Hey Dr. Sound, if you have any receipts of work that u had done to the car, fax it into the insurance company and maybe you will get a little more money. I bought an Eclipse GST in November 2001 and paid down $5000. My interest rate was ridiculoudly high at 11.25%. I bought the car for $9995 before tax - $13000+ after tax, tag, title + extended warranty. Now when the car was stolen, it was recovered 2 days later and AIG wrote off the car. They appraised it at $9000, but the loan I took out was $8400+, so after my $1000 deductible I was left with just over $1000 in my pocket after paying down $5000 and have been paying $230.92 per month for almost 2 years. Terrible loss. Anyway the claims adjuster said I could get back more money if I could prove that I had any work done to the car that would increase its value - which I did. I had just installed Stillen's cross drilled rotors, motul brake fluid and lines totalling $465, plus just a few months earlier I had rebuilt the engine costing $2500 - I faxed in those receipts and he reappraised the car for over $10000. Plus I had just bought two brand new Goodyear tires so I sent in those recepits too. I ended up with a little over $3000. So I took $1000 and paid down on my MSP (learnt never to put down so much money on a car again) plus I talked down the Mazda Dealer on the interest rate from 5% to 3.75%. It's the interest rate that kills you when it comes to recovering losses. Anyway I hope this helps. Don't put down so much next time and
