I'm more curious what caused the hydroplaning at such low speeds. I've a 2012 and drive casually in the rain and really have to be doing some hard clutching or cornoring to get the back end out. Was it cold out and were you on your summer tires? I drive mine year round so I've driven in some darn heavy rain so I"m curious what happened here.

If it's an '09 with that much damage, it's definitely totaled. Your always have the option of buying it back from the insurance and fixing it, but I'd rather buy a new car. I hope this wasn't caused by worn tires and/or VDC turned off. A lot of owners with summer tires don't realize they wear out a lot faster than normal all-seasons.

Glad you're doing alright. Some 350Z owners had the same mishap on the freeway when hitting a small puddle of water. The stock RE40A were terrible even on dry surface.

Pour out a lil octane for another Z that is dead and gone.

Really sounds like worn rubber in the back. Sometimes it's hard to tell as what you see from the side of the car looks fine compared to the inside of the tire where it's all worn to nothing.

Yeah, amen to that.

Sorry about your situation OP. At least you're alive, after all, it is just a car. Good luck shopping for a new one and keep us posted.

Ill try to help you out with a professional opinion since i am an actual collision estimator for a body shop and deal with insurances companies all day long. First of all you will have to go through your insurance company for the estimate but you don't have to have it repaired at their preferred body shop. Once you get the estimate you can take it where ever you want to get repaired. Don't let them tell you what to do. You can also just tow it to your preferred body shop and tell them to send an adjuster out to write the estimate as well.

Second it may not be a total. Currently there is not even close to enough info to figure out if its a total or not. Maybe if i saw some detailed pics. And no, just because airbags are deployed doesn't automatically mean its a total. It depends on the insurance company, but normally you need to get within 70%-80% of the current retail value of the vehicle to be considered a total loss. Don't know your mileage or equipment but lets just say $20-$24k retail value average...so $16-18k repair to total it. If it does total, when they are trying to come up with a value make sure they compare like vehicles. For instance they need to take into concideration base/touring/sport/nav, etc.

Anyway, sorry for your loss and try not to stress out. It's usually not too painful of a process. Btw who is you insurance compnay.

^^^ fair enough
You gotta have a REALLY shítty insurance company that won't total a car due to the airbags being deployed.

My dad's Highlander was totaled and ALL it needed was 2 airbags, a windshield, and a bumper.
Hell, he drove it home from the accident. Nothing else was damaged...
A week later, thank you insurance check for $24k

Question for Vlad, if the figure REALLY is 70-80%, and somehow no one can ever give a straight answer...
Why is it that high?

IMO, if my car is worth $50k, you give me $40k to repair it, I'm going to rape the insurance company right back for added devaluation for at LEAST another $5-8k.
Because if a car needs 75% of it's value JUST to get repaired... We've got some issues...

And why at that point is the insurance going to risk me getting into another accident and the airbags not working this time, and now I get even more injured, and they have to now pay out 10X what they originally would have on the first repair...???


My Maxima that was totaled has water damage, $8k worth, totaled, they wrote me a check for $27,800 after my $1000 deductible...
The explanation I recieved was, we have to warrant those repairs for a year, this car will cost is more over time than is just totaling it now

Why is the total loss threshold 70-80%? Good question actually, i don't know for sure, but my best guess would be that the insurance companies want to do whatever is most cost effective to them and they will get as close to the value repairing the car as they can because that would still be cheaper than totaling it. At least that's what they do all day long with parts. They will always try to use aftermarket and/or used parts if they can before they shell out for factory parts to repair a vehicle.

Now i think you were asking about keeping the money and not fixing it, or partially fixing it is a little different. You can decide to just take they money they give you and then arrange to get the repairs done your self, not at all, or just decide what you do and do not want repaired, however if you do that you have to sign off liability with the insurance company for just such an occasion that you didn't replace the airbags that they paid to replace and got injured in another accident because of it. But if you got it repaired per the estimate they wrote, then all the airbags would have been replaced along with any related modules, pretensioners/seat belts.

Actually you can even make a deal with the insurance to keep a totaled car and just take the pay out for the repair value right before it hit the threshold, but then you have to deal with getting it re-titled as a salvaged car and all the headaches that comes with that (hard to find a good shop to do it, and hard to insure the car after).

Now water damage is a completely different story, that doesn't always take into account the actual repair cost. If the water damage was salt water its usually immediately a total because of the corrosion problems that you would have down the road. If its fresh water in a flood situation it usually depends on how high the water got in the car. Normally anything over half way up the door panel is considered a total, but again that's down to the individual insurance companies guidelines.

Oh i remember one other thing i was going to explain. Devaluation...or more appropriately, diminished value. This is something that an insurance company will never voluntarily offer you unless you ask. You can go after diminished value if you are the claimant (meaning not going through your own insurance, but the insurance of the person that hit you) and the car is not a lease. In that case the insurance company would come up with a figure for how much value your vehicle lost because it will now be listed as being in an accident and will cut you a check for that amount.

Hopefully that helps explain some stuff. :)