Wouldn't she have to deal with a salvage title then and not being able to insure the car? She does a lot of driving, more than me actually. Even with the pandemic, due to the distances she has to drive for doctors appointments and grocery shopping, she drives about 10,000 miles a year. She's put 180K on the car in 15 years, so that sounds about right. She has no reduction in driving because she still has medical appointments and still needs to shop and those things are a good, long trip from where she lives.tibbitts wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 8:04 pmThere may be a considerable difference in cost between making the car minimally drivable for a year or two and fixing it. You get the same amount from insurance no matter what you choose to do. Maybe in year or two the pandemic will have subsided and car shopping won't be as unpleasant as it is now. Plus just statistically, what are the odds of needing those new safety features now? I drove 6000 miles last year between January and March. Since the pandemic hit in March: about 500 miles.Calico wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:41 pm If the car can be fixed, I think she will fix it because she's told me that (people suggested that too). But I strongly think the insurance company will total it not because there is a lot of damage, but because the car is so old and not worth much according to KBB. She also has a $50 deductible, so the insurance company will pretty much be paying for everything. My brother and I think she should have something safer and more reliable than a 15-year-old Buick that seems to keep having minor problems.
Maybe I am an an odd duck, but I liked the pandemic car shopping a lot. I got to test drive everything alone, without a sales person yapping at me which allowed me to listen to the engine and road noise. It allowed me to drive where I wanted to drive and test things I wanted to test. When I did my test driving before buying my new car a little while ago, I went to an "auto mall" place that had all the dealers I wanted to visit and I took each car on the exact same test drive in the same afternoon. It made it very easy to compare everything and focus. It was also nice being able to pull off into a grocery store parking lot and carefully look at the car without someone trying to point out all the features/make a sale.