97 Cherokee has bitten the dust

BTW, if anyone knows of a good dealer for locating another one in this area pls let me know.

Thanks!

jim '93 YJ stock

or a scrap metal dealer. Sorry about the loss...

"blue book" from NADA "Yellow book" from NADA (check your loan officer at the bank/credit union)

try both locati> My son, a 3rd year student at Montana U. has / had a '97 Cherokee

Remember to prepare a detailed inventory and get extra value for extras like the new paint job, rims, KOs, trailer hitch, etc. Also get sales tax on the final price since you will have to pay it on the replacement. Another site is edmunds.com. Remember you are buying at full dealer retail not trade-in or private sale.

Hope you son wasn't injured.

RoyJ wrote:

One of the more important things you will need is the receipts for everything you have done to the vehicle in the last 6 months to a year. If I remember correctly, anything over 6 months old is not considered "new" Then, go to the newspapers, Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds and the internet and see what they are selling for.You could even try Ebay or maybe Carmax or those other outfits. Print all of this material out. Go to a couple of local dealerships and have them do a printout on what they would sell the vehicle for.

Having had three kids kill multiple vehicles (seriously - it was a slaughter there for a couple of years) I can speak with the voice of experience, you WILL need to do this research and present the top half dozen or the insurance company may try to lowball you on the rig.

OH! If it was messy inside, get to it before the insurance adjuster sees it and clean it up. Believe it or not, it makes a difference.

Hope your son is ok.

Kate

One other thing! You say that you cannot find one (more or less) one like it nearby. One of our vehicles, it was a "hard to get" vehicle because of it's popularity at that time. Believe it or not, they paid the going price, not the book price and it was more than the car was worth. Even though it had 200k miles on it, it was in great condition. It may be that yours could fall into that group in that it cannot be readily replaced. This matters when placing value on a vehicle. The idea is to replace it with LKQ (Like Kind & Quality) and you may have to bump heads a bit. Particularly if the trucking company is paying. They can be REAL sunsabitches when they damage a vehicle.

Kate

State law where the accident occured makes all the difference, for instance, in Washington, they can't total a third party's (that would be your son) vehicle without consent. A woman pulled out in front of me hauling a horse trailer while I was doing the speed limit, and told the Cop that not only was it her fault, but that she "should have been wearing her glasses". I got $6500 to repair a 76 Goldwing that cost me $1000 (plus a lot of work and parts), and fixed it for free with spare parts from donor bikes I already had. It only "blue-booked" at about $850, but I had restored it a few months ahead, won a "best foreign dresser" award recently, and was on the last leg of a 5000 mile trip. The $6500 figure was a Honda Dealer's estimate to repair the bike to it's excellent former condition, and they complimented me on the work I had done. It is in the garage waiting for the snow to melt. In California, they pay the lesser of replacement value or repair. I bought my wife an 85 BMW with new paint and a bad auto trans, and rebuilt the tranmission, suspension, engine, brakes, etc and made it a fine car. It got T-boned in California by a woman who admitted fault, and her insurance, Farmers, looked in Autotrader and offered $3800. My state licensed independant appraiser evaluated the car at $9100. Farmer's wont negotiate, so I am suing the driver of the vehicle in small claims in a couple of weeks for the maximum of $7500. I have much documentation and am confident of a win. I'll bet she isn't happy with her insurance company now!

Bottom line, Check the laws for Montana, Talk to an insurance agent who is IN Montana, not of a company involved in your son's accident , and check to see if Montana state code is available online. I would bet that Montanans have better protection from insurance companies than Californians.

In article , Stupendous Man wrote: #the tranmission, suspension, engine, brakes, etc and made it a fine car. It #got T-boned in California by a woman who admitted fault, and her insurance, #Farmers, looked in Autotrader and offered $3800. My state licensed #independant appraiser evaluated the car at $9100. Farmer's wont negotiate, #so I am suing the driver of the vehicle in small claims in a couple of weeks #for the maximum of $7500. I have much documentation and am confident of a #win. I'll bet she isn't happy with her insurance company now! Well, Farmer's is still on the hook for the lawsuit's results up to the limit in the coverage. They (and that is ANY CA insurace company) just figure that most people will just take the money and STFU. It's their response to CA's insurance laws. CA tries to screw the insurance co.s and they turn around and try to screw the people they insure. The smarter companies pulled out of the CA market ages ago or set up a shell company to insulate the main company from CA's laws.

#Bottom line, Check the laws for Montana, Talk to an insurance agent who is #IN Montana, not of a company involved in your son's accident , and check to #see if Montana state code is available online. I would bet that Montanans #have better protection from insurance companies than Californians. One would hope. CA sucks for a reason.

/herb

What Kate said.

A lady in an RX7 clobbered my old 4wd truck in early December some years back. At the start of snow season, trucks were scarce, what was left was either expensive or junk. I found one 'comparable' seaching 54 (!!! count'em) used car dealers. Insurance company paid based on the full price of the one I found. Very little snow that winter, prices dropped by at least 20% in the next couple of months. Which put them back to the usual blue book prices.

Do your homework, plan > One other thing!

I am not a lawyer, but the defendant's insurance company is a party of interest, even in a small claims suit. They are not liable to pay any judgment until they have had their say in court. A responsible judge would refuse to try the case, unless the insurance company had been properly notified and had a representative present.

Earle

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To all who responded, many thanks! BTW, I left out the part that there were no injuries. My son was outside the jeep and had the tow line ripped out of his hand and the GF was strapped into the passenger seat. Neither were hurt and all is well with them.

The insurance company has offered a few cents over $6k for it. I couldn't get any credit for the brand new (< 6 months old) KO's I out on it and am still having a hard time getting an actual cash value measure for it. They are sending me their research results and I'm still working on having something to send back. What a hassle!

Again, thanks to everyone!

As a side note, I use FireFox and I can't seem to get Edmands.com to list the vehicles >jamesl>> My son, a 3rd year student at Montana U. has / had a '97 Cherokee

Price is low considering the condition.

Some of the web sites do not run all > To all who responded, many thanks! BTW, I left out the part that there

I do not doubt that it will cost more than $6k to replace this vehicle, but the insurance company is in business to make money. They have to go by their "research results" and what kind of dividend checks their investors would like to see. A '97 is going on ten years old. It has suffered lots of depreciation and, on the average, considerable wear and tear.

If you must own a vehicle that is worth, to you, considerably more than an insurance company will be willing to pay for it, then you need to look real carefully at how you will replace it, in the unfortunate event of a total loss. You need to put all those premiums you pay into the formula too. All of my vehicles are self-insured. You might want to look at the true value of all those "bells and whistles" too. Heck, it wasn't even a Grand.

Some of you are going to say, "That is OK for you Earle. You are rich. But we poor slobs have to work for a living. We can't afford to replace vehicles all the time." Hey, I earned all my money, by working. Sometimes, the truth hurts. But it's a good kind of hurt, if you accept what it is trying to teach you.

Earle

Give it time - that script takes FOREVER to load!

Earl,

How did you earn all that money? Just curious and always looking for ways to improve my means.

Does being self insured protect you from litigation in the event someone decides to take you to court? I would think a simple medical claim would be more than you save in several years by being self insured.

jl

Earle once showed us one of his W-2s from Mickeysoft, where there was something around a million dollars in withholding. I wouldn't self insure myself in these litigious days where punitive damages may exceed billions of dollars via these Bleeding Heart Liberal Wacko Limps that seem to be seated on juries. God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O mailto: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

wrote:>

I have liability insurance on all my vehicles, and the homeowner's insurance has a million dollar liability limit, or something like that. I was talking about the value of the vehicles, "collision", "comprehensive", etc. Unless you buy a new car every two years, that sort of coverage is probably more expensive than it is worth. Although my Jeep, for example, is worth a lot to me, I doubt an insurance company would give me even $5,000 for it. The Suburban? Don't make me laugh! Why would I pay more than the value of a vehicle, over years, just so an insurance company can offer to settle for pennies on the dollar? The house is a different story. If it burned to the ground, I would stand to pocket a half million, the way real estate is in Silverton now. Liability is a different story too, but liability insurance, unless you're a surgeon, is a lot cheaper than vehicle collision repair insurance.

This fellow with the '97 Cherokee is a perfect example of what could happen, if you tried to insure something that depreciated as fast as a motor vehicle. That $6,000 his insurance company offered him, is not going to go far towards replacing a vehicle that he considers worth a lot more. He would have been better putting the premiums into a bank account or Philip Morris stock.

Earle

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Bill,

I paid $25,000 out of pocket for a hip replacement last year, but over time I still pay less than my retired neighbors who insist on "full" medical coverage. This year I shopped around and reduced that deductible to $10,000. If my wife sticks with that nursing job she just got, we can reduce that to $4,000, per person. Many people flinch at the thought of $25,000, $10,000 or even $4,000 for a deductible, but when you compare that with the cost of premiums that you or your employer are paying, then it is not so much.

Earle

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