Well, long story short. I own my 2005 RX8 for sometime. It kept me happy until few days ago. I ran a small accident, the car lost control and I hit the road side. From my observation, there are two flat tires, a maybe broken suspension, a small dent on undercarriage, and side air bags came out. Nothing else. I was in the car and I didn't feel much collision at all. And all other things were trouble-free. no dent or scratches on the body at all.

I figured out it could be a easy fixable issue. so I called insurance they came and inspected the car. They have a software calculate the recommend repairments under that condition and the OEM price, the software said, it would be at least 6000 USD to fix all the known issues! If go to body shop, then that's 2000-4000 more! Only the airbag and related replacements along require something like 4000 dollars.

I was literally shocked. I mean the new car is like 25-26k dollars, how could they replace few things without even open the hood, and cost like 1/3 of the total price.

The insurance agent told me if they found any mess on the undercarriage they may wanna total the car. Shocked again! But I guess they just feel shocked about the replacement cost and don't wanna bother any more.

Thank god I am covered by the insurance.

For those who are not covered, PLEASE drive safe, otherwise the '8 can swallow all your hard dollars..

 

Yeah, we have at least 3 members who picked usernames indicating how expensive the 8 is. "Eightcostsmoney" "RX8MoneyPit" and "BigMoneyPit"


It racks up FAST in this car.


There is another thread posted recently where a guy only took out Liability and got no more than 2-3 days of driving out of it before totaling it in about the same method you did, only a harder impact.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I recently was hit (essentially rear-ended) as I was turning right into my buddies driveway. At the time I didn't think it would be too difficult to fix. There was the possibility of suspension and differential damage since the point of impact was basically my rear right wheel, but the insurance adjuster never even looked into that: he said it was totaled just based on body damage alone, which his software estimated at over $9,000!

They totaled it and sold it to a salvage yard. I actually tracked it down too, so you can see the damage here:

https://www.iaai.com/Vehicles/Vehicl...02&RowNumber=0

Doesn't look too bad, but apparently it was more than the value of the car.

 

You mean... YOU lost control?

If your airbags deployed, I wouldn't call that "a small accident". Any repairs involving airbags is going to be expensive.

Not to mention that you are going to have significant suspension damage, and with any sports car (with a quality suspension), that's not going to be cheap.

So, I guess the takeaway is... To keep costs down, keep the car on the road?

 

Welcome to the real world! The only surprise is you not realizing that "only a bit of damage" costs a bundle and then some. Spare OEM parts are incredibly expensive, as is labor. You likely bent the unibody, if you have two flat tires from a curb and you (again) also likely bent various suspension parts, the mounting points, etc... lot's of labor $$$, not counting air bags.

Same idea ... Some idiot 15yr old hit just the front fender/bumber on one of my cars, we both drove away, he with only a scratch on his pickup. The $2200 repair cost (!!) to my car was fully 1/3 the value of my entire vehicle. Good thing he didn't do other than superficial damage!

 

MattC,... rearended??

 

Well, sort of...

I was about 1/4 way into my friends driveway, person behind me wasn't paying attention, looked up, saw me, panicked, swerved right (i don't understand why), and hit me.

It wasn't a typical rear end. But the person hit me from behind through no fault of my own.

 

Yeah...expensive to maintain too. But, what the heck...life is short, so live life the fullest...lol

 

BS. In 45,000 miles all I have needed to do are oil changes every 5,000 miles and air filter and plugs (and the plugs were still good at 30,000 miles).
No big deal....

So, try pricing the same accident damage on a BMW, Mercedes, VW, etc.... All modern cars are expensive to repair damage. The RX-8 is not unique in this.

 

True, but what is a little different is that while the cost is high for repair (as mercedes, bmw, ect) the cars aren't worth that much.

My friend hit a deer in his Lexus and had a repair bill to the tune of 13 grand. His car was still worth fixing.

My old 8 had over $9,000 in damages and the bluebook value was about $10,000. Granted, I've never had to deal with repairing body damage on something like a Civic or Hyundai, but I would imagine the greater availability and abundance of parts makes them cheaper to repair and those cars have values on par with the 8. Anybody know for sure?

 

I was thinking the same thing. Plus you have to try pretty hard to make an '8 lose control. They're so predictable and responsive. Just pay up for the repairs, be more careful in the future, and be thankful that it wasn't any worse.

 

Not sure I understand the OP's complaint. I don't see the situation any differently than it would be with any other car.

 

How did your insurance company figure it would get fixed if you did not take it to a body shop?

Ken

 

That's how it goes sometimes. Sorry to hear though. I've heard stories of people thinking their car is totaled and it comes back that the damage wasn't as bad as originally thought and then sometimes it's a lot worse than it looks.

 

Uh... you know about the effect of mass manufacturing on cost don't you?

 

Cars don't lose control on their own, it's always the driver.
Look for used airbag sets if you can, that alone will let you save a bunch of money. Only buy them from a reputable source though and out of a car where they didn't deploy at all.

Instead of putting the saved money in the bank spend it on a driving course.