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Stock XJ Cherokee Tech. All XJ Non-modified/stock questions go hereXJ (84-01)
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The vehicle is a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm am trying to figure out how to offer a guy for repairs so that we don't have to go through insurance. I was involved in an accident with this vehicle(my fault). The front drivers side of the vehicle collided with the rear wheel of my toyota tacoma. My vehicle escaped pretty unscathed(just scratched up the wheel a little bit and put a small dent in the fender). He says that the radiator has issues now and that he's sure it will need under body work because of the impact, it doesn't drive the same. I have posted pictures of his vehicle so that you guys can get a better idea about the damage to the vehicle. His estimation is $2500-3000 to repair the vehicle. Is this a fair estimate? He is waiting for me to give him a counter offer. Thanks for your help.
Year: 1998 Classic (I'll get it running soon....) and 02 Grand
Model: Cherokee (XJ)
Engine: 4.0
Welcome!
This is a first! We get lots of Grand Cherokee owners posting in the Cherokee section, because so many people are sloppy in their terminology and refer to Grand Cherokees as Cherokees.
This is the first time I've seen a Cherokee (XJ body style) referred to as a Grand Cherokee.
However, that's what you have. A Cherokee. You have a 1997-2001 Cherokee. It's not a Grand Cherokee. The forum you want is over here.
I've reported your post (not in a bad way), and it's likely a mod will move it for you.
That is a lot of damage. To multiple areas. Much of which is body work. If one of his tires took a hit, he probably has bent control arms. His frame rails are probably bent or buckled a little just behind the bumper as well. We can't assume that he will do all the work himself, and know how to save a ton by using junk yards, ebay, and friends. I think his estimate is in the right ball park. If you can get him to accept $2000 I think you will have done pretty well.
imo, if anything structural is bent, that is a near writeoff
measure and check damage & alignment of inner wings, and any sheetmetal or areas major suspensions parts attached are bent
if not, even just to R&R those panels, with matching color junkers, $2k would not be unreasonable
you said he gave you an estimate...beware, if you attempted to haggle with me unreasonably, I would probably add an additional contingency price to the repair quote
Honestly you need to let insurance handle it . That Cherokee isn’t worth 2,000 . I know if you read on here too much they’ll have you believe they’re worth much more but they’re not . It likely blue books for 1-1300 and insurance would total it instantly . In this case you’d be silly not to turn it in . He’s trying to pull a fast one on you imho !
The insurance would total that vehicle, it's not worth what the owner thinks the repairs would cost. I would give $2k if he then signs the title over to me, since that is what the insurance company is probably going to do.
That doesn't look bad to me at all. Bumper, fender, grille, header pane, lights and small parts (which do add up). I doubt if the radiator is even bent. But regardless, once you throw body shop labor into the mix, like others have said, it's probably beyond the formula of the insurance company's value formula..
Personally, I wouldn't mess with it, I'd turn it in on insurance, Work with the insurance company, see if they can keep your rates from going up. It's worth a conversation ..especially if it was in a parking lot. I'm not sure if you'd open yourself up to the potential of other claims down the road (sore neck!). But if he's willing, maybe you could buy it from him for $2,500.
I doubt the frame rails are bent, but you never know. I've had a snow plow hooked to the main frame rails on mine for 20 years and never tweaked it.
If you could buy it, you might be able to make a nice rig out of it.
Last edited by Jeepwalker; 05-10-2019 at 08:28 AM.
Honestly you need to let insurance handle it . That Cherokee isn’t worth 2,000 . I know if you read on here too much they’ll have you believe they’re worth much more but they’re not . It likely blue books for 1-1300 and insurance would total it instantly . In this case you’d be silly not to turn it in . He’s trying to pull a fast one on you imho !
You have to look at it through the perspective of the jeep owner, if he's not at fault he shouldn't have to have his jeep totaled just because insurance won't pay for it. The one at fault should be held responsible to make it right. I think his estimate is pretty spot on, maybe $2500 if you wanna counter. Somebody sideswiped me and tried to pin it on me, but the police report stated it was his fault, but turns out he doesn't have valid insurance and I can't go through my insurance because the damage is below my deductable.
I don't understand why everyone is saying to go through insurance, I thought y'all would look out for the XJ owner.
Correct. When people talk about insurance for damaged XJs on here they almost always confuse the relationship we have with our own insurance providers vs. the relationship someone else has with the provider when we accidentally hit them and damage their vehicle.
Insurance companies don't get to dictate to the person we hit that their vehicle is damaged beyond market value and not worth repairing - and calling it totaled. Though, they do play this game all the time and get away with it because the damaged party doesn't know any better.
My father in-law was offered 7k to repair his vehicle after a fender bender. Ultimately, he made the other driver's insurance provider pay 45k (no injuries, no medical stuff, this was -just- for the vehicle damage - the vehicle is still on the road today). Point being, when someone knows how to respond to them (fight them) they can end up paying 10x the originally offered amount.
The insurance provider has an obligation to make the damaged party "whole". They try to fool people into thinking that they (the insurance company) gets to decide on their own what "whole" means (such as offering you market value for your car - and telling you that is your only option). They do not get to decide what "whole" means on their own, and even fighting a little bit can produce a much better offer.
Back to the topic at hand. I think we are looking out for the XJ driver. I think most of us have agreed that 2-3k is a pretty fair estimate. We are also assuming that the XJ driver doesn't want to lose their XJ.
In the lovely state of MA when you buy a vehicle (even if it's out of state, like my XJ (CT) and my Wrangler (NH)) you pay MA sales tax (6.25%) on the BB value of the vehicle when getting the title at the state RMV. Now granted the state wants the highest value and the insurance company would want the lowest, but for my 23 year old XJ that I bought for $800 out of state, MA charged me taxes on my 95 SE, with nearly 300k miles at a BB value of well over $3000. The registration and title alone cost more than half as much as buying the Jeep.
Years ago when I bought my Wrangler it was in NH, a state with zero sales tax. As a poor unfortunate who lives in MA, I had to pay sales tax on the full $23K. That was not fun.
Long and short of it - most old, high mileage Jeeps are still BB valued at more than $2500 in many, many parts of the country.
I'm with the other guys... if you can shell out $2k and be square I think you're in a fair->better than fair position.
I mean we could say that -- it doesn't matter, XJ's are essentially priceless since you cannot buy a new vehicle today that is anything legitimately comparable. We could say that, screw you buddy, you're not an XJ owner so pay up, overpay etc. etc. etc.... In other words, we could "play favorites".
Or we can do what we all pretty much do by default - if someone posts asking an honest question in good faith, we respond with our best opinion of the matter given the stated situation. I think that's what we've done here.
We don't know and most of us would say that we'd need an auto body/collision professional to see it in person (even if "we" were one ourselves) to say for sure what the true extent of the damage was. The XJ owner says the vehicle drives differently - this could be true, this could be in their head, this could be pre-existing. Just because someone owns an XJ doesn't mean they're a person of good character. Likewise the O.P. may be omitting knowledge that is unfavorable. I don't think we can or should make any of those assumptions though. Regardless of the facts however, whatever the agreement is that has the XJ owner satisfied and the O.P. satisfied is up to them.
05-09-2019, 06:13 PM
Repair Cost Estimate Help
