Bad news for the Mach 1

[72MustangSprint]

Thanks for the input fellas!  The more I keep looking at cars on Craigslist, eBay, auto trader, Facebook , etc etc. the more I come to realize my car was damn nice. There’s a lot of junk out there for a lot of money!  If I reclip my front end, what’s out there for suspension kits?? TCP has a nice one with frame rails, coil overs, rack and pinion, shock tower delete etc etc.  Seems like I’m already leaning toward fixing my car. At least I know what I’m starting with.

I would recommend you check out Detroit Speed in N.C., they make nice suspension parts. They don’t have parts 71-73 specific but have built several 70 Mustangs so you could probably adapt to work. Good luck with whatever you choose.

 

[jpaz]

Well, it sounds like you are probably going to fix your car. I think you can without going over the insurance payout. Plus you have a great car to start with, so there won’t be any surprises. And if there was something that you had wanted to fix or redo on it, now you can. I bet you can make it better than it was.

It was kinda funny but when I crashed my car the first thing I thought was oh f*#k, then the second thing I thought was, hey now I can fix my wrongly painted hood and get a new bumper! Lol

 

[tony-muscle]

Thanks for the input fellas!  The more I keep looking at cars on Craigslist, eBay, auto trader, Facebook , etc etc. the more I come to realize my car was damn nice. There’s a lot of junk out there for a lot of money!  If I reclip my front end, what’s out there for suspension kits?? TCP has a nice one with frame rails, coil overs, rack and pinion, shock tower delete etc etc.  Seems like I’m already leaning toward fixing my car. At least I know what I’m starting with.

Which TCP suspension are you looking at with shock tower delete? I can only see one but it is for 64-70, not 71-73.

 

[turtle5353]

Thanks for the input fellas!  The more I keep looking at cars on Craigslist, eBay, auto trader, Facebook , etc etc. the more I come to realize my car was damn nice. There’s a lot of junk out there for a lot of money!  If I reclip my front end, what’s out there for suspension kits?? TCP has a nice one with frame rails, coil overs, rack and pinion, shock tower delete etc etc.  Seems like I’m already leaning toward fixing my car. At least I know what I’m starting with.

Which TCP suspension are you looking at with shock tower delete? I can only see one but it is for 64-70, not 71-73.

yeah looking at these kits further , all im finding is for 64-70.  They claim you can make them work with 71-73 but it would be nice to find a kit specifically for our cars. Would love to get rid of shock towers, but if not maybe just go with nice set of coilovers and tubular a-arms.  :chin:

 

[Hemikiller]

I'd go with an Opentracker or SoT suspension myself. That Mustang II swap stuff is just - meh.

 

[turtle5353]

I'd go with an Opentracker or SoT suspension myself. That Mustang II swap stuff is just - meh.

yeah the more i look at stuff.... more i find alot of these kits are just overpriced mustang II stuff.

 

[icejawa]

I havent read all the posts but I hope you get the money due to you without totaling the car, I would have probably snapped and killed the guy. Their insurance just wants to try to minimize their losses by hurting someone else in the process. They tried that with me after a buzzed driver hit my jeep going 70 mph but I told his company I'll never let them total the car since it drove fine. They wanted me to buy it back from them with a salvage title at an auction so I told them pretty much give me the "total" value minus the auction price. Of course they tried to bs me for weeks but eventually I got $3200 for the $3500 piece of crap lol.

 

[Mister 4x4]

So, if you do decide to repair the car yourself, what kind of insurance coverage can you expect with the salvage title?  Do you think the insurance company would even cover the car after all that?  (I have no idea how any of that works... which is why I'm asking - I know if mine ever got totaled, I'd definitely buy it back to harvest the good stuff and start over with another car)

I'd just hate to go through all that and find out there's no option to cover it all once you got it all back together.

What about just sticking with the stock suspension components and throwing in a set of TCP or Aldan American bolt-in coil-overs?

 

[clevelandcoupe]

+1 on Eric's suggestion on the insurability of a car with a salvage title in Pa.

Thanks, Jay

 

[turtle5353]

Eric and Jay,  I thought about the r-title also. If it is insurable it will be at a much lower value. So i may end up trying to find another Mach 1 with a good title and swap all my stuff around.  Just so much stuff going on, I don't know what to do yet!!  Right now its gonna stay in my garage.  Although I do have a lead on a pretty nice 70 Fastback.  Could make it pretty badass with my running gear. 

Also I got another call from the insurance yesterday.  They came back with a final salvage price for me and, of course, it went up.... $5,890.  I asked WTF??? Said on Friday it would be around $5k and i asked if we could get it back for less.  I went back and forth with the adjuster for a bit. I was kinda pissed.  If its worth $6K right now.....why don't they fix the damn thing!  My original quote was under $18k damages.  He put me on hold several times and I got disconnected once.  Obviously I'm not gonna let the car go even at $6k.  I have close to $5k just in the damn heads on the motor but I didn't tell him that because he'd probably try to raise the price!  So what he ended up doing is fudging the number a bit on paper to make it look like i still paid close to $6k for the car.  My car was valued at $34K on the insurance policy, he was able to raise that on paper to $35,890. So now they keep $5,890 and I get a check for $30k which is around $1k more than I originally was supposed to get.  So they get the price they needed on paper and I get my car back and another $1k on top of what I originally thought I would get.  Took a few calls and alot of pissing around but I'm satisfied with that, not happy, but satisfied!  Sorry for the long rant but it was just one of those days!!!!!!      :atomic: :atomic: :atomic:

 

[OzCoupe72]

Sounds like a reasonable outcome and your insurance was able to fudge the numbers once you gave them the necessary push

So many people just take what they're given without question and insurance companies know this well

Can understand your hesitation to repair if can't insure for an agreed value due to title

Look at it this way at least you have a bunch of goodies for $5890 and $30K to get it going again or transplant to another one

Hopefully you will find what's best in the end

 

[92GTS-R]

I think we should all come over to your place with our wrenches get the BBque going and help you tear down the car.  :wrench:

Oh hang on, flights are banned and lockdown because of the bat eating chinese! 

 

[turtle5353]

I think we should all come over to your place with our wrenches get the BBque going and help you tear down the car.  :wrench:

Oh hang on, flights are banned and lockdown because of the bat eating chinese! 

HAHA!!! Thanks.  The teardown is the easy part!! Its putting the ***** back together again that gets tricky! lollerz 

Right now I'm gonna leave it the way it is. It still runs and drives. So i can move it in and out of the garage as needed.

 

[Danoh1]

I’m not licensed in PA. So car guy friendly advice only. But I am a licensed public insurance adjuster in 6 states.

You don’t have to accept their offer. You are in charge. The most unreasonable person in the room wins. Don’t play nice.

You should be able to get more money, a clear title, or a cheaper buy back. Probbaly 2 of those,

It’s your car. You don’t have to release it. Get some independent estimates, show some comparable prices. If I recall, this was a not your fault accident, right. The other persons insurance is liable, correct.? Or is this your insurance company? You can message me or email me for a private pep talk. [email protected]

For your rebuild:

Highly recommend the full meal deal from open tracker roller UCA, perches and improved LCA. and then some very good shocks. It will cost less, handle great, and be much easier to install. VIKING makes a great custom double adjustable shock. Koni -blah. Penske has some crazy good shocks if you simply must help stimulate the economy at 1k per corner.

I personally would start with a fresh car and use your parts. But that’s me.

 

[Stanglover]

It blows my mind that "they" totalled this car. It doesn't look that bad. Jpaz's car was hit in the center, so perhaps not as much possible frame damage, but looking at yours, I can see the shock looks to be pushed back a bit. However the shock tower brace is not even damaged. I can see that at 100+ bucks an hour, the money would quickly add up, but I guess insurance companies don't care about the car, they only care about money.

Hope you find a way out of this for the best. If you buy a good roller, you might have a ton of parts to sell on to recoup some of the loss.

 

[Mister 4x4]

Wow... Kevin, that sucks they're trying to **** with you on this.  You paid for $34K insurance based on your agreed-upon value, and cars are not typically 'totaled' for just over half of an adjuster's estimate - I thought it was more in the 70%-or-better range, which would put the limit somewhere around ~$24K.  It seems like they added the estimate and 'your' buy back cost to come up with 'totaled.'  Seems a bit hinky.  I'm outraged myself not only because you're getting hosed on this deal (because we all know your car is well worth every penny of the agreed-upon value... and then some), but also because I have similar insurance through my local agent for everything else.  I'm just seeing a potentially similar scenario unfolding for me where I might have to throw away 30+ outstanding years of "like a good neighbor" relationship over something like this. 

Danoh1 - great advice!  Hopefully, if you guys get a chance to talk, Kevin can find something to stick and make this situation better.  Thank you for chiming in on this.   ::thumb::

Geoff - I know, right?  The sad thing is, a new front clip, sheet metal, and steering/suspension components needed to get this back to 'roller' status would be less than his buy back cost!  After that, it's all academic - we all know how skilled Kevin is, which just eliminated the $100+/hour labor expenses and upped the quality of the work.  Besides, this isn't some plain vanilla toad econo-box - nothing is going to get half-assed putting it back together.

I know when my Mom got T-boned in her '96 Thunderbird, it was literally a fender-bender and suspension replacement - no structural damage at all.  The adjuster was looking at totaling the car (TBH - it wasn't really worth all THAT much, but it was really nice and low mileage), but I convinced him to let me repair the car.  I showed him the shop I would be using, and explained my plans for repairing the car.  He agreed to cap the estimate $100 short of the 'totaled' limit and wrote the check.  I fixed the car using almost all new parts and even tossed on a new set of tires for 1/3 the amount - looked good as new.  Mom took the car back to the adjuster, and he was pleased with the work... even happy that Mom didn't have to lose her car (cool guy, actually).  Maybe something like that can work here as well.

Good luck with it, Kevin.  Hopefully, there's a way to at least get your title to stay clean so you can put her back together... but then I'd consider dropping that insurance policy like a hot rock and find something else, if possible.

Man, this pisses me off.  

 

[turtle5353]

Thanks for the input guys and the offer for help. I like the idea of asking for them to offer a couple bucks less than totaled value and cap it. Keep a good title. That would be ideal. i am waiting on another call from them today. I will see if I can swing something like that. But i did ask about keeping the title good several times yesterday but it didnt get me very far.

 

[Jeff73Mach1]

Stick it on a full frame chassis with all the goodies while you have it torn apart. Sorry to hear about all this and hope it works out for you.

 

[Stanglover]

This may not apply in the USA, but this is what I have on my insurance with Hagerty. I'm not exactly sure what the 15% additional cost means, I will have to ask my daughter, I mean broker.

EDIT: Ok all that means is my COST to add the coverage was 15% of my premium I pay annually.

 

[tony-muscle]

A lot going on for you my friend. A lot of decision making. I am glad you are here in this forum getting advice from many voices. Don't rush it. Sleeping on your decision will give you peace of mind that you are making the best educated decision with what you know today. I can feel how overwhelming it must be just from reading all these posts. Good luck!