Total Loss - sell aftermarket parts or originals?
 

My 01 Celica GTS got sandwiched between two vehicles recently and the car's a write off. ICBC's estimated damage is just about $20k and the valuation of the car is around $6500. I've had quite a few mods done to it and have kept pretty much all the original parts. I haven't dealt with the total loss department yet but have been chatting with the estimators and they said I could swap out the aftermarket parts on the car for the originals. I have done a search through the forum and got some answers but have a question and an ask for people's opinions. To provide context, the car is almost 16 years old and most of the parts were swapped out in the 3rd to 5th year of the cars age, so there's more "wear and tear" on the aftermarket parts then there would be on the original parts. Also, the Celica has been discontinued for a number of years now.
1. Question - if I do swap parts out, does that change the valuation? And if it does change, will it change up or down?
2. Ask - do you guys think it would be better for me to just take the final valuation from ICBC and sell the original parts separately or swap out the parts and sell the aftermarket parts separately?

It kinda depends on what the parts are, and their condition. What kind of stuff do you have?

I've dealt with something similar for a friend. In this case, the following was true. It depended on aftermarket part value minus depreciation vs oem replacement part value minus depreciation. Car is 10 year old. Example, aftermarket wheel and tire combo was $1500 from tirerack. Receipt says its 5 years old. OEM new wheel and tire combo 3500 today from dealer. Even though oem wheels could be found used on craigslist for $400 with tires. They use some mystery formula to depreciate the aftermarket set 5 years and oem set 10 years. Found out car was worth more if it had OEM wheels. So the total payout for the car was lower because the car was modified.

Pretty much a bit of everything. Ground effects (front's wrecked, so I'll sell the original), car seats (Sparco's in the car), Suspension, short shifter, gauges, transmission (this would be a pain to take out what's in the car), exhaust, etc.

Receipts are pretty much gone and most of the after market stuff I have is specific to my car and not available anymore since the Celica got discontinued.
Thanks for the input though. I'm thinking of just leaving the aftermarket stuff on the car just because of the effort to remove them, finding buyers, etc and just sell whatever I can of the original parts I have with the rest going to a scrap yard.

well..
1. you have to pay to get the car towed from icbc to your place / mechanic shop and then back again so take this into account

2. usually without receipts ICBC will only give you a partial payment if any for aftermarket parts (if you can't prove it, they love to shove their dick up your ass)

3. considering parts, there may be a market for the seats as they can be used in another vehicle with rails (depends on how much wear there is) OE seats you have will rarely ever be sold as nobody is really looking for them unless you let them go for cheap to someone who wants to refresh interior.

MY opinion on what you should do. Leave it as is, take a payment from ICBC. But things you should note:

1. ICBC is obligated to at least give you two offers for your car. ICBC has to also pay you the ACV (actual cash value) for your car to put you in another vehicle of no better or no worse - what does this mean? They have to pay you a fair value of what it would cost for you to buy another 2001 Celica GTS with similar kms and condition, so craigslist and buy/sell hunt for ads that are similar to yours and submit those to ICBC to try and get your ACV raised (minimum 4 ads needed)

2. Ask total loss department / adjuster how much it will cost to buy back the vehicle (referred to as salvage value) if this is cheap enough and you think you can make back more than the cost from parts, buy it back. keep in mind you still have to pay the tow from ICBC to your place. This is also only viable if you have not signed a salvage release and have not given verbal consent for icbc to sell/scrap/salvage your vehicle.




EDIT: decided not to get lazy and quickly look at prices on your celica. don't do the ad thing as buy/sell prices do not seem to be in your favor. seeing roughly $4k as average price. but you could still buy back if cheap enough where you think you can make a decent profit.

In some instances you can actually go to the shop and remove parts that are easy to swap (as I did in my case with roof racks, diffuser, subwoofer, a few others, wheels if i wanted to). If there were ENOUGH parts for me to swap out then I would have towed it back to my place and replaced with oem (like if i still had my stock suspension, wheels, exhaust, etc etc) then it would have been to pay whatever fee for towing (or free if you have BCAA) but in my case it wasn't.

So up to you!

Depending on how significant the impact was it might be best to just let those seats be destroyed, if there was anyone sitting in them at the time the mounting points could be compromised.

The_AK: ICBC has changed this. We used to be able to go and do this, but now they require any part removal to be done outside of their centers. I believe it was changed a few years ago. it sucks, but as you mentioned if you have BCAA and the plates are still on the car it should be no issue.

Oh this was done at the repair shop. Told them which shop I wanted to do the repairs, it got there, and got assessed further by the folk doing the repair. Later I got a phone call saying my car was a total loss and that I could go grab any belongings before it got moved to ICBC's yard.

Might be better off just taking the whatever amount the cheque is from icbc.
Like others have said, you gotta factor in towing cost as well as shop time, if you're towing it to a shop. Plus labour time if you don't know how to remove said part yourself.
Being that it's a 16yrs old car that not many ppl mod nowadays anyways, it may not be worth the hassle.
Maybe strip out the part that's universal with other cars. Cuz it'll be kinda hard trying to sell Celica specific parts. Theyre just not in the same category as rx7 parts or s14 parts I'd u know what I mean.
I personally don't think it's worth it in the end since the Celica modding community isn't very big.

Gl with your decision.

I have to agree with this poster......Just not worth the time or effort on such a old car that isn't that popular. If it was a Honda I might say get the parts.

Thanks for all the replies. Helps with the decision making.