[V8] $3000 V8.....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Well, first of all, if Nationwide is offering $3000 for your car and the 
car CAN be repaired properly for that, then the obvious answer is to fix 
the car.  Secondly, if the car will cost MORE than that to fix the car, 
Nationwide can make all the offers they wish, but at the end if you can 
prove the car's value to be higher, then you must do that. Here is what 
you need to do to prove it.

1.  First of all, if you have some recent photos of the car, that will 
help a LOT. If photos are not available or relatively current, then it 
will make things a bit harder, but not impossible.  (For any V8 listers 
out  there who are driving their cars now and whose cars are relatively 
whole (all body panels the same color and the interiors are reasonably 
clean with no sagging headliners etc, etc, etc.  Take a bunch of 
photographs RIGHT now. Date stamp them if you can.)

2.  Go to the nearest Audi dealer and ask to speak with the sales 
manager. Explain to whomever jumps you as soon as you darken the door 
that you need help evaluating your car, and are NOT there to shop. That 
way you will get a salesman to help you get to the sales manager rather 
than think you are trying to jump his "up"...the time when he gets the 
floor to grab a customer.  Explain to the Audi sales manger the issue, 
and describe the car. Be honest and complete and do NOT over hype the 
car. You want his help and he needs to know he has nothing to lose by 
giving you a decent range. He will refer to the NADA book of course, and 
then his opinion will be that IF the car in good condition was sitting 
on his lot, he would expect to get "X" dollars from one of the people he 
knows who have specific interest in Audis.  He will invent this answer 
most likely. As him to put it into a short statement on letterhead, 
which he will likely do.

3. Follow the same procedure at a dealer who deals in high end European 
cars used. They might be more helpful as their entire business revolves 
around USED vehicles whereas the new car dealers' business is in 
wholesaling everything more than six seconds old and selling new stock.

4. Try going to a high end rice car dealer. They will likely be no help 
as their only interest in a pristine V8 would be to wholesale it, but 
you never know. A Lexus or Accura dealer might think having the car on 
the lot would be "cool", and they might give you a retail price in the 
six or seven grand region in writing.

The key is to get the estimates in writing. This does NOT commit the 
dealers to anything, but from an insurance company claims department 
standpoint, this establishes the market for your car. The policy 
settlement will require an ACV figure.  That Actual Cash Value means the 
reasonable, fair market value in the area of principal garaging of YOUR 
car, not some theoretical one located half a continent away.  It will be 
exceedingly difficult to establish fair market value unless you can get 
auto dealers to give a fair estimate of what they think they can sell 
your car for.

In my efforts to date to sell my V8, I have gone to the specialty car 
place that knows my car very well.  They replaced the front bumper on my 
car, refinished the BBS wheels I bought for the car and generally did a 
bit of spruceing up in the process which is what I wanted two summers 
ago because I planned to keep the car indefinitely.  You can check the 
place out here www.ayereuropeanauto.com.  Anyway, I would have given 
them the car to display for the duration and they suggested that I wait 
and they would make effort with photos and details to sell the car. They 
know of several "Audi" people who deal in the older cars. So far the 
results have been NADA.  Interest from the "Audi" people, but they have 
no active interest so acquiring it for resale is not going to happen for 
them now.

I took a shot on eBay.  I used a seven day ad as a trial and put up 24 
photos and a LOT of detail about the car and its history.  The result? 
More than 500 page views and around 30 "watchers".  18 bids with the 
high bid being just south of $1900.  I did NOT offer shipping and had 
about a dozen emails from interested people who talked the talk, but 
apparently didn't really want to walk the walk.

Currently, there is one V8 for sale actively on the Internet that I have 
found. I have NOT made an exhaustive search, but the one listed on eBay 
is in Chicago or somewhere at a dealer. The sale INcludes shipping, 
although I'm not sure if they will include shipping to Maine or San 
Diege at the Buy It Now price of $5900.  If they will, then the fair 
market value of that car is not more than $3500.  Thus the market.

That car has slightly more than 100,000 and is pretty decent looking, 
but with no real service record or other data to support the value.  My 
car is nearly perfect cosmetically and is as originally equipped except 
for the headlights which are fully relayed.  My car (imo) is better than 
the one on eBay now, but there is NO WAY that I will relist my car now 
and face competition that is anywhere near as good.  I have considered 
taking an ad on Bring a Trailer andfor now, think I am just no longer 
interested and have other fish to fry that are taking my attention away 
from the V8.  My wife is happy that I am considering just driving the 
car into the future anyway, so perhaps that is what I will do.  I have 
said int he past that these cars have tremendous value to the person who 
appreciates these cars, with proper maintenance
will run forever, so what's the sense in chasing the "next best thing" 
when a decent V8 is hard to duplicate.

I spent a lot of years in the commercial general insurance business and 
had to establish "fair market value" for numerous private passenger 
vehicles of my clients. The formula above will work, but it will not be 
magic. I think the high end of the value of these cars if they are near 
perfect is probably around $7500, but it will take a long time to find 
the ONE buyer who will pay that.  If your car is truly salvageable for 
$3-5 grand, get the insurance company to settle for around that and keep 
the car. The three grand offer isn't terrible, considering what seems to 
be the market for these cars now.

Roger

Oh, yeah.  fender seals. I had the fender seals on my V8 replaced two 
summers ago along with the other work. Ray Ayer's shop did the work and 
he has all sorts of sources. I'm not sure that I even knew how much the 
seals were going to be then, but around $70 seems to ring a bell.  The 
bumper cover from Audi was $1200 I think, but I bought mine from Force 5 
and it was perfect...but used...and cost $150 I think. The moral to this 
story is that if you hunt for parts you will eventually find good used 
parts at 10% the cost of the dealer. The dealers have zero interest in 
these cars, and in fact, the dealers in general have zero interest in 
cars at all. All the cars are to a dealer is inventory to be moved, and 
cars could just as well be toilet paper to them as it all looks the same 
on the bottom line.  (I'm cynical:  I was also in the car business once 
upon a time!).

Oh, yeah, and another thing. VERY shortly the audiobook of my novel, The 
Mists of Adriana will be available. It will be available on Amazon and 
iTunes and a bunch of other places.  (hint, hint, hint!).  And the other 
exciting news is that The Mists of Adriana: Book II will be out in 
December in ebook and paperback with Audio book recording coming 
probably in late January.  (another hint, hint, hint!). Remember:  all 
proceeds of my book sales go to the non-profit "Keep Roger's V8 On the 
Road".  VERY worthy cause and helps me to regale all V8 listers with my 
clever posts!