Quote Originally Posted by kung fu jesus View Post
Randolph...helped a friend remotely going through the same thing with his NA. He was trying to get fair market, provided receipts, etc. and they blocked him at most every turn. The goal was to break-even on the car, as a stock unit, but also get the car back so he could remove a lot of the add-ons he put in it (rollbar, wheels, suspension, etc.). It was a long process, but he got a decent value on the car, bout it back, and started stripping off the extra parts. It's frustrating for sure, but the values on Miatas are ALL over the place. The at-fault driver's insurer was requiring my friend to provide DEALERSHIP values of '94 Miatas in his area...which is ludicrous. Receipts he couldn't find, he reached out to the vendors from confirmation emails sent after purchase. A lot of them were really helpful to email him duplicate invoices for the stuff he purchased.


I've gone through the process of reduced payoff/ retain title on two other cars. Striped the old one for the replacement one...but am thinking a great deal of what was added is under the hood- and crushed. So far I am getting the "We found a '99 at a dealer 150 miles away...you could get it!" approach. I doubt anyone would have receipts for things I bought 10 to 15 years ago also. So I am stuck there. In the end, my car was highly reliable, with just small maintenance issues to cover for the next 100,000 miles. I knew every inch of the car and had planned against that for other issues in life I would rather spend money on. Losing it means I lost all my reliability and destroys that budgeting...so my sights are focused mainly on that in a replacement chassis. Prices are stupid from one extreme to the other here in Florida! Lately all I see are automatics- and that is certainly not a replacement for a Miata with a manual.......!