Start gathering data now! Asking prices and sale prices on comps. Since
your car is rare in the grand scheme of things you can extend your comp
list a couple years each way and not limit yourself to Quads only.
During negotiations you can explain that the Quad is rarer and cost more
to begin with so Spider prices need to be adjusted upward accordingly.
I went through this recently on a low mileage '88 Chev pickup truck.
Repair estimate was $1800. The insurance company (Allstate) totaled it
and offered $700. I declined and showed them a bunch of comps showing
similar trucks going for much more than that. They came back with $1200
so I hit them with more examples. The insurance companies use some
service to provide them with comp prices and they will claim that the
service info is gospel. Not true. The comp service will have maybe three
comps, and on an Alfa maybe not even that many. At that point I hit them
with even more examples and they finally offered $1700 less 10% to allow
me to keep the truck. (Indiana is not a salvage title state so the title
never changed hands and there was no buy-back as such.) You won't be
able to flood them with comps since it is an Alfa, but on the other hand
they won't have data to show your numbers are wrong.
This whole process took six weeks. It finally settled when someone at
Allstate realized that I was driving a $50 per day rental truck on their
dime all the while we were negotiating.
What is that Latin phrase that translates to: "Don't let the bastards
grind you down?"
John
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