Help

[Steve Obert]

1st of all if they are going to total the car you probably can't do anything
about it.

The first thing you should do is keep the car at home with you,  a lot of
times you will loose the car just due to storage fees.

Second make sure that they offer you the right price for the car, they will
try to lowball you.  They will try to compute the value of the car by mixing
in prices on lesser Sentras.

Third sometimes you can just insist that they have the car fixed, after all
you did not do the damage their customer did.

4th if you can't drive the car get them to pay for a rental car or pay you
for lost usage while you are negotiating with them, that gets them a lot
more interested to settle with you.

About 3 years ago a senior citizen ran a stop sign and crushed the whole
right side of my '93.  In the end I kept the car even though they insisted
on totaling it.  It ended up costing me a few hundred off the settlement to
keep it.  The settlement was enough for me to fix the car, paint the entire
car and buy new wheels and tires for it.  Ok, I did ALL the work myself
including putting in a new quarter panel and painting it. The car is now in
better shape than before the accident.