Make a deal on a new truck with the dealer now using the smashed one and your insurance check as a trade/down payment. He will fix the smashed one at his expense ( which is probably cheeper for him to do it than you paying him to do it ) and take it to auction before it can show up on car fax. Then you got a new truck and no worries. Hope it helps. Good luck.

I am a dealer in Mississippi and have done a lot of diminished value or Incurred Depreciation evaluations for both consumer and insurance companies, You need to get the value of your truck (Wholesale and Retail) prior to and after the truck is fixed. If the accident was caused by someone else then you have a case to collect that which is greater. If you need further help let me know.I would not let them touch the truck until I knew that it can not be totaled.

Depending on the damage I would not want it either.

Also I have a dealer buddy of mine that can write you a Letter of Depreciation for the insurance company in the Ft. Lauderdale area, and he's into boats as well.

I went through this in December on a truck an employee wrecked. It was borderline totaled (like 63% of value), truck had 100K miles and I didn't want it back so I took the "fix it check" and sold the truck wrecked/as is on Cragislist in 8 days for full asking price. It came out to the penny what the truck was worth before the accident! In my case the blown airbag was the biggest expense ($1700) and the truck had no damage to anything painted (fenders/hood/doors) or glass and it ran/drove fine.

I bought the truck new in 2004 for 16,400 (stripper GMC work truck) and replaced it with a brand new 2013 leftover for 18,250 so I was pretty happy that the truck only went up in price about $1900 in 9 model years! New one has 3/36K warranty, powertrain through 5 yrs/100k and free maintenance for 2/24K plus I am off the hook for buying tires/brakes/batteries for a couple of years. New one has cruise control, traction control, more airbags and is actually $22 cheaper to insure!

So the truck came back not a total. Its about $16000 in damage. I definitely do not want the truck back, it will be a month or more for them to fix it. I need to now pursue diminished value. Mseuro, if you or anyone has any advise, I would appreciate it.

their Will be a add order trust me,,just make sure non of the work is done or any parts are ordered yet,,,tell the body shop you want the whole truck gone over including all the electronics.inspect motor ,trans for extra dammage and so on...i guess the qt of trans fluid did not work!

From what I've seen, all you have to do is utter the words "diminished value" and have a little bit of knowledge on what it is to back it up and you'll do just fine.

So what is diminished value? What was the book value of your truck before it was wrecked? We all know that when a dealer does a Carfax report after it's fixed and you try to trade it in, they'll (rightfully) say it's not worth book because it was wrecked. In a nutshell, diminished value is the difference between what a "non-wrecked vehicle and a "wrecked and repaired" vehicle are worth. Most insurance companies won't even tell you about it, but they will usually pay on it. Demand it - you have the right.