I have a 2007 G35 Coupe, which I leased in December 2006 for a 3-year term, and was at about 16k miles.

Just over 2 weeks ago, while stopped at a stoplight, I was rear-ended by someone in a BMW going 25-30mph. They admitted full fault on file with the police report and my insurance company. The damage was pretty bad, but appeared to be mostly superficial (trunk was squished a little, rear quarter panel was rippled, exhaust bent, bumper basically destroyed). I found a reputable shop that does work on BMWs, Porsches, Audis, etc and dropped my car off last week for evaluation.

After some back-and-forth between my the body shop and the two insurance companies, they determined that my car is a total loss. After they pulled the panels off of the car the deeper damage was much more apparent and worse than initially thought. The body shop told me this yesterday morning but I have not since been able to get a hold of my insurance adjuster to get details on what happens next (yay Mercury - nice folks but slow). My previous car was totaled as well (not my fault either - I wasn't even driving the car!), but that one was a purchase that was only a couple of grand away from being paid off, so it was a clean deal.

Does anyone have any idea what happens now? The total damage came out to a ballpark of $15k, but the total dealer resale value on my car according to kbb.com is around $25k. I have no idea what all goes down when a lease is considered totaled. Does the insurance pay off the lease loan amount? Will I end up having to pay anything out of pocket?

I'm a bit nervous, any advice would be much appreciate!

Thanks!

 

Most likely they won't d*ck you over and the insurance company will pay off the amount owed to the bank on the lien. Hopefully, you'll end up with some money in your pocket to put down as a down payment towards your next car. Good thing you're okay. And it's true, hidden damage is hard to calculate at first and once they do get to it, they can call it "totaled" depending on what it adds up to. You should try and get a hold of whomever is in charge of this case from your insurance and get to the bottom of this.

 

same thing happen to me (see here)i was way over in miles and was going to have to buy it or pay the difference. long story short my insurance company ended up paying the car off and sent me a check of the difference. g/l

 

If you leased throught Infiniti, you automatically get GAP insurance through Infiniti. If there is a GAP between the payoff and what the Insurance comany wants to pay you will be covered.

Its funny they are giving you a total loss. I had a simlar accident last year but to the front end. I ended up with $18k in damages and they still fixed it. Insurance adjuster claimed my car was coming up with a $30k resale value (06 coupe). I was shocked by the dollar amount and even told him I couldnt sell it for anything more that $25k. So go figure. Be happy for the total loss and enjoy your new car.

 

In these times I find it hard to believe that any leased car is worth more than the lease payoff.

How much did you put down on the lease? If you put a lot down then most of that money was in the trunk when you got hit and now can not be recovered! Don’t put money down on a lease. It is just too much of a gamble.

 

I only put down $1k, so I'm OK.

 

You are only ok if you are ok loosing $500+.

 

I had the SAME exact accident happen to me in my 06 coupe but they didnt total my car