Accident on a New Car

[sbudyy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

Hi,

I own a 2007 Honda Accord(bought it less than an year) < 9k miles on it.
Recently met with a head to head accident. As per the police reports the other party is at fault.
Result of the Accident: The Air bags have been deployed and the front part of the car is damaged badly. The Honda body shop guys gave an estimate of 7k and my insurance guys are getting it repaired.

The problem is the car is now completely depreiciated. If I want to trade it in the future I will go into a huge loss (as per my estimation it would be around 8-10k).

What should I do to proceed on this one so that I would not go into any losses.
1. Sue the other party(on what reason could I sue - Loss of Car?)
2. Talk to the Insurance guys? (Will the other party's insurance consider this loss?)

I am reaelly worried about my situation...it costed me more than 25k(EX-L V6 model) and the approxiame loan balance is 17k. So I've started feeling bad that I am paying for a Car which do not worth 17k..

Could any experts advise me.

Thanks,
S

[ecmst12]

If you can get a PROFESSIONAL estimation of diminished value, you can approach the insurance company with it. They may consider it, or may not. Your car may not have been worth 17k before the accident either; unless you pay a really large down payment it takes quite some time before the debt on a new car gets paid down below its value. And by the time you are ready to trade in the car, the amount that the value is lowered from the accident in history will be much smaller. Google "CA diminished value" for state-specific information about how far you might get with this claim.

[VeronicaLodge]

except he said it was 1 year old and originally cost 25K but he only owed 17k, so sounds like he had a downpayment or paid a bunch down in the first year.