E30 Zone

Hi,
As some may know, I accidentally totalled my '89 Tech 2 Sport at the beginning of the week.

The crash repairer have declared it a write-off, though I've yet to receive confirmation of this from the insurer.

How does one go about buying back the salvage, and is it best to wait until the claim is settled before attempting to do so?

Thanks for any advice,

Negotiate retention of the salvage as part of the settlement.

My pug 106 was written off last year but with considerably less damage than yours it has to be said.

They offered £430 as market value and I bought it back for £24. So they paid out £406 and returned the car to me.

The only problem u may have is if the car is deemed unsafe to put back on the road. i.e. bent chassis etc and then u won't be able to retain the salvage.

Best of luck mate. I hope there's a happy ending to this one.

how bad was your damage? less than cat c?
when mine was written off they wouldnt sell back the car to me but they did allow me to remove any parts that i wanted to keep first.
speak to your insurer and ask how they deal with this sort of thing.

So long as it is Cat C or D then you should be able to buy it back

General rule on cars worth under £3k is salvage value is usually about 10% of pre-accident value (PAV).

So £3k PAV with you retaining the salvage would be £2900 and you keep the car.

Where is the car at the moment? If it is at an approved repairer of your insurers make sure you give the garage strict instructions NOT to remove the car anywhere without first contacting you. Just incase your insurers are being charged storage by the garage and decide to uplift the salvage to the other end of the country for the sake of free storage.

You shouldn't have a problem negotiating retention of salvage as dealing with written off old snotters is a ball ache for insurers as they have to pay storage fees, transport fees, auction fees and general admin ball ache, so you are doing them a favour.

Speedtouchs will definatly be a cat C and tbh I would have said from the pictures it is a bit boarderline Cat B

My old 318i was declared Cat C total loss, valued at £400. I bought it off the insurers for £40 with £360 being paid out to me. The only damage was a scuffed wing that I cleaned after with a wet tissue.

Just tell them and as said before, negotiate as part of the settlement.

Thanks for the advice guys, muchly appreciated