a Honda dealership and Wells Fargo financed him. I'm sure he used them because dad had relationships and accounts at WF. That is no longer an option for him. He's got to turn the rental on Monday morning. I'm in CE all weekend so we're gonna be looking for a reliable, inexpensive vehicle at some of the car lots around here on Monday morning. He's got to have a car before lunch on Monday. We'll see what happens.

Dr. B

Since it looks like you are going to be involved in the new car purchase in one way or another, I would also consider paying out of pocket for a rental for a week or two just to keep from jumping on a bad deal or getting a lemon just because you don't have time to check things out.

Shows what you know about the business.

I'll say this..Ford is 99.9% correct..We have been doing insurance work for many years and just about every single estimate the ins company figures is way low.Sometimes it can be a few hundred low on a small job and go all the way to $2-$5k+ low on bigger jobs....and the funny thing about it is when we turn our estimate in and go over with them why the job is gonna cost what our estimate is they stroke a check for the difference or usually get real close to what our estimate is.If they wasn't trying to lowball everybody when they have a claim then they wouldn't be so quick to make up the difference when you point out to them why the job cost what it actually does.Some companies are better than others..Ill say this..State Farm is terrible to deal with and Alfa is one of the best in the state to deal with.American Modern and Foremost are also terrible..Also one other thing since were on insurance companies..These dumbass engineers some of these companies have are some of the most idiotic people I have ever seen.We went yesterday to a job we put a metal roof on years ago.It was leaking into the garage where a 3" pipe goes through the roof and they also had a wall in the house where the paneling is starting to wrinkle up.Engineer came out from their Ins company and he climbed in the attic.He told the homeowner the ridge was leaking everywhere which is impossible.Anyway I got in the attic yesterday and what he saw was where the roof had leaked years ago and the blown I'm insulation had gotten wet then and dried.The dumbass just seen where it looked like water had dripped on it but didn't touch anything to actually see..Every single spot that looked like it had been wet was hard as concrete where it had been years since it had gotten wet and dried hard as a rock.I videoed everything in the attic showing that nothing had leaked in since we installed the metal.All the insulation that at one time had been wet I picked up and it come up in big pieces cause it had dried so hard.Not a single drop of eater anywhere in that attic but yet he told the homeowner it was leaking everywhere.Theyre is an Ac vent that blows directly on that wall wherethe paneling is bubbled up which is what's causing that.Ceiling is white as can be and had never been wet in that area.Now the 3" pipe boot in the garage was leaking just a little.For some reason the rubber had gotten stretched out around the pipe and there was a tiny crack on one side.We took care of that in just a few minutes but I'd love to take that engineer back up in that attic and show him why he's a dumbass.

He doesn't have a credit card so he couldn't rent a car on his own. Another family member paid for a week of car rental and I ponied up for another 5 days. Insurance is gonna cover most of it (supposedly) but we're still out of pocket right now to the tune of $700 for 2 weeks of rental. It's just a jacked up situation...

Dr. B

We've had some unscrupulous used car dealers here in town that would sell a car to someone they knew couldn't afford it with in house financing. The person makes a down payment and a couple of payments, misses one and the sellers go and repos it then turn around and does this again to someone else. If all the people that made payments on the thing did it collectively, they would have had it paid of, as it was none of them came close. Some of them would complain to us about it and we would do a report and tell them to see a lawyer. I am not aware of any laws that were broken, but it sure didn't seem kosher to me.

Tote the Note, used car dealers make more money off repo's than the actual selling of the vehicle. The more times they flip it, the more money they make. All legal. My niece had to buy her first car this way. Had it 75% paid off and then had to miss a payment. It was towed and resold four days later.

A lot of those cars also had GPS installed on them that allowed the "dealer" to log online and disable the car and track them. I'm sure when you sign the dotted line on that car permission is granted for these activities. Still doesn't make it any less greasy.

I know someone who had a buy here pay here lot. The down payment most of the time covered what he had in a car. On average people will have no issue making the first couple of payments. When they missed one he repossessed the vehicle and sold it again for pure profit. I could go into more detail of how low he was going. But think I need to. At 16 I quit working for him for his business ethics.
As far as the upside down part. We got hit hard when my wife's car was totaled a few years ago. We just paid it out of pocket and went on. We didn't need to but we did. If he wasn't at fault he could lean on their insurance company to get it done. Or the individual. We were super screwed. My wife hadn't had her car 6months when it was totaled.

My family has owned a buy here pay here lot since 1979. I wish it was as easy to make money as everyone thinks it is in this industry. I can assure you we do not get anywhere near what we have in the vehicle as a down payment. It usually takes at least 1-2 years of a perfect customer to just break even.

There are shady dealers out there that give the entire industry a bad name but the whole myth of we will just sell it and repo it non-stop is not a successful business model. If you screw people over word spreads and you go out of business. And also people who can't afford their payment anymore can not afford to maintain their vehicle either. Repos usually come back completely destroyed. The last thing you ever want is a repo.

On the insurance thing, yes it sucks. Gap or something similar is a must have if you finance. Especially if you are getting a high interest loan or secondary financing. You will always leave owing more than the vehicle is worth and insurance will not care how much you owe. They come up with some crazy values from time to time. The offers are usually for way less than we could buy that car at auction. We had to start funding our own debt cancellation coverage because our customers were getting screwed over so often.

I see stuff like this every single day, in some manner. Some people don't realize that if you see evidence of a leak then the very next thing to do is to see if it is an active or current leak which requires effort to check. That's the same for any potential issue. There is a logical and linear process to follow when tracing down issues and some people skip steps and jump to the conclusion without doing their due diligence.

No laws were broken until the guy never turned over the title, kept the cash and then went to prison

It depends on the carrier, but for most of the standard companies (like State Farm) they're looking at a formula for property damage. They'll basically plug in the data and get a range to offer. It's typically a pretty narrow range. So, the property damage adjuster you're dealing with really doesn't have the wiggle room that people think they ought to have.

The bank has to agree to release the title to the insurance company for the settlement amount. WF may have some leverage to demand full payoff if its within reason.

$1,500 is not upside down that bad. If he can get a reliable used vehicle at or close to loan value the bank may be willing to roll any unpaid balance into a new loan. If WF will not, talk to a local community bank. WF will probably not forgive any unpaid balance.