kaansahbaz

is it possible to diminish value claim in CA , is there anybody done this ?
i involved in an accident a week ago , and now trying to figure out if i can claim this if my car get repaired. because car was clean title and now car fax will show had an accident eventhough other side is 100% guilty. not my fault and when i want to trade my car in or try to sell it i wont be able to sell it as musc as before the accident. what do you guys know about this kind of situations ...

car specs, 2003 bmw m3 convertible with 45K miles
kbb suggested retail is $41.250 with all the options.

i read this online to claim DV cars condition and milage it important!



https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=598560

Dan H

They want to repair it?!

It looks totalled to me. Did you specify a bodyshop in case they did want to repair it? Because you get to have your own choice of a bodyshop. Just choose a good shop and specify brand new OEM parts and the estimate for the labor/parts will exceed the KBB value of the car.

kaansahbaz

Do you know how bodyshops survive? If they fix the cars.
I took my car to bmw's body shop. They said everything is fixable!
insurance estimator estimate 10k to fit but it'll go up to 15 for sure
its not sure if the car ll be total loss or will be repaired though

Dan H

Tell them to bring the car to "The Works" body shop in Santa Clara. My damage was not even half as bad and they quoted 13K to fix my AP1 with brand new OEM parts vs. another shop that quoted 8K. And thats even before "The Works" had actually seen the car, so the 13K estimate was just from the estimator.

kaansahbaz

they already started tearing the car down to see the damage.

Dan H

Ah, that sucks. The shop I recommended fixes Ferrari's and other exotics so the labor rate would have been super high enough for them to total the bimmer.

kaansahbaz

I took the car to b-line bmw specialist and only works with bimmers that come from stevens creek bmw.

The Gasman

I feel so sorry for you. I hope they total it. That so SUCKS!

22calbr

in california you can not make a diminished value claim. hope they total it.

TheDonEffect

Before you think about making a dv claim, think about this: should you accidently hit someone, would you want them to claim dimished value on you? Let me go a step a step further and say, would you want someone to also file a claim for loss wages, time wasted, mileage for going to and from the bodyshop, mental anguish, etc etc? And to take it even one more step further, would you want them to cover dv in case someone were to vandalize your car or if you got into an accident?
I've heard of some people actually pursuing diminished value and all failed with the exception of collector cars, an m3 cabrio wouldnt qualify imo.
But to be constructive, a shop's labor rate won't play a huge factor when the shop totals a car, they typically pay a prevailing labor rate for the market give or take 5 bucks. Also, labor rate has more to do with shop costs not skill level, I've seen shops asking for 100+/hr do the worst jobs and a shop asking for 60/hr and waives deductibles do flawless work (think about comparing dealers to your trusted local mechanic). Furthermore, BMW specialists or whatever really makes no difference, they're going to order the parts from the same places and they're probably going to use PPG paint.
But if you insist on dealing with a high end shop (and you havent chose one yet), I'd recommend Brooks Motor Cars in Oakland because 1) they are high end, regularly deal with astons and jags and specialize in alum repairs and 2) they work flawlessly with insurance companies. Last I checked their work bay, they had two astons and a ford gt completely disassembled, with countless mercs and bmws. Btw, they get all this business without any contracts with any dealerships or insurance companies which is indicative of their quality of work.