When you’re selling a car, it can be tempting to keep driving it until it sells, whether out of necessary use or simply saying goodbye, I get it. Closure matters, and when your time with a car is coming to an end, it can be tempting to send it out in a memorable way. However, it’s probably best to temper your use of a collector car you’re selling and leave it mostly parked if you can.
Now obviously, parking it if you can serves a few good purposes. Mileage on the odometer will stick pretty close to what’s written in the listing, low use may mean lower probability of a mechanical issue cropping up, and if you had a car detailed, keeping it in the garage should keep it fairly tidy and presentable. However, there’s another reason why you might want to park it — each time you drive a car, there’s a slight possibility of it being damaged.
Usually, this results in some really minor stuff. A stone chip here, maybe a door ding there, little cosmetic things that you might expect on a used car, and that probably won’t drastically affect resale value, assuming you’re selling something in pretty average condition. However, there’s also the possibility that worse damage can occur, as one Bring A Trailer seller recently found out.
It all starts with a 1993 Corolla DX wagon, a shining example of economical ’90s transportation. It’s a Corolla so it’ll never break, it’s a wagon so you can camp in it and put paintings in it and all that. What’s more, it had been owned by the same person in California since new, and with 159,000 miles on the clock, was only getting started.
Sure, it might’ve had an automatic transmission, but it looked properly clean. It’s easy to develop a soft spot for cars like this because they’re just so perfectly fit-for-purpose, sophisticated enough to be relentlessly reliable, yet basic enough to be easily fixable with common tools. All was going well until the calendar flipped around to 2025, when the thing no car owners wants to happen happened. As the seller wrote in a comment:
Yesterday evening, while stopped at a red light, the elderly driver of the car behind accidentally rolled forward and dented the rear passenger side of the bumper. Fortunately, no one was hurt. There is no mechanical damage; the car runs smoothly, the brake lights work, and the trunk opens and closes as expected. I’ve uploaded plenty of pictures and a video to provide you with an honest, detailed look at the current condition of the car—please take your time to review them. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Alright, let’s take a closer look at the pictures to … oh. Oh, that’s more than just a love tap. Yes, the bumper’s caved in, but the more concerning thing here is the obvious crease in the quarter panel. That means important stuff back there is definitely bent, and it might cost more than the car to fix. While the high bid prior to this was $4,000, Bring A Trailer reset the bidding process and let bidders start from scratch.
The result? A sale price of $3,500. Not only did the damage reportedly done by another driver hurt the resale value of this Corolla, but it’s damage that’ll take some serious money to sort by the next owner. Considering comparable Corolla wagons have traded for $8,300 and $10,250 on Bring A Trailer last year, this crash damage could’ve left a lot of money on the table. It’s hard not to feel bad for the person selling this Corolla. Thirty-plus years of care taken to preserve it, only for one driver to reportedly undo it.
At the end of the day, let this serve as a reminder that if you’re selling a car, looking to get the most for it, and are able to use another car in the meantime, it’s probably a good idea to leave the car you’re selling parked for the most part. One last ride may feel great, and it probably won’t hurt anything, but you have to be prepared for the unexpected.
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)
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Stuff is more likely to happen if you drive it, but if you leave it parked, the garage could burn or a tree could fall on it. Shit happens.
The way that paint smeared and stretched is…odd.
Thank you for the reminder that I should NOT fix the cosmetic body damage to my truck. I’m certain that if I fixed the dented bedside and rocker damage my son inflicted, it would then have another mishap and all those $$$$ would vanish.
Maybe it’s just me, but that looks a lot more like an “oops, I backed into a pole/bollard” than “a little old lady hit me”.
Looks like a deluxe version of the Camry Dent, and yeah, that’s how it usually happens.
I would assume the person was compensated for the damage from the other drivers insurance offsetting the diminished value at sale time.
I’d assume that the insurance company would do it’s utmost to avoid paying out a penny and the seller is probably sol. I wish I lived in your world 🙁
This. The other person’s provider is going to look at the age and mileage and try to lowball the hell out of them. Rarity be damned. They’re in a better position than having to argue with their own provider, though.
I remember I was selling a 1992 BMW 525i a few years back, I had already committed to selling it to a person but they needed the weekend to get the money together, so what did I do? I took it on a quick little road trip to California and back, adding 1500 miles to it in like 2 days. Oops. To my credit, nothing bad happened to the vehicle and it already had well over 300k miles on it so it wasn’t going to affect the value in any way.
I would keep driving it if it was just me posting a FB or CL ad. But when you’re paying for an auction, different story.
I put myself in a similar situation.
I found a monster of an opportunity to buy an older Subaru Forester in great condition here in west Michigan, where they are extremely popular. Old lady driven. It just needed a bit of maintenance and cleanup before flipping.
I put just basic minimum insurance on it and intended to be rid of it within a month. I drove it to work just occasionally to monitor performance, etc.
My job required me to travel locally occasionally. One day, no company vehicles were available, so I drove the Subaru against company policy. On the freeway, a semi kicked up a bolt that went part way through the center of the windshield. My company wouldn’t reimburse me. It cost me $250.
Then, after repairing that, exactly a week later, I was driving it and made a lane change without signaling. A young and distracted driver rear ended me. (I had to admit it was my fault.)
This repair cost me $2500.
I sold the vehicle at a loss and suffered “the look” from my wife.
In high school, I was eyeing a six-door 1971 Chrysler New Yorker Limousine I found for sale parked along a driveway on a 2-lane highway. After a few days, I decided it was time to get serious and take it for a test drive. To my dismay, something terrible had occurred overnight. A wheel had come off a speeding semi and drilled the car right in the driver door hinge post, just below the A-pillar. The impact pushed that part of the car in a good 8″, moved the entire dash laterally, and the body lines on the passenger side were visibly tweaked. So what would have been a cool and valuable car was now a parts car.
If he was rear-ended, wouldn’t the car repairs be paid for by the insurance of the offending driver?
Is this also even more reason to have a classic car insurance policy like Hagerty?
Keep in mind that Hagerty is a little difference then normal vehicle insurance. Hagerty is more like home insurance in the way that they’re looking at assessed values and replacement costs then they are the actuarial value of the vehicle (i.e. scrap/auction value).
Just remember, except in certain cases, insurance isn’t worth it on a macro scale. If a company writes you a policy to cover your vehicle at $500 a month, they are fairly confident that you will pay more in premiums then the lifetime payout they’d have to provide, that’s the only way they make money. So in many cases, you’re better off with taking what you’d pay for a premium, and putting it in a high yield savings, and then using that if there’s ever a need to pay-out.
However, there is a big caveat, and this is an example of The Gambler’s Fallacy; for any one person, a high-loss even could be ruinous, even if the likelihood of that event is low. So if you have grampas Superbird in your garage, even though the likelihood of it being swept up in a tornado is low, if it ever happens, it would be an unrecoverable loss, and this is where classic insurance makes sense.
I feel like that really makes the case then,especially if you’re planning to sell your classic. Situations vary, but generally it seems if you’re going to list your classic you’re hoping it sells in a relatively short period of time, so the chance of the premium exceeding the value of the car is low.
Yes exactly, cases where the total sum of the premium over the time period does not exceed the value of the asset. Houses are another good example, the sum of your home insurance premium is unlikely to exceed the value of your home, but the cost of losing a home without it would be astronomical.
Only if you can garage your car. They won’t insure cars kept in a driveway.
Absolutely. Or any kind of stated value policy, for that matter.
Not really, in most states, your insurance pays first then files for reimbursement from the other vehicle. Moreover, there are agreed vehicle values that most insurance use to prevent insurance fraud. That is why if you have a custom or highly valuable vehicle, you need special insurance because they might more cover the full value.
When I bought my Outback, the dealer mechanic took my keys to my second-generation Escape, which at that time was leaking several petrochemicals at once, and the ignition switch was starting to go, so you sometimes had to wiggle the key a little to get the car to start.
He came back in when it wouldn’t fire up, and then went back out and successfully started the car and took it for a quick loop around the parking lot. Sitting there, expecting them to offer me something like a grand for the car, my jaw hit the floor when they offered me 8. Drove directly to my parents, parked it in their garage over several layers of cardboard and left it there for a week until my new car was delivered.
Wow.
Of course if I’m expecting 1, they offer 8, I’m countering with 9.5. 🙂
I had pretty much the worst case scenario of this happen with my first Miata, 10 years ago. I’d been trying to sell it for while, and wasn’t driving it, so I dropped it down to liability insurance to save some money. My ’91 Escort daily had some issue, so I had to drive the Miata to work one day.
On the way home, a Tahoe driving on the wrong side of the road T-boned me while I was making a left turn. The driver and passenger had just robbed a dollar store and were being chased by the cops, which explains why the guy was driving on the wrong side of the road.
I was fine, but the Miata was destroyed, and since the driver had no insurance, and all I had was liability, I got $0. Pretty big deal to lose a bit over $3k when you’re making $8.50 an hour.
Ouch! Gotta count the blessings on that one, though. A friend of mine was nearly killed when some kids running from the cops drove on the wrong side of the road and T-boned him.
They made this generation Corolla a wagon?
*instinctually opens up facebook marketplace*
Many years ago, I had just detailed our 1980 626 coupe and hung a for sale sign in the window and had it parked on the street while moving other vehicles around. I new driver in a Fastback Clydesdale pulled into the neighbor’s driveway across the street to turn around. Backing out he ran into our car while I was walking into my house.
So just parking it can be dangerous.
In this case it actually turned out pretty good. This was back when an insurance adjuster would be sent out to asses the damage. Turns out the adjuster they sent had been a paint and body guy before becoming an adjuster. He wrote me a check for the dented qtr and broken tail light and handed me cash for the difference between that and the asking price. A couple of month later I ran into him driving the car. He had repaired the damage and did a complete paint job. It was red but he changed it to a metallic grey and did the jambs, underside of the hood and trunk and it looked great.
On the drive to the dealer to trade in my 1999 Grand Cherokee (with 200k) it blew the rear transmission seal leaving a trail of ATF+4 in its wake.
Almost the same on my wife’s ’03 mercury mountaineer. It didn’t vomit, but the output shaft got wedged inside the casing as we crossed into their parking lot. Thankfully they still honored the offer they’d made over the phone as trade for it so we came out ahead. About the only car deal I’ve ever ruly come out on top with.
I had an employee who sold a Honda motorcycle, but couldn’t find the title. He decided to take it for one last ride and managed to clock a deer. Broke a bunch of bones, cracked his helmet (which probably saved his life). $15,000 life flight.
One last drive….not a good idea
The first few listing photos I went to take of my Tacoma last year show some splotches on the ground that turned out to be power steering fluid from the pump shitting the bed right then and there. It always figures, doesn’t it?
When I visited Peru ~10 years ago, Corolla wagons were the default taxi. Many in questionable condition. But I had never seen them on the roads here. Until years later I was in the car and telling someone about my trip to Peru. Mentioned the Corolla wagons and just as a I said “I don’t think they sold them here though” one drove right past us.
Not really related to the point of this story, but it was such a spectacular coincidence I felt that I needed to share it.
Perú allows the US vehicles to be imported and registered without any changes as long as the steering wheel is on the left-hand side. I’ve seen a wide variety of American vehicles from the 1980s and 1990s, including a homely 1980 Ford Thunderbird, in Lima.
I’ve never NOT sold a car by driving it around with a phone number or custom Gmail address listed on a sign in the window (in addition to parking it on weekends in a nearby church or grocery parking lot). What better way to sell a car than to literally show it to thousands of people a day who can see that it’s in decent physical shape and actual capable of being used for car stuff?
Yes, I realize I’m representing the 99% here, so criticism noted.
Why not just let the insurance company pay you the $8k and take $3k on a salvage title?
Maybe because you’d be lucky to get $1,000 from the insurance co for a ’93 Corolla?
This just made it into an authentic toyota. “Camry” dent and all
People pay HOW MUCH for a 160,000 mile, 30 year old Corolla wagon?!?
Well, they do have a trailer full of money they bring to every deal. That’s the intent of the site, right?
Someone tell Toyota that could be their money Toyota Corolla Touring Sports | New Cars | Toyota UK
Well he’s getting $3.5k plus whatever insurance is paying him. Bumper, hatch, fender, that’s going to be a few thousands more.
And he has good comps from BaT if the insurance co tries to low-ball him. But for SURE, if you have a car like this, you need agreed-value insurance to protect you. Harder to find, but it’s out there.
Unless he’s got agreed-value classic car insurance, he’s not getting squat for a 30 year old Corolla with six digit mileage, regardless of it’s physical condition.
Other people hit him so what coverage he has doesn’t matter unless the other party has no insurance.
BTW I got 4k for my 40 year old Corolla when someone rear ended it just like that. They don’t worth much but they’re not worthless.
As mentioned above, he’s got good comps from BaT to use. He’s also in a much better position arguing against the other provider vs his own. Assuming there is no stated value policy on the car, he’d have to argue against his provider with their knowledge of his premiums and what they charge him to cover. Dealing with another provider is much better, as you get to say “my vehicle was in perfect shape until your customer destroyed it, and I will only accept what will put me back in to the exact same vehicle”. If he can show $8k comps, he’ll get $8k. I had this exact experience when a 2000 Land Cruiser I owned was rear ended by a dump truck and pushed in to the back of a semi in front of me. The dump truck’s provider was really excited to offer me $8k for the truck, which was exactly blue book. I then sent them a stack of receipts totaling about $20k for purchase, maintenance, and very recent upgrades. They paid me $23k. I will never forget their adjuster’s name because he was a sonuvabitch. Fuck you, Tim Ogelsby.
Bonus if the offending driver was in a commercially insured vehicle.