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I had a similar experience lately with one of my customers. She had an '89 with about the same mileage that was in very good condition and had less damage done to it than yours. Initially they were going to give her $700.00, $600.00 if she wanted to keep it. She copied and faxed over her extensive service records from my shop and they gave her an additional $200.00 because of that, albeit begrudgingly. One of the things that came into play with her was the $500.00 deductable. If she was going to get $1200.00, the deductable brought her down to $700.00. She opted to let them have the car and she took the extra $100.00. She told me I could have anything that I wanted off of the car so long as it would not cause a problem. Well with that I promptly swapped out the seats front and rear, fuel pump/filter assy, visors, rear bumper, mouldings, tail lamp assys, mirrors, and a few other things. Put all of this stuff into my eldest kids car and it worked out great. Of course the only thing here is that I put all of the parts off of the kids car back onto the wrecked car so nobody knew what happened and the car was off to the junk yard anyhow.
Being a shop owner I have had opportunities and reason to look into putting a salvaged vehicle back on the road. What I have been told is that you will need to get:
Brake and Lamp Inspections $100.00 (ball park)
Smog Inspection $50.00
CHP VIN verification $0-$50.00 (not sure truthfully)
Re-register with DMV $50.00
Then it is yours again. From what I was told you apparently have to reregister the vehicle like you just bought it all over again plus getting the VIN verification and brake and lamp cert and a smog cert too.
Now when you couple all of this time and money with the destroyed 1/4 panel it can really become a loosing proposition fast. I had a customer who wanted to give me a car a while back and between the broken radiator neck, damaged right front fender (less than yours) and all of the expense that comes with a salvage title it just was not worth it.
The only piece of advice I can really give is to carry the minimum legal insurance coverage required by law. Uninsured motorist coverage on a $500.00-$1000.00 car just does not make sense, especially when you factor in a $500.00 deductable.
That same eldest kid that got the free make over on her car wrecked her 85 240 about a year ago, pre-makeover thank God. Speaking of thank God, no one was hurt and she smashed everything between the fenders and made a taco out of the hood. She carries PD/PL insurance and that is it. The gal she hit was it perfect shape and not even concerned about it. For $200.00 at Pick-a-Part we were able to pick up the hood, upper core support, grill, all the head lamp bucket stuff, and a near new radiator all in the same faded smurf blue as her car. Had it all done in the same afternoon and if you had not seen it the day before you would have had no idea what she just pulled off. The problem that I see for you though is that the 1/4 panel is crunched. There is a lot more work involved in changing that out and probably a little bit of welding too.
That is my experience with the whole salvage title thing and crunched Volvos, take it for what it is worth and with a grain of salt as I have only researched it but never actually went through the motions of putting one back on the road after being totaled.
Mark
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