by 32lbking » Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:06 pm
Same thing happened to me 16 years ago. Had a '96 Astro, hit the deer on my way home from work just as the sun was coming up. Called the sheriff , they said it would be over an hour before they could get there. Van was still drivable, so I drove a couple miles to a friends house. We went back and he shot the deer. When the sheriff got there he said we shouldn't have shot the deer :think:, but he didn't give us too much grief and my buddy was able to salvage some of the meat.
Van still drove great. Called the insurance guy, and he said he saw $3200 in damage on the outside, but he couldn't open the hood and said the damage under the hood was probably about the same. 6 year old van with 167k on it. They totaled it and gave me $6700 :o They had Enterprise bring a new rental car for us to drive for 30 days while we looked for another vehicle.
I found a really nice '97 Astro with 75k on it and bought it for $7000.
So after adding $300 to the insurance money, I ended up with a year newer vehicle with 100,000 less miles!
Oh yeah, I bought my wrecked van back from them for $800, and put $500 into it in new parts.
Other than the hood being bent a little by the hinges there was no other exterior sheetmetal damage, [just plastic parts, grille,headlight, turn signal etc.].
I did have to straighten the rad support to get the hood open and replace the radiator, AC condenser and fan. Was able to metal finish the hood and that was all that had to be painted.
We put another 30k on the '96 and then gave it to my daughter, who put another 40k on it.
Best experience we ever had with an insurance claim. :clap: