Advice after wreck, fix or trade?

[bourne13]

Have an 06, with APR chip, and aftermarket sound system, JL W7 sub and amps, and focal speakers. (I know I shouldn't have spent the $ on the system, and should have put it in mods haha). BUT back in December, while driving downtown a guy opened up his crappy truck door while I drove by, and took off my passenger side mirror. His door also put two huge chunks out of passenger side front and back doors. Total damage estimate was just under 3k to get it all repaired, just got the insurance check for that... To add to this, right after christmas a local shop said I had a slow leak in my passenger side front tire, saying the seal was bad?? They supposedly fixed it, but less than a week later, the tire randomly came off of the wheel, causing extensive damage to the rim and killing the tire of course. The shop finally agreed to pay for half of a new rim and two new tires, still think its a crap deal, but whatever.

SO with all this that has gone on, trying to decide if I should just pay to get it fixed and keep it (messing up the carfax for any future trade), or go ahead and trade it in with its current clean carfax. Its a brilliant red 06 A4 2.0T. I owe around 9k on it, being offered 15k for it. SOOOOO need advice on trading it, take the approx. 5k and put the insurance check down on a new car with a higher monthly payment for another 6 years?? Or keep what I've got, fix it, have repair work on the carfax, and keep the low payment which will be payed off in 2 years....

Sorry for a long post, just totally conflicted in my head with what to do, and thought I'd ask the experts.

[Inked]

well being offered more than you owe is always a plus, but 9k isnt that much left....you could maybe pay it off this year?? and have a payed off car, and it doesnt sound like the damage was too overly extreme. IMO i would fix it.

[cheemn]

Um sorry if I am ignorant but once a report is put down isn't your carfax screwed regardless if ya fix it or not?????? Best bet I think is to check it out now and see what it says.

[bourne13]

well being offered more than you owe is always a plus, but 9k isnt that much left....you could maybe pay it off this year?? and have a payed off car, and it doesnt sound like the damage was too overly extreme. IMO i would fix it.

Without the damage, the blue book value is about $17,000... But the carfax repair would kill the value I think, but I could be totally wrong on that too haha.

[bourne13]

Um sorry if I am ignorant but once a report is put down isn't your carfax screwed regardless if ya fix it or not?????? Best bet I think is to check it out now and see what it says.

Right now the carfax is clean. Except for the replacement of the glovebox, which the dealer said is a typical issue with this model, and it needs to be replaced again. The dealers I've been to looking at a trade show a clean carfax right now on my car and they said that it wouldn't show up until the body shop actually does the work.

[mr shickadance]

^ your correct, the carfax would report it

you should start new is my opinion, chances are after you get everything fixed your not going to like any minor differences with it

but more importantly is think of the positive reflection it would create on your credit to pay off 9 grand instantly, not only would you be saving on interests expenses each month, but you would have a higher credit score and thus your next car purchase would have a lower interest rate (decreasing your interest expense per month in the long term)

selling your car now has positive effects on both short term and long term, you could alway pick up another b7 if you really loved the car that has a clean record and no accident damage

[MentisImperium]

I would think since it has been reported to the insurance already that it would eventually show up on your carfax, regardless if you use the check to fix the damage or not.

[Coderedpl]

I would think since it has been reported to the insurance already that it would eventually show up on your carfax, regardless if you use the check to fix the damage or not.
IMO I believe this is the case. I had a sideswipe accident when some lady switched into my lane and messed up my passenger front and rear doors, leading all the way up to the quarter panel. Over 2k in damages. I called the police and filed a claim with my insurance company within the hour. Since the case was going on and off with the other parties insurance, my car wasn't fixed for well over a month. Driveable but with damage. I buffed out what i can and left it till things get settled. I came up with the idea of selling my car on ebay. I put up an ad, and what do you know? Ebays integrated autocheck thing showed an accident on my report. The only time the car saw a body shop since the incident was when i dropped it off at the shop so the insurance adjuster can go there and speak with body shop on what needs to be done (instead of feeding me bs)

So in my opinion..........it will show up. It doesnt sound like much damage. Got pics?
Fix it, its your car...........dont let a truck door stop ya!..............just mod it though =p

[naiku]

well being offered more than you owe is always a plus, but 9k isnt that much left.

$15k on the trade sounds like a good deal, that would make it a hard choice for sure. I think if the OP is not 100% happy with his B7 then he should trade it, I doubt values for the trade in will stay that high for long. However, if he is happy with the car, then fix it and keep it. I had a dealer offer me a rough estimate of $10k on trade in for my Avant, granted it has higher miles (85k) but I was shocked to hear how low the trade in would be.

[B7Daily]

pictures?>

[b6onboost]

You think trading in your B7 and financing a new car with a higher payment for 6 years will somehow be better monitarily than keeping your B7 and having it paid off in 2 years? The reality is, that new car will depreciate more in the first year than your B7 would from having an accident on its carfax.

The question you need to ask yourself is do you need/want a new car, and is it worth the extra monthly cost and total cost (since you'll have a payment for 4 years longer than you B7)?

[mr shickadance]

You think trading in your B7 and financing a new car with a higher payment for 6 years will somehow be better monitarily than keeping your B7 and having it paid off in 2 years? The reality is, that new car will depreciate more in the first year than your B7 would from having an accident on its carfax.

The question you need to ask yourself is do you need/want a new car, and is it worth the extra monthly cost and total cost (since you'll have a payment for 4 years longer than you B7)?

obviously theres needs to be more information from the OP but lets say that OP is a reletively young kid who just got out of college and is in his first job and splurged and bought himself a new car, since he is young he may have little credit or not so hot credit history, paying off 9 grand in debt before the expected pay date will seirously affect his credit score for the positive

thus, when he goes to get a new car, he could hypothetically have lower interest rates which would save him money in the long run as well as build his credit for his next sizeable purcahse (lets say....house)

by keeping his old car and paying off his debt in a timely manner he will no doubt raise his credit score over the period of time, but this way is much faster, and if his next car he decides to lease, he will have low monthly payments for 2 years which could give him enough time to save up and drop a larger down payment on a brand new car

based on what he has said tho he doesn't seem to be in love that much with the car and is already thinking about selling it, well if he doesn;t sell it this year, it will be one year older when he decides to part ways with it, which will be less resale value. therefore, why not pay off a massive debt and pocket the rest for another car that OP IS in love with?

again there needs to be more information from the OP but based on what he has said, he doesn't seem happy with the car and if he waits to sell it he is only going to short himself