Toad is totaled and I am ticked off

[miniceptor86]

I just skimmed through the posts after the OP's. Just a couple of anecdotes to consider. The brother in law had a new VW Beetle years ago, the windows would open themselves and they never found the cause so it would not be unheard of for the sun roof to open itself. Secondly our Hyundai Elantra Touring will not tolerate LED tail/stop bulbs even though they have built in resistors. The cruise control will not work and the vehicle stability control light comes on and stays on. With CANBUS systems everything is interconnected and one not up to spec input can have mysterious results. So I'd go with a good job of drying it out as has been mentioned and see what happens. Obviously if it's running OK all the codes it's throwing don't mean much.

[Neisman]

Originally Posted by Arch Hoagland

I'm also curious WHO declared that the car totaled?

"Totaled" is when the cost to repair exceeds the value.

[Normad]

You might check to see of other x1 owners have had similar issues with their sunroofs. Reason I suggest this is that my daughters Mini Cooper (made by BMW) had a similar problem on her drivers door window caused by a defective sensor. When she closed the door the window would drop by about 1 inch. Living in Oregon where it rains just about every day from nov-apr it was a real problem until she replaced it. I guess it is good that it was not her sunroof!!!

[L Wagner]

Originally Posted by stuccosteve

No one was hurt in the incident, things happen, you make a decision to go down a certain path and the path is nothing like you imagined. Now your faced with haveing to think possibly in a unfamiliar or for me non-liner way. We made my wife’s daily driver our toad, I pull it 4 up along with our bike. Her car was a X1 and it was almost as new in condition 2 years old low mileage. I had everything loaded for our next day departure with the coach under roof in the garage. I set it up as a drive through with 2 opposing overhead doors, the building is only 50’ long so the trailer was hanging out 16-18’.

It unexpectedly rained that night, not long and not exceptionally hard, some areas had a 1/2” +or-. No big deal I thought, until 30 hours later I go to unload the car and it was lightning up like a Christmas tree. I noticed small amounts of liquid moisture on some surfaces and right there the sunroof is open an 1”. Neither my wife or I recalled opening the sunroof for months where we live, way to cold and wet. The vehicle threw every possible fault code and was limping like my old grandpa did.

This is where the decisions and unusual circumstances start to make the experience so far to date bizzare. The vehicle ends up in a BMW service center, we had the balance of the factory warranty and an additional extended warranty and a fully inclusive maintenance warranty, and I mean everything but tires. I am feeling ok and thinking minor speed bump. They kept hemming and hawing around oddly and they had my home based selling dealer call me and tell me that the damage was caused by the open sunroof and the fact that a human hand opened it made the incident a case of owner negligence. No coverage at all, and since your in someone else’s location everything will be out of your pocket starting with the diagnostic testing.

You can bet I was a bit off balance and asked them to slow this down and look at the big picture, the service manager was a young guy and just the way he kept saying things like mold and potential long term issues, the way he used the terms was as if this was one of those flood cars, not something I was calling “incidental moisture”. He said the words “negligent” and “totaled” with just my wife and I and another service person present. By this time my wife’s cooler head prevailed and she said we need to call our insurance agent.

The service manager was all cranked up to have a pow wow with our carriers rep to go over the extent of the fault codes when I said “Brad, you are the representative of the dealer whom I have a client relationship, your use of the terms negligent and totaled are subjective to the degree no one can accurately decide what went down here, if you use those terms when discussing the vehicle I would consider that damaging to our relationship and legally negligent. He said he was only doing his job and and politely inquired how long at his position and he said one year. I said you seem very competent.

Believe this what I say, I called my agent and gave her a quick summary being completely forthcoming, she said “Oh my” that could be considered owners negligence, but let me check your policy. Almost 24 hrs later I received a email that they decided to process the claim and would be in touch with a offer. Now here’s where the road takes a hard curve, turns out my lovely diligent wife opted into a uprated policy that did replacement plus one year newer when setting the value. Bounce back in my step happy day. Only problem was it seemed to be taking forever to get any bankable numbers from the carrier.

Well when they came in I was a bit stunned, even with the uprated policy I am taking a huge hit on the bottom line, with out going into too much financial detail the hit is about 20% less than book and close to 35% less than the same car being sold at the dealers. So that car is 28K at the dealer, kbb has it around 24K and the insurance has it around 21.4K. Throw in the pro rata uprated policy which was a joke of maybe $500. And I will have to chip in at least 6 grand to replace the car and have all the warranties that I had in place that did nothing because of the negligence branding. Incidentally the warranties had a cash value of almost 3K. Buy a certified and extend the warranty and add maintenance there goes $2500. So now maybe closer to $8,000,00 out of pocket to get back to where I was.

So now here’s my real problem, what the hell is wrong with all of us? I mean it’s as if we have been fed the worst bull [moderator edit] for years when it comes to retail sales of planes trains automobiles and RV’s. Do people ever stop and look at how much it really costs to own and operate a vehicle. There’s this strange dance we do with our selves when we enter into an agreement to purchase a late model whatever, factor in how much out of pocket funds are siphoned off from your accounts because dealers over charge for everything and your insurance won’t agree to come close to the dealers lines.

To me what this is saying is that fair market value should be established not by dealers but the insurance companies, if they are only willing to pay so much according to their algorithms. I mean the influence of this is pervasive, take a financed coach where the owner has 50% equity position and add in a little bad luck and a bank pay off and that may well be the last time you owned something that nice. It wouldn’t matter on paid off units other than just getting screwed because of the bogus valuation system in place.

I know this has been a long rant but honestly I never found myself in this position before, when it can be seen with such transparency when all the dominos line up is frightening. Clearly sometimes the value of what we own or what we think the value of what we own is can be diametrically opposite of what it Truly is.

We are still trying to sort it out

Hindsight being 20/20, it should have broken the sunroof and claimed vandalism!

[1711tab]

Our 2016 X5 had the same issue as your sunroof.

My wife and I never opened the roof since new.

One time I went thru the car wash and I got washed for free. Had a hell of a time finding the roof switch.

Long story short, I took it to Roger Penske BMW of Scottsdale, AZ and they put a electric heater inside it over night and it fixed all the problems once the car was dried out.

FYI. BMW has a bulletin out on the ghost opening sun roof.

[BikesAndGuns]

Originally Posted by stuccosteve

No one was hurt in the incident, things happen, you make a decision to go down a certain path and the path is nothing like you imagined. Now your faced with haveing to think possibly in a unfamiliar or for me non-liner way. We made my wife’s daily driver our toad, I pull it 4 up along with our bike. Her car was a X1 and it was almost as new in condition 2 years old low mileage. I had everything loaded for our next day departure with the coach under roof in the garage. I set it up as a drive through with 2 opposing overhead doors, the building is only 50’ long so the trailer was hanging out 16-18’.

It unexpectedly rained that night, not long and not exceptionally hard, some areas had a 1/2” +or-. No big deal I thought, until 30 hours later I go to unload the car and it was lightning up like a Christmas tree. I noticed small amounts of liquid moisture on some surfaces and right there the sunroof is open an 1”. Neither my wife or I recalled opening the sunroof for months where we live, way to cold and wet. The vehicle threw every possible fault code and was limping like my old grandpa did.

This is where the decisions and unusual circumstances start to make the experience so far to date bizzare. The vehicle ends up in a BMW service center, we had the balance of the factory warranty and an additional extended warranty and a fully inclusive maintenance warranty, and I mean everything but tires. I am feeling ok and thinking minor speed bump. They kept hemming and hawing around oddly and they had my home based selling dealer call me and tell me that the damage was caused by the open sunroof and the fact that a human hand opened it made the incident a case of owner negligence. No coverage at all, and since your in someone else’s location everything will be out of your pocket starting with the diagnostic testing.

You can bet I was a bit off balance and asked them to slow this down and look at the big picture, the service manager was a young guy and just the way he kept saying things like mold and potential long term issues, the way he used the terms was as if this was one of those flood cars, not something I was calling “incidental moisture”. He said the words “negligent” and “totaled” with just my wife and I and another service person present. By this time my wife’s cooler head prevailed and she said we need to call our insurance agent.

The service manager was all cranked up to have a pow wow with our carriers rep to go over the extent of the fault codes when I said “Brad, you are the representative of the dealer whom I have a client relationship, your use of the terms negligent and totaled are subjective to the degree no one can accurately decide what went down here, if you use those terms when discussing the vehicle I would consider that damaging to our relationship and legally negligent. He said he was only doing his job and and politely inquired how long at his position and he said one year. I said you seem very competent.

Believe this what I say, I called my agent and gave her a quick summary being completely forthcoming, she said “Oh my” that could be considered owners negligence, but let me check your policy. Almost 24 hrs later I received a email that they decided to process the claim and would be in touch with a offer. Now here’s where the road takes a hard curve, turns out my lovely diligent wife opted into a uprated policy that did replacement plus one year newer when setting the value. Bounce back in my step happy day. Only problem was it seemed to be taking forever to get any bankable numbers from the carrier.

Well when they came in I was a bit stunned, even with the uprated policy I am taking a huge hit on the bottom line, with out going into too much financial detail the hit is about 20% less than book and close to 35% less than the same car being sold at the dealers. So that car is 28K at the dealer, kbb has it around 24K and the insurance has it around 21.4K. Throw in the pro rata uprated policy which was a joke of maybe $500. And I will have to chip in at least 6 grand to replace the car and have all the warranties that I had in place that did nothing because of the negligence branding. Incidentally the warranties had a cash value of almost 3K. Buy a certified and extend the warranty and add maintenance there goes $2500. So now maybe closer to $8,000,00 out of pocket to get back to where I was.

So now here’s my real problem, what the hell is wrong with all of us? I mean it’s as if we have been fed the worst bull [moderator edit] for years when it comes to retail sales of planes trains automobiles and RV’s. Do people ever stop and look at how much it really costs to own and operate a vehicle. There’s this strange dance we do with our selves when we enter into an agreement to purchase a late model whatever, factor in how much out of pocket funds are siphoned off from your accounts because dealers over charge for everything and your insurance won’t agree to come close to the dealers lines.

To me what this is saying is that fair market value should be established not by dealers but the insurance companies, if they are only willing to pay so much according to their algorithms. I mean the influence of this is pervasive, take a financed coach where the owner has 50% equity position and add in a little bad luck and a bank pay off and that may well be the last time you owned something that nice. It wouldn’t matter on paid off units other than just getting screwed because of the bogus valuation system in place.

I know this has been a long rant but honestly I never found myself in this position before, when it can be seen with such transparency when all the dominos line up is frightening. Clearly sometimes the value of what we own or what we think the value of what we own is can be diametrically opposite of what it Truly is.

We are still trying to sort it out

In my experience, insurance companies always low-ball the value of a totaled car but if you push them, they will up the amount to the true value. You have to make sure you select the exact condition and options, the area where the car is insured, but the kbb.com value would prevail if you took the insurance company to court. However, they may have reduced the amount for your "negligence". Check this out: https://pocketsense.com/much-insuran...d-7460589.html

Do most people understand the true cost of owning a vehicle? I would say "no". We live in our RV and simply locate the general area of my consulting assignments, which last from 3-18 months. Currently, I drive my diesel dually to the train station and take the train the last 14 miles thereby avoiding the worst part of the traffic. The daily train ticket costs $3. I was discussing this with someone at work who could take the same train, but didn't and I mentioned that I saved money by taking the train. That puzzled her, so I said "28 miles round trip/day, which comes to about $15 and the train ticket costs $3". Like most people, she was only considering the cost of the gasoline. There's a reason why the IRS mileage rate is $0.545.

Is it worth having a car? Well, that depends. If you really, really, really want a very nice late-model car and you understand the cost and don't mind paying for it (plus the insurance), then I guess it's worth it. I bought 3 new vehicles in my life: A '69 Mustang ($2900), a '71 Chevy van ($3,800+the Mustang) and a '83 Tercel ($7,500). After that, I bought used. But I cared more about saving the money. I would buy 8-10 year old low-mileage Cadillacs from older people who always garaged the car, had all the services performed and didn't drive in the winter; and I only paid $5-7,000. That's my preference. But some people would never consider doing that based on all kinds of ridiculous excuses. If you demonstrate the economics to them, they often get hostile!

[hdgoldie]

In our experience with a totaled vehicle with replacement coverage, the insurance company provided us with comps of the vehicles it used to determine value. These were the actual selling prices of comparable vehicles near our location. After that settlement was accepted (it was actually quite good), the insurance company then shopped and found our brand new replacement vehicle (the totaled vehicle was four years old at the time of the accident). We had to purchase the replacement vehicle and the insurance company then gave us a check for the difference between the first settlement check and the out the door price of the replacement vehicle. We had a vehicle four model years newer with no out of pocket loss. If you have replacement cost plus one year, is it possible you are only seeing part of the total settlement? The replacement coverage may not be part of your current discussion.

[OldToolmaker]

Sorry to hear about our loss. Allstate used to use a 50% of value figure to determine when to buy and when to repair.
As far as water damage, with the canbus systems low voltage can cause things to "go bump in the night."
Unfortunately troubleshooting by the hour makes the cost of repair too high to be practical. Fans and electric heaters, disconnecting the battery and cleaning all of the electrical connectors in itself goes a long way toward solving electric gremlins.
Depends on your skill set.

[Jay D.]

hope the O/P come back he needs to do a google search. BMW has had a long problem with windows, trunk lids and some sunroofs opening on there own. check out some BMW forums. I didn't see the bulletin talked about above but if there is one, I would lawyer up now.
Jay D.

[BVTMark]

I personally would have cranked the ac with heat for a few hours to dry everything out first.
But sounds like you’ve figured out what I’ve said for years: insurance is a scam designed to separate you from your money. Period. For most people, if you put the amount of your insurance premiums into a high yield savings account, by the time you need it, you would be better off. Of course, you never know when that time will come.

That all said I’m very skeptical of that prognosis.

[OleTom]

Stuccosteve,

I have come to the conclusion that extended warranties are not worth the paper their written on.

Good friends we travel with bought a new 5er. Got extended warranty, it was new in 2015. Fast forward to out of factory warranty. Now only the extended warranty is force.
They had an O ring fail in the bathroom stool. We were outside I saw water running out of the under belly which was full of water.
They took it to the place where they purchased the 5er, will not name maker. They replaced the 75 cent O ring. However, the would not fix $2,800 to replace the entire sub floor, take out the shower to do so and the replace the laminate. They said it was not their fault of the damage??????

[PeterFTH]

Originally Posted by stuccosteve

No one was hurt in the incident, things happen, you make a decision to go down a certain path and the path is nothing like you imagined. Now your faced with haveing to think possibly in a unfamiliar or for me non-liner way. We made my wife’s daily driver our toad, I pull it 4 up along with our bike. Her car was a X1 and it was almost as new in condition 2 years old low mileage. I had everything loaded for our next day departure with the coach under roof in the garage. I set it up as a drive through with 2 opposing overhead doors, the building is only 50’ long so the trailer was hanging out 16-18’.

It unexpectedly rained that night, not long and not exceptionally hard, some areas had a 1/2” +or-. No big deal I thought, until 30 hours later I go to unload the car and it was lightning up like a Christmas tree. I noticed small amounts of liquid moisture on some surfaces and right there the sunroof is open an 1”. Neither my wife or I recalled opening the sunroof for months where we live, way to cold and wet. The vehicle threw every possible fault code and was limping like my old grandpa did.

This is where the decisions and unusual circumstances start to make the experience so far to date bizzare. The vehicle ends up in a BMW service center, we had the balance of the factory warranty and an additional extended warranty and a fully inclusive maintenance warranty, and I mean everything but tires. I am feeling ok and thinking minor speed bump. They kept hemming and hawing around oddly and they had my home based selling dealer call me and tell me that the damage was caused by the open sunroof and the fact that a human hand opened it made the incident a case of owner negligence. No coverage at all, and since your in someone else’s location everything will be out of your pocket starting with the diagnostic testing.

You can bet I was a bit off balance and asked them to slow this down and look at the big picture, the service manager was a young guy and just the way he kept saying things like mold and potential long term issues, the way he used the terms was as if this was one of those flood cars, not something I was calling “incidental moisture”. He said the words “negligent” and “totaled” with just my wife and I and another service person present. By this time my wife’s cooler head prevailed and she said we need to call our insurance agent.

The service manager was all cranked up to have a pow wow with our carriers rep to go over the extent of the fault codes when I said “Brad, you are the representative of the dealer whom I have a client relationship, your use of the terms negligent and totaled are subjective to the degree no one can accurately decide what went down here, if you use those terms when discussing the vehicle I would consider that damaging to our relationship and legally negligent. He said he was only doing his job and and politely inquired how long at his position and he said one year. I said you seem very competent.

Believe this what I say, I called my agent and gave her a quick summary being completely forthcoming, she said “Oh my” that could be considered owners negligence, but let me check your policy. Almost 24 hrs later I received a email that they decided to process the claim and would be in touch with a offer. Now here’s where the road takes a hard curve, turns out my lovely diligent wife opted into a uprated policy that did replacement plus one year newer when setting the value. Bounce back in my step happy day. Only problem was it seemed to be taking forever to get any bankable numbers from the carrier.

Well when they came in I was a bit stunned, even with the uprated policy I am taking a huge hit on the bottom line, with out going into too much financial detail the hit is about 20% less than book and close to 35% less than the same car being sold at the dealers. So that car is 28K at the dealer, kbb has it around 24K and the insurance has it around 21.4K. Throw in the pro rata uprated policy which was a joke of maybe $500. And I will have to chip in at least 6 grand to replace the car and have all the warranties that I had in place that did nothing because of the negligence branding. Incidentally the warranties had a cash value of almost 3K. Buy a certified and extend the warranty and add maintenance there goes $2500. So now maybe closer to $8,000,00 out of pocket to get back to where I was.

So now here’s my real problem, what the hell is wrong with all of us? I mean it’s as if we have been fed the worst bull [moderator edit] for years when it comes to retail sales of planes trains automobiles and RV’s. Do people ever stop and look at how much it really costs to own and operate a vehicle. There’s this strange dance we do with our selves when we enter into an agreement to purchase a late model whatever, factor in how much out of pocket funds are siphoned off from your accounts because dealers over charge for everything and your insurance won’t agree to come close to the dealers lines.

To me what this is saying is that fair market value should be established not by dealers but the insurance companies, if they are only willing to pay so much according to their algorithms. I mean the influence of this is pervasive, take a financed coach where the owner has 50% equity position and add in a little bad luck and a bank pay off and that may well be the last time you owned something that nice. It wouldn’t matter on paid off units other than just getting screwed because of the bogus valuation system in place.

I know this has been a long rant but honestly I never found myself in this position before, when it can be seen with such transparency when all the dominos line up is frightening. Clearly sometimes the value of what we own or what we think the value of what we own is can be diametrically opposite of what it Truly is.

We are still trying to sort it out

This might seem unrelated, but I had a 1992 Honda Accord and the first year I picked up a stone and broke the windshield. In those days, your insurance agent had an under the table deal with a glass place where you would go, and experience a papaerless transaction. Fast forward 10 years and another stone, but now the state had a lottery so the agent wouldn't know what shop they were randomly sending you to. The shop said that there seemed to be a lot of rust and didn't think they could replace the windshield without body work. My State Farm Agent as much as said, "Good luck." No, this was not covered - go to the repair place and settle with them. Really? So it was the early days of email and I sent one to the home office in Bloomington Illinois and said I went where I was told, I got no receipt, and the windshield was apparently not sealed properly for this damage to occur. In 2 days I had an appointment with a body shop, who subsequently informed me that they had to install a hew roof on my car. I asked if State Farm knew, and he said it was cheaper than totaling the car so they were paying. It never hurts to badger when you think you're being snowed. So my 1992 Accord EX has a 2003 roof on it, and still gets 28mpg at 214,000 miles.

[Freeholder]

We had a completely opposite experience with our insurance company (Travelers). A couple of years ago we had a 2005 Expedition. We had loaned it to my adult son while his vehicle was in the shop. He hit a deer, causing about $2500 damage. Average KBB retail on the vehicle was about $3500. The insurance company totaled it. Then they researched comparable sales to come up with a number and offered me a $6500 settlement, which I was glad to accept.

[kendall69]

As said do a search and this is a know problem for BMW. Easily winnable in a court case.
My experience when a vehicle passed with a truck cap and a gust of wind blew hard blowing the truck cap into my Sprinter RV.
My insurance company came out becuase the other driver had no insurance, and said sorry it's only $999.00 in damage and you have a $1,000 deductable so buh bye nice talking to you.
After I threatedned to sue the driver all of a sudden he had insurance. His company came out and said the damage was $$3,500.00 and cut me a check that week and said if that didn't cover the damage let them know and they would pay the difference.
That weel Idumped my insurance company I paid into for a decade and went with the other company thaty was amaxing.
I never did get it fixed because I was selling it anyway and would just let the new owner deal with the "dent". It did sell quickly with the damage and I pockeded $3,500.00.
When will people understand that insurance companies are not your friend they are your enemy. You are not their customer you are their enemy. They have one friend and that is money, they more they don't spend the happier they are. Get a lawyer and watch how fast they cave in.
They would understand that any jury on the planet will rule in favor of the consumer AND THEY KNOW IT. They are scred to death of court.
I sued two dealerships for Lemon LAw issues and won both cases, one on the courthouse steps as they say. The dealer and manufacturer knows they jury will rule in the consimer favor and could give the consumer millions if they feel like it just to punish the insurance company.