because of the accident with airbag deployment, geico agent told me that
he's gonna pay the total value of my 94golf rather than pay for the
repair cost because the repair could cost more than the total value.
he's asking around 3,700 for my car and saying that the repair cost
should be over 4,000 just for airbags. so, i'm gonna take the offer.
am i doing right? or any other suggestion?

desperate a3 lover.

rule of thumb - if the airbags go off then it's probably totalled. Maybe
not for new cars, but anything over 3 years and it's gone.

Tim Wohlford
'89 Golf



"Komang" <komang (AT) here (DOT) iam> wrote

In article <c0rhpq$gml$1 (AT) peabody (DOT) colorado.edu>,
Komang <komang (AT) here (DOT) iam> wrote:
Just make sure that the total loss settlement is enough to buy a similar
car on the local used car market, including tax and pro-rated license.
Have them send you a list of comparable cars for sale or recently sold
that they should have used to come up with the settlement.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J. Lee
Unsolicited bulk or commercial email is not welcome.
No warranty of any kind is provided with this message.

"Komang" <komang (AT) here (DOT) iam> wrote

Man that's insane (totalling a car out because of popped airbags). Yeah I
know it happens but it sure seems like a waste of an otherwise good car with
otherwise only minor damage.

So don't repair the air bags. Is there a way to make it look normal? or
did it bend up the steering wheel getting out?
My A2 doesn't have air bags. My last Golf took a telephone pole straight
on at about 55 mph and I walked out just fine. Or a few months ago there
was a guy that flipped his A2 Jetta.
Air bags are a good addition to seat-belts, but as long as you remember to
buckle up you should be fine.
But that's IMHO.

If I'm reading the post correctly, the airbags deployed because the
car was totalled. Geico is not wrecking the car because the airbags
simply popped.

Komang also started a thread "critical speed for airbag deploy?" which
made me think he bumped something too hard, but didn't total the car. I
know the old small bumpered A2's could hit about anything at a
reasonable speed and bounce back.

thanx guys...
yeah....actually the outside of the car looks quite good. Here is the
damages that I "saw".
2 deployed airbags
passenger side window blowen
front bumper cracked

The Geico adjuster told me that the cost for all of these (set aside the
possible internal damage inside the engine room) could be higher than
the total value of my car so he's not gonna pay for the actuall repair
cost but will pay for the total value of my car. I know that it's a
kind of insane to throw away a healty-looking car other than the
airbags..... But I really don't take any risk. Yes, I can fix that car
and enjoy more but I'm not sure how much I can get when I sell it later.

Komang wrote:

"Matt Anderson" <vwaddict (AT) exstatic (DOT) org> wrote

I think the original poster is in Canada and IIRC Canada didn't mandate
airbags until later. Can you instead do w/o the bags and swap dashes and
steering wheel with a good used dash from a non-airbag A3?

"Darryl" <umpolung (AT) REMOVEhotmail (DOT) com> wrote

I remember the original post (or maybe a different post from the same person
a few days ago) being that his airbags were triggered in a very low speed
accident and there was little or no damage to the car otherwise and the
insurace company was totalling it out the car anyway because the cost of
replacing the bags was high and nearly exceeded the car's value.