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The-Last-Word

Good as new? As if.

Don’t try to sell me a car that has been in a crash.

My wife’s first new car was a bright red Honda Civic hatchback. I noticed fading paint on one of the quarter-panels when we first met, which was very apparent because the paint on the rest of the vehicle still looked really good. She explained that the faded paint was where the vehicle had been damaged and repaired.

My own first new car was a 2004 Honda CRV. During its first year, the back end was damaged.  It was repaired ‘good as new’. A few years ago, the paint at the back end of the car began to deteriorate, and today there is an area where it has completely peeled off. There is also a recurring, annoying problem with the back door sensor.

The impacts in these collisions had not been terribly significant. I am no car guy, but I assume that the greater the severity of the impact, the more likely there will be this or that residual problem even if a highly reputed auto body shop has done their best to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

So no, don’t bother trying to sell me damaged goods. Well, unless you sell it to me at a deep discount to compensate for those annoying issues, the inevitable fading/peeling paint, and potentially more significant problems that might crop up. The discount will have to be mighty deep, though.

You can reassure me to the end of the Earth and back that the car was repaired even better than new, because old parts were replaced with new ones, the paint job was of the highest quality, and so on. You might even be right. I’m not going to believe you, though, because of my personal experience. Most others won’t either. You will have to accept a discount or not sell your car.

The loss of value of a vehicle because of a crash, which arises from a loss of consumer confidence in the repaired Humpty Dumpty, is called ‘accelerated depreciation’. My brand new CRV suffered immediate depreciation of value as soon as I drove it off the lot. There was another jump of depreciation as soon as it had been in a crash.

I plan on hanging onto my CRV for another few years, hoping to pass it on to be the children’s car as they get older. We might drive it until it dies, in which case the accelerated depreciation loss of value is one that will never cost me money, because I will never be in a position of trying to sell it.

Whether or not I choose to sell it, the vehicle asset that I am driving around is, in fact, less valuable than it would have been had the crash not occurred. That is a loss. Not surprisingly, the law says that if someone inflicts that loss on you, there is a right of fair compensation. 

At what point, though, is the loss assessed? The law says the loss is assessed as of the time the loss was inflicted. This is an important point, because the difference in market value to my 12 year old CRV is far less than it was when the crash occurred.

I include this accelerated depreciation loss along with the claim for fair compensation for injuries, income losses, and expenses that I pursue on behalf of my injured clients. What if, though, there is no injury claim? What if your vehicle is damaged in a crash and you were not injured? Insurance covers the expense of putting Humpty Dumpty together again. What about the accelerated depreciation loss to the value of your vehicle?

A reader posed this question to me recently. I provided him with the name of a vehicle appraiser (necessary to prove the amount of the loss) along with a link to on-line information on how to pursue a Small Claims lawsuit against the offending driver. If the offending driver’s liability insurance company, ICBC, won’t willingly compensate this loss, Small Claims provides an excellent tool to extract fairness.

E-mail if you would like me to send the materials to you.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



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About the Author

Lawyer Paul Hergott began writing as a columnist in January 2007. 

Achieving Justice, based on Paul’s personal injury practice at the time, focused on injury claims and road safety.  It was published weekly for 13½ years until July 2020, when his busy legal practice no longer left time for writing.

Paul was able to pick up writing again in January 2024. After transitioning his practice to estate administration and management.

Paul’s intention is to write primarily about end of life and estate related matters, but he is very easily distracted by other topics.

You are encouraged to contact Paul directly at [email protected] with legal questions and issues you would like him to write about.



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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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