1994 E320 Wagon - Insurance Valuation?
 

Assuming nationwide totals blue boy (our beloved 1994 E320 station wagon), can y'all help me figure out what value I should accept?

1994 E320 station wagon with 120,000 miles. Excellent (9.5+) mechanical and interior. 8 exterior with several small dents and dings.

A half-blind, crazy lady hit us head on real good. After I took care of the wife and kids and got them out of road area, I noticed the lady was still sitting in her car. I went over to ask if she was OK and the first thing out of her mouth was "GD now they'll take away my license for sure." Later my three year old asked her about getting her car fixed, and she scowled, apparently not conscience that she was talking with a child, that "there was no point in getting it fixed because she wouldn't be able to drive any more."

Blue boy laid down his life for us. We're all safe.

I would be surprised if they total it from what I see. That car with the miles and maintence should retail for 8 to 10 K IMHO.

What ever you do don't let the insurance co. have the car. Buy it back(without a Salvage title) and fix it. It does not appear in the pictures to be a "total" accident, unless there is damage to the frame. From the picture I cannot see what the other person was thinking. Obviously not about who else was on the road in front of her or in her way to make the turn.

Hope the repaires are just minor. Be a shame to lose that nice wagon!

Thanks Pete and Charlie. I was surprised, too, when the adjuster started talking about blue boy being totaled. It's hard to show in the picture, but lots of areas are damaged... hood (it's bent up and is off kilter), grill, fender (and the weather protection stuff inside it), light assembly, bumper, the hydraulic fluid reservoir and the lines that attach to it, and who knows what else.

According to NADA, the high value is $7100. If you think about the cost of a new hood, new fender, new grill, maybe new radiator, fan clutch, condenser, those add up pretty fast, not even counting the labor to put them on and do the associated paint work. Is there damage to the suspension around that front wheel?

Still doesn't sound like a total to me. But if the Ins. Co wants to total. Get prices of comparable cars online. Tell them only if you can buy it back with the original title.
I'm sure you can find most of the replacement parts online to fix him. Don't know about the fender or the hood, but there has to be some MB salvage yards south of you in VA. I know off several here , and some sell parts on Ebay. I've had good luck with 3-4 that I've dealt with. Email me and I'll tell you their seller's names. One is about 20 miles from me and i know he has lots of parts, but I don't know about Wagon parts difference from regular car parts.

The insurance co/s want to total anything that needs so little as a paint job anymore.

Sucks for me. This happened one week after brake pads and rotors all around, brake fluid flush, coolant flush, transmission flush, and hydraulic fluid flush with new lines running aft.

I have to say, too, that that lady does not know how lucky she is. I could have very easily plowed through her car and killed her. She was stopped waiting to turn across traffic. She lurched out in front of me when I was about 20 feet away doing about 25 or 30. I full on crash stopped, abs pounding away, and had actually just come to a stop when she, still accelerating and turning wildly, ran into me. There was a car in the lane next to me on the right. Clearly the wagon "won" the contest. Hooking up her tarus, the wrecker driver laughed saying it wasn't a fair fight. I know she got at least one ticket. We drove away feeling very lucky.

I've had my MB a little over a month, First one I ever had. Now I know this is a true statement. "When driving in freeway or LOs Angeles type traffic, there are but two Choices. A Sherman Tank or a Mercedes-Benz".

Good luck on your Ins. woes.

Wife and i are reminiscing. Eight years of safe transportation and fun family times. We brought all the kids home from from the hospital in blue boy.

Then you need to try to save Blue Boy. He's a member of the family.

If your frame and suspension are OK(you drove home) then He's worth saving in my book. How many Wagons like yours are there? Less I'm sure than the equivalent sedans. and your wagon may have the same parts forward of the front doors as the sedans. I do knot know if this is true, but it's worth looking into.

Sure, if you go for new parts then it'll be more costly, but if you get good used parts then what you get from the insurance should take care of most of it. Get estimates from good MB shops in the area.

Are you a DIY'r and are you mechanically inclined? If so you can do most of the work yourself and save the labor charges.

I was scared to death to tackle anything on my MB......until I did some repairs myself and found, that though imposing, the MB is relatively simple to work on, and you have this forum(which has helped me immensely). We're all here to help or pass on what we have learned.

First find out what parts interchange between models, perhaps a grille from Ebay, or email an Ebay MB vendor and inquire about parts availability for Blue Boy. You might be pleasantly surprised at the interchangeability of parts between models.

Hope this helps. I know it's tough to see a member of your family hurt, even if it's an automobile, but HE saved your family.

Let us know what transpires.

That may not be a total loss. As was said, gather comps, your repair history on it, to show it was perfect and specially cared for, and if worst comes to worst, spend a few hundered bucks for the opinion of a professional auto appraiser.

Consider that an investment, you'll more than recover the amount of the appraiser's fees in the end, if you get a settlement on a total loss.

If you buy back gthe wreckage, and fix it, the amount of the wreckage (salvage value) would be deductged from the settlement. The insurance companies would have shopped the salvage around, to some wrecking yards, who'd have provided them a ballpark figure by stating what they would buy it for.

Those cars are rather difficult to find, and in considerable demand, so it is probably worth quite a bit. I am not quite sure it is totalled, by looking at your pictures, but then, parts and labor get expensive, fast, these days.

With three Mercedes drivers, I've learned, despite being a total geek, to turn a wrench real good. I agree they are excellent and simple to service, in fact that's why I decided on Mercedes when I got the first one. The thing is it's the family's car, and I can't take a risk of it not being right. Only if, ASC, the mercedes body shop (right down the road from our house), says he's OK can I consciesly press him back into service. Wife was surprisingly emotional when she found out blue boy may have to be put down.

The front fenders and the hood, the bumper and the lights all can be replaced by unscrewing. They are designed to be replaceable. The tricky part is that structural channel that runs inside the fender, but a bodyshop that has the jig can replace that also. For that the engine has to come out. So bring the vehicle to a bodyshop that has the jig.

IF it happened to me, I'd settle for all the $$ I could and KEEP the car. I'd have a good free-lance body guy repair the car for 1/4 of the price a body shop wants to charge and I'd laugh all the way to the bank. As another forum member stated, the car is part of your family.

Most of those parts you can find used on ebay or in parts yards VERY reasonably. I'd say $90 for a fender, $200 for a hood, $100 for both light assemblies, $65 for a grille, $250 for a bumper cover, etc...

Glad no one was hurt. Keep us posted please...

-GH

back from the body shop
 

back from the body shop