Buying and selling a vehicle can get pretty complicated. There’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of official hoops to jump through, and a lot of angst over whether you’re getting/paying a fair price.  Auto appraisers have a lot of knowledge about vehicle markets and can...

What Is a Lemon Law? Lemon Laws are laws in place to help protect consumers who have unknowingly purchased a defective vehicle. The defect can be something affecting the vehicle’s safety, performance, or resale value. As with many other things, Lemon Laws vary from...

Wanna talk secrets? Diminished value is a secret insurance companies would love to keep. While they more or less dutifully pay out to fix your car after an accident, they don’t want to tell you that you may also be able to claim diminished value and collect a whole...

If you have filed an insurance claim after a wreck, a claims adjuster will assess the damage and decide whether it’s fixable and how much it would cost. Insurance companies usually deem a car a total loss if repairs will cost more than the vehicle is worth.  In total...

Want to know how to get the most out of your diminished value (DV) claim? Here’s the answer in three words: expert auto appraisal. If you’ve been the victim of an accident in which your high end vehicle sustained damage, the only way to recover the maximum value of...

Buying a late model used car can be a savvy way to save money on an excellent vehicle, but what if the vehicle that was represented to you as clean or even certified turns out to be a lemon? What if it was previously damaged and the dealer didn’t disclose that? Or...

There are any number of reasons you might need to know the worth of a vehicle. You might  be:   Looking to find out your car’s trade-in value   Wondering if the classic car you’re considering buying is worth the asking price  Dividing assets in a divorce case  ...

How much does a diminished value appraisal cost? If you are in a position to ask this question, you deserve some sympathy. Everything about being involved in a car accident is a nightmare. Even if you or a loved one avoids injury, there’s a lot to deal with in the...

When a car has been in an accident, it doesn’t matter whether the damage was repaired perfectly and the car restored to its pre-accident condition; it will almost certainly decrease in value.   When buyers look at a vehicle’s history and see that it has been in a...

The Top 10 Mistakes That California Auto Appraisers Make (And How to Avoid Them) Car appraisals can be done by dealerships or by consulting online calculators, and sometimes this is okay. There are a few occasions, however, when you should get a rock-solid...

Did you ever stop to consider the amount of trust in your fellow human beings that it takes to get behind the wheel of a car and drive it out of the garage?  If you stop to think about it for very long, you might never drive again. There could be anyone driving that...

Filing a diminished value (dv) claim after an accident is necessary if you want to recover the difference between what your car was worth before the crash and what it is worth now. For while the insurance company covers the cost of restoring your car to its...