Diminished value due to damage calculation

[GBL1]

Hey all, I'm seeking serious inputs here.

I have a '92 NSX, in white, that WAS a genuine "virgin" all-original, TOTALLY unmolested car with only 73,550 all original miles, ALL complete service records fully intact, and with ALL maintenance up-to-date...but she suffered a fender scuff at the hands of a psycho road-rage woman while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic yesterday (see attached pics).

This woman DELIBERATELY side-swiped me in a desperate, but lame & misguided attempt to cut in front of me by zipping around me. She either misjudged her clearance, or hit me on purpose in her fit of rage. >:-(

The damage is pretty minor, and her insurance is going to pay for everything BUT, my question is in addressing the value of diminished value. I need to hit her insurance company up for that loss as well as the cost of repair.

My line of thinking is: the car, prior to the incident would obviously sell for a set market amount with some portion of that price being attributed to the fact that this WAS a genuine NEVER WRECKED car. NOW, the car is worth some amount less that what it could previously command. True, it will be totally brought back up to snuff, but now it can no longer can carry the "never wrecked, 100% original" designation. THAT fact WILL devalue the car to SOME degree...but how much?

I am seeking opinions, calculations, expert advice, etc...of what the diminished value amount would be. Since I am no longer entitled to receive that "little extra premium" at some point of sale, then the insurance company is liable to compensate me for that amount now. "NO", the car is not for sale, nor will it be anytime sooner (if ever)...but I am not taking some loss here.

Thoughts?

What premium would ya'll place on a never wrecked car OVER one that has had even a fender replaced...no matter how well the job is done?

Thanks for any help ya'll can provide...

PS: for what it's worth, the woman was 45-55 years old and driving a black 2012 Lexus ES350.

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[liftnot]

George,
I had a similar experience and during my repair process at DF thru the insurance, Peter-DF Owner, told me about DV so I can't take any credit for that. In the end, I did not get any DV value return to me BUT that was due to my own fault of not copying down the lic. plate of the vehicle that hit me AND I had a hard time serve court paper to him as the sheriff could not find his address although it shows up on Google map...etc. Thats another story. I thought I have all his insurance paper/driver information should locate him easily...but not in my case.

Here are some highlights of what I'd learned.

I used Autoloss.com is where you should start first.
Monica Fisher<[email protected]> <[email protected]>, its $250 for them to write up an estimate of how much your car was worth b 4 the accident. This amount is based on mkt value, a few samples of what NSX of your year is selling...etc. and it something you can take to court as Autoloss is a professional service. You would also need another "professional" estimate. I got mine from CarMax for free, pretending I want to trade in my car and they were nice enough to print a hard copy for me to keep. Other dealerships were not so willing to print the hard copy.

With this info in hand, you need to go take this to Small Claim court, after the car is repaired, and have either the sheriff or a professional service to serve him(this is where I could not even find him) and let this process take its course. FYI, $10K is the max. amount Small Claim is allowed to pay by law. If your DM is higher than that, you will only get $10k. When you file with Small Claim, the defendant is the owner of the vehicle, not the insurance company as they already paid to repair the car back to OEM condition. Its the owner of the vehicle that hit you causing DV. I made this mistake thinking suing the insurance is the right thing to do.

Plz post your results so we can all learn. DF fought hard for me of the 1st repair estimate by the adjuster of the detail process how the adjuster would repair the car(which was the cheapest job they can get away). So I did not come out that bad eventhough I was not able to collect any DV to make my car lighter.</[email protected]>

 

[Aluminsx]

I don't know much about diminished values based on accidents but what I do know is that having photos of the damage would allow any perspective buyer to see what kind of damage was inflicted in the accident that will, no doubt, show up on any carfax report. In your case I'd say the value would pretty much stay the same due to the minimal damage to the car (provided it is fixed perfectly). Did the police give her a ticket for unsafe lane change?

 

[liftnot]

I don't know much about diminished values based on accidents but what I do know is that having photos of the damage would allow any perspective buyer to see what kind of damage was inflicted in the accident that will, no doubt, show up on any carfax report. In your case I'd say the value would pretty much stay the same due to the minimal damage to the car (provided it is fixed perfectly). Did the police give her a ticket for unsafe lane change?

If you take care everything on your own thru cash, no one will know and no DV claim. Since her insurance is involved, the damage report will show up eventually.

 

[ProOnThaSnow]

I would say with how minor the damage really is, keep photos of it to show any potential buyers down the road. Using OEM parts to repair and having a quality autobody shop is a MUST when getting it fixed. Truthfully, if you showed ME the photos I wouldn't be worried about paying any less than fair market value for said car. Will some gripe about it? Possibly, but that's where liftnot's advice comes into play.

 

[liftnot]

Minor damage is best handle away from insurance so "no body" will know except if they Google NSXPrime, the proof is in the pix along with your thread. My was "minor" IMO but a new OEM rear spoiler is over $3k but can not be found + other minor damages. It worked out for me even b 4 DV. I was curious how DV works so I filed but goofed on not taking down the license plate no.

DV => a day in court.....you say/I say/Prime say/Shawn say/pix won't work in court. Need "professional" evaluation and I don't mean a body shop.

 

[JD Cross]

If I was looking at buying your car and you showed me the pictures of the damage I wouldn't let that affect my valuation of the car or my decision to buy it.
These things happen to 20 year old cars no matter how hard we work to avoid door dings and the like.

The main concern I would have is if you have any buckling/dents in the aluminum fender.
If there are any I would insist on a new fender period.

If the paint match is high quality on a new fender and you disclose it at time of sale I would say no discount at all.

You do after all have a first year white NSX and the colour is very much in demand.

That said you may be able to extract some payment from the insurance company because it is an NSX.
It also would certainly be in the woman's interest to pay you a cash settlement to avoid a claim on her insurance.

 

[GBL1]

Thank you for all the valuable insight and ideas/advice.

I do gotta say though, that with as much emphasis on pristine & unmolested cars for sale and as vehemently as those doing the selling on here defend their astronomical pricing, I seriously expected much different perspective besides, "Nah, it wouldn't bother me if I was buying the car."

Personally, I bet this damage and fender replacement would be the FIRST thing I would get price-dinged on if I were to sell the car...

 

[bigbadberry]

Thank you for all the valuable insight and ideas/advice.

I do gotta say though, that with as much emphasis on pristine & unmolested cars for sale and as vehemently as those doing the selling on here defend their astronomical pricing, I seriously expected much different perspective besides, "Nah, it wouldn't bother me if I was buying the car."

Personally, I bet this damage and fender replacement would be the FIRST thing I would get price-dinged on if I were to sell the car...

I have to agree as a future buyer. I don't care what you say but If I knew about it I would try to leverage it.

 

[tof]

If the accident was investigated, I would keep a copy of the accident report should describe the damage, At a minimum the report will be dated and will offer collaboration that the photos are, in fact, of the accident recorded in CarFax et. al.

As to the damage itself, I agree with JD. That kind of damage seems so trivial that I would not expect any kind of reduction on an otherwise fair price. To me it is no worse than a parking lot door ding. It may not even require paint. You won't know until you have it checked professionally--unless you can see primer and/or bare aluminum. But in the pics it looks like it could all be from her car's bumper finish. And if the metal is deformed it can probably be repaired with paintless dent repair (PDR).

Congratulations on owning such a cool survivor in such a great color.

 

[GBL1]

If the accident was investigated, I would keep a copy of the accident report should describe the damage, At a minimum the report will be dated and will offer collaboration that the photos are, in fact, of the accident recorded in CarFax et. al.

As to the damage itself, I agree with JD. That kind of damage seems so trivial that I would not expect any kind of reduction on an otherwise fair price. To me it is no worse than a parking lot door ding. It may not even require paint. You won't know until you have it checked professionally--unless you can see primer and/or bare aluminum. But in the pics it looks like it could all be from her car's bumper finish. And if the metal is deformed it can probably be repaired with paintless dent repair (PDR).

Congratulations on owning such a cool survivor in such a great color.

I do agree with this bolded part of what you said, but what the damage does remove from my pockets, is any kind of "above market price" that could be asked for by myself and paid by a buyer, for a 100% genuine all-virgin original example...there is easily a premium price on such an animal.

Since I now own a car that can no longer command such a premium, I believe her insurance company should compensate me for this diminished value and future loss at sale.

 

[nsxtasy]

I'd say the value would pretty much stay the same due to the minimal damage to the car (provided it is fixed perfectly).

If I was looking at buying your car and you showed me the pictures of the damage I wouldn't let that affect my valuation of the car or my decision to buy it.
These things happen to 20 year old cars no matter how hard we work to avoid door dings and the like.

However, even though I don't think the value of the car would be affected, it wouldn't surprise me if potential buyers of the car tried to use this incident as a bargaining ploy to try to get you to drop your price. Lowballers and tirekickers will try anything, whether it makes sense or not.

I do agree with this bolded part of what you said, but what the damage does remove from my pockets, is any kind of "above market price" that could be asked for by myself and paid by a buyer, for a 100% genuine all-virgin original example...there is easily a premium price on such an animal.

I disagree. There is no such premium, vs one with very minor damage properly repaired. Unlike, say, the premium for a complete service history showing that all the maintenance is up to date, which can be significant.

 

[itrsteve]

However, even though I don't think the value of the car would be affected, it wouldn't surprise me if potential buyers of the car tried to use this incident as a bargaining ploy to try to get you to drop your price. Lowballers and tirekickers will try anything, whether it makes sense or not.

I'm bracing for this when I sell mine.

My fender was hit in May and I'm still trying to get my DV claim. The repair was perfect and will all OEM parts but there's going to be a $2800 ding on the carfax ($1185 is the fender itself, the rest on paint, labor, clips, finder liner. Fixed perfectly or not, it sucks to give up the "original paint and panels" claim.

My agent said the DV claims vary state by state and it's pretty common but not normally known about.... The problem in my case is that the guy that hit me was in a .gov car, they don't have insurance.

 

[nsxtasy]

However, even though I don't think the value of the car would be affected, it wouldn't surprise me if potential buyers of the car tried to use this incident as a bargaining ploy to try to get you to drop your price. Lowballers and tirekickers will try anything, whether it makes sense or not.

I'm bracing for this when I sell mine.

Your best bet is to ignore the lowballers and tirekickers. They're not going to give you anywhere near what the car is worth, whether their arguments make any sense or not.

 

[docjohn]

your use of the term wrecked for this minor 1 panel damage+wheel tells me you are very upset and have psyched yourself into believing that your car is forever tainted and less valuable...but as you can see from the responses in this case a 1 panel replacement,with gpw being easier to match than other colors you will be fine come selling time.

 

[tof]

I'm not even convinced the panel needs to be replaced, based on the pictures. But of course there could be damage that I can't make out in the pics.

PDR is a wonderful and amazing technique in the hands of a very experienced tech. I had a couple of dimples removed by the PDR guy who contracts with the local Honda dealer. The results were absolutely flawless even on the closest of inspections.

 

[jond]

Unrelated to OP, but just curious, can you do a diminished value claim if the accident was your own fault(no other cars involved)?


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[itrsteve]

Unrelated to OP, but just curious, can you do a diminished value claim if the accident was your own fault(no other cars involved)?


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AFAIK, no. But the rules on state laws vary state-by-state.

 

[ysoslow]

The other person's insurance paid my DV when i was involved in an accident on my 350z. The person ran a stop sign and clip my rear bumper. No frame damage but bumper was ripped right off. it took some calling and bugging them everyday, but they gave in and added an extra 2000 on top of everything. If i remembered correctly, the person's insurance was progressive.