As far as your mods go. You have a couple options. I have been down this road with VW's in the past.

The best thing that can happen is they total the car. Assuming this, does Geico cover aftermarket upgrades to a certain limit or is there no coverage? Typically you have a $$ amount that is automatically covered, for things like stereos, wheels, etc. Some companies though put in the fine print that they do not cover this at all. And to obtain coverage you need secondary insurance or a special rider on the policy. Kinda like jewelry coverage in your homeowners policy. Regardless, what you can do is, if totalled, buy the car back from the insurance company as a salvage title. Get all your go-fast parts off the car, swap them for the OEM ones off your new ride, then sell the salvaged vehicle. There are salavage cars on Ebay all the time. Even after buying the car back, paying to swap the parts, and cleaning the original car, you can probably come out even or even a little ahead of where you would be by simply taking the settlement and having all new mods installe don your new car.

If they don't total it, go through the effer with a fine tooth comb. Get all your stereo stuff covered, unless this is excluded in your policy. Again you will have to look at the fine print. From there it is a matter of sucking it up and sticking with Geico as they will need to be responsible for future porblems that are attributed to the original damage. It's that or find a nice tree to drive it into! LOL!!

 

just got off the phone with the supervisor of the A-hole appraiser guy i 1st spoke to, they are gonna total it, i also spoke to the Mini service guy and he laughed at the idea of them thinking about fixing it.
now the battle is.... how much $$ are they gonna give me.... stay tuned.

 

Aw...I'm sad for you and your MINI but it's probably the best solution all around.

Hope you get what you deserve for it!

 

Hi everyone, here is the latest news, the mini is officialy totaled and they are offering $19,200 with a buy back option of $9,000 the car runs and has the following upgrades that are from factory:

[FONT=Helv][SIZE=2][FONT=Helv][SIZE=2]Factory upgrades
[FONT=Helv][SIZE=2]The SPORT PACKAGE* ($1,400) includes:
- choice of premium wheels (have to add the price of the wheels)**
-Xeon headlights with powerwash
-DSC Dynamic Stability Control
- Bonnet Stripes [/SIZE][/FONT]
-Leather Seats ($1,500)
-Interior Surface brushed ($300)
- automatic A/C ($300)
-Dual Pane Panoramic ($850)
-Leather sports Wheel w/Multifunctional ($350)

**the premium wheels alone that are on the mini are the 4 R90 17" Wheels valued @ $3,255

Total value of factory upgrades= $7,955

[FONT=Helv] [/FONT]
KELLY BLUE BOOK VALUE :
Private Party = $19,605 Retail Value = $22,215

i asked them to re run the numbers, i believe it should be at least 21k plus its UNDER the normal miles, should be @ 60k and is @ 50k miles


Any opinions, comments?

thanks
[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]

 

Personally I think that's a VERY fair offer. I've seen many MINIs sitting for sale for less than that. You can pay for a huge chunk of a brand new MCS with that!

 

Strange. When my MINI got damaged the Geico rep even asked if my wheels were aftermarket. I said yes and he said he wanted to replace two and to fax him my receipt for the wheels and tires. Did so and they got two new from Tirerack (Where I had bought them) for me...

 

Sorry to hear about your MINI and hope you are back into another in no time.

 

WEll, that was their first offer. Tell them that you feel it is too low and tell them what additional items warrant that (though I would not quote them any numbers just yet) and see what they come back with. You could always threaten to get an attorney involved, but that would probably cost you as much as you make.

 

How many miles are on those tires?

I seriously doubt that you'll get "new valuation" for the upgrades since the MINI (by your own admission) has 50K miles on it...the seats & steering wheel are far from new, mint condition. If the tires have quite a bit of mileage on them, don't expect $3,255 in compensation for them, either.

 

As to the R90s, I had them and there is no way they are worth 3255 even with tires. They list ~435 brand new. so your talking maybe 1700 max.

 

If your insurance company is geico, they should be taking things like the sport packagae (well the items in it) into account in the estimate for the total. This is what they did with my MINI back in Nov. Things like Xenons, upgraded wheels etc, will be listed seperately on the estimate with a dollar amount associated with them which adds to the value of the car. The thing that could be bringing the price down is they compare it to two similar MINIs in your area which are for sale.
Oh and they let me take things off the car (like exhaust, clear tails, etc) as long as I gave them the stock parts back.

 

Hi everyone , i got them to go up to $19,820.94 AND my buddy that also owns a mini went down to the place they had it and swapped the wheels of his mini for my R90's and got the Rally Lights, Carbon Fiber bar strut and a few smaller aftermarket things i had on it. so in the end im pleased.

Thanks guys for the support and advise, sad to say.. im no longer a mini owner, but i will some day, thinking of getting an OLD mini, traditional old school style as a project car,

bye everyone and enjoy ur mini while u can, i know i did

 

I'm back, couldn't help myself.... once a mini owner... always a mini owner.
picking her up tomorrow, '06 MCS peppermint White with black hair.. oh and moved to Miami Beach, anyone out there? i know there has to be at least a handfull here...