Just wanted to share an update with everyone now that things have settled.
Immediately after the incident last Monday I began the claim with my insurance company, towed the vehicle to a secured lot to get it off the street, and was able to get a rental vehicle. I gave my insurance company all of the details regarding my interactions with the dealership including paperwork and documentation.
In the meantime I began researching both a replacement vehicle and as much information as I could on comps for my 2011 Hyundai Sonata. I looked over Kelley Blue Book, the NADA value, local sales, and national dealerships like CarMax. I wanted to have the best idea of what my car was worth before the insurance company gave me their value of the total loss. I know it seems ridiculous to some, but I stupidly bought this car new 6 years ago when I was much younger and knew much less about managing my finances and worked really hard to pay it off and received the title in the mail the day of the incident. I was very discouraged when this process began.
I also wasn't in the mind set of purchasing a new car anytime soon and had plans of driving my car for the next 5-6 years. I felt overwhelmed initially because I felt like I didn't even know what my reasonable options would be and was dreading another car loan. But ultimately it was nice to look at how much my lifestyle had changed in the past 6 years and reevaluate our family's needs and treat myself to some of the more creature-comfort features & trim that weren't available as options to me the last time I purchased a vehicle. I started by making a list of all the features I felt we needed (space for the kids, AWD for the winter and trips up here in the PNW, decent gas mileage, decent maintenance/repair costs, etc) and the things I wanted but ultimately could do without (bluetooth, rear camera, leather seats, etc) and then I went to town on TrueCar and CarMax just searching based on features creating a list with everything from a Toyota RAV-4 to Jeep Grand Cherokee to Acura MDX and every model in between until I narrowed down the list. I found Edmunds Total Cost of Ownership and Side-by-Side Comparison tools to be especially helpful. This allowed me to narrow my list down to 3 cars I wanted to test drive. By the time I arranged test drives I felt I knew more about the cars features than some of the sales people I interacted with. I also felt confident in telling them I'm test driving other cars at the moment, and the reasons I was interested in their car versus others and vice versa.
It took about 2 days for my insurance to call me back with an offer on my total. Not shockingly it came back much lower than comps in my area, but I felt well prepared to negotiate it with them. Their initial offer came in at $9,500 (before my deductible). After receiving the email with their offer I contacted the total loss team at my insurance provider and mentioned how I had recently replaced the tires ~a month prior to this happening, I paid for a multi-point inspection at the same time, and reviewed the list of features the adjuster checked off and found he missed quite a few high $ items like the navigation and power seats. According to their worksheet, 1 comp in particular was bringing down the average drastically (most were $10-12k and 1 comp was at $8k). Based on all of these details, I was able to get them to increase the value to $11,400!
Ultimately, I was satisfied with this valuation and the insurance company didn't really seem interested in investigating the cause any further so I never pushed the issue about the inspections at the dealership. I got a lot of conflicting advice on Reddit about contacting a lawyer or the manufacturer, but decided against it as I didn't feel it would be worth the hassle to try and prove the dealership had any fault. I did contact the dealership's service center after insurance had processed my total, but that was mainly to inform them that I wouldn't make it in for the check-up on the consumption test they wanted to do. They didn't seem concerned or bothered with the fact that the vehicle had caught fire.
I settled on the replacement vehicle I wanted and was able to find a used Nissan Murano with all the features I wanted well below KBB and TrueCar values with only 9k miles on it. Was able to put the insurance payout as a significant down payment and keep my loan to 36 months with a plan in place to pay it off early. I showed up to the dealership pre-approved for a loan, but the dealership was able to beat it at 2.39%. Also side note here: Thank you r/PF and other subs like r/YNAB I was in total shock and pride when the salesman handed over my credit score of 842! I felt like at 30 I might actually be doing pretty good at this whole adulting thing.
All things considered what started as a very stressful process actually ended up working itself out quickly and near painlessly. I'm extremely happy in the upgrade I've made to my car situation and especially starting over from 100k miles to 10k. I felt like I got the best payout I could have gotten with that car and more than if I had tried to sell it in 5-6 years with another 100k miles on it. This was the most confident I've ever felt in any large purchasing situation. I got all of the features I both needed & wanted and I don't feel like I had to settle on my choice or spend outside of my comfort zone. While I was dreading a car payment, I'm also confident enough in our budget and finances that I have a plan for paying this car off reasonably early and with minimal interest and didn't have to dip into our emergency savings to add to the down payment.
I don't feel like I got any closure from the dealership, but I'm satisfied enough by the way my insurance handled it that I can just let it go. Lesson learned, the only person who is responsible for my vehicle is me. I've downloaded a mileage/fuel/maintenance log app for my phone and began annotating in it as soon as I took ownership of the new car. I read through the owners manual and will not only be more selective with who I choose to service my vehicle but more involved in confirming what has and hasn't been done to my vehicle, as many mentioned in the previous thread things like checking the dip stick that day, etc. and trying to prevent these "he said/she said" issues from happening again.
Thanks for all of the comments and advice in my previous post. And mostly for all the advice I've picked up here in the past couple of years from others' experiences.
Key Take-aways:
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Know what your car is worth before the insurance company gives you an offer for the total and starts processing the check. I was able to get an additional $2,000 for my down payment here by contacting them immediately and negotiating the value through fact-based reasoning.
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Research what car you want before even stepping on the lot and talking to a salesman. I looked at every car listing I could find on the internet once I narrowed down my search to 3 vehicles. All of the aggregator sites (CarGurus, Autotrader, etc.) had the same price listed for my car, but I ended up finding 1 ad on Craigslist where the dealership listed the exact same car (same VIN) for $1,500 less. I worked with a "no-haggle" dealership, which I was ultimately fine with because I knew the KBB and TrueCar value of the vehicle, plus I just saved $1,500 off the sticker price by bringing in a copy of their craigslist ad.
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Get pre-approved for a loan and know exactly how much you can comfortably pay. I ran my information through a multi-bank auto loan site and was pre-approved at 2.69% walking into the dealership, which gave me a lot of confidence. Like I mentioned, it was a "no-haggle" dealership so I ran all the numbers before I walked into the dealership based on whether I pulled additional $ out of savings for my down payment, # of months of the loan, etc. The dealership was able to beat the pre-approved APR, but I was still confident walking into the dealership that I was going to get a good low APR and how much my monthly payments would be at a 24-, 36-, or 48-month payment plan so I could comfortably make a decision that fit my budget & our family's long-term debt strategy.
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Part of being an adult is accepting that the only person ultimately responsible for my vehicle is me. I am going to be much more meticulous with the care of my vehicle and monitoring/verifying any time I allow work to be done on it.
Edit: formatting
Submitted August 28, 2017 at 12:33PM by mediocrates_reborn http://ift.tt/2wCZsbS
