I wouldn't rule out fixing it, but go into it with eyes wide open. Unless you can do some of the work yourself, or at least source used parts and manage the work you have done, you are likely to spend more than you will have left after you pay-off the car and buy back the salvage. I'm going to estimate that you will be left with $1500-2k to spend after all that, assuming they raise their settlement offer to $6k.
The paint work and sheet metal/bumper alone is going to be over a grand, and you still have airbags, engine/electronics, headlight, radiator, core support, etc to fix. Even if I did all that myself and bought used parts for all of it, I don't think I could keep it under $1500, and that's really cheap parts with free labor.
If you can keep the car note in-place, you can probably afford to fix it on the cheap instead of paying it off, but you will still be making payments on a salvage car with less-than-perfect repairs. It sounds to me like to are not prepared to tackle this job yourself, so you'd be at the mercy of a body shop.
In your shoes, I would start shopping for a nice 06-07 NC Miata in the $8-10K range, push for a $6k settlement, then make a nice down payment on a the newer car and have a manageable payment for 3 years. You end up with a much newer car that will hold value longer, and you aren't guessing about the safety/reliability of your daily ride.
I'd certainly be interested in bidding on the salvage if you do opt not to keep the car. PM me before you let insurance have it if you decide to go that route.
Polished Turd Racing
Mick wrote: "I think Jerrett is the best autocrosser I have ever seen naked."
I still disagree with OZMDD's figures. OZMDD is a pretty good wrench and all but your car got the crap kicked out of it.
Are you the DIY type? Can you pull the front end and replace all the parts that were destroyed?
Even when its all done you still have a Salvage Titled car which isn't going to help you when you go to sell it.
Here is some more information on Salvage title cars - http://www.carinsurance.com/Articles...insurance.aspx
What happen on the driver side? Driver's window break? The driver fender looks like it has dent is misaligned with the door.
M3 is always the answer.
The driver window is fine. We had to cut the battery cables to get the horn to stop so and the window was down. Tow guy just covered it with plastic.
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