It will be gone soon

Very sad to hear. Trucks like these in good condition and low miles can be difficult to find, and when you do, everyone wants ungodly amounts of money for them. I've been looking at slightly newer Sports and Sport Tracs a lot and its crazy how much money people want for them.

Coming from a kid probably your son's age, I think you're on to something with your son's next vehicle, especially if he does have a tendency of not caring. My Explorer was passed down to me as a first car and I only had liability/minimum insurance. The deal was that I'm on my own with it. If I wreck it, or destroy it from lack of maintenance, or anything of the sort, then that's too bad and I'd be getting awfully familiar with the bus schedule or rides in my mom's minivan, lol. You better believe I treated it like gold from that point on. Its sad to see people not respecting or treating other peoples stuff nicely until it hits them hard.

Let me start by saying I am an insurance agent in Tennessee. I always say buy your under age drivers the cheapest vehicle you can and only put Liability on it because they are going to wreck it or break it.

What they said ^ tell him its his last vehicle you're buying. And its only got liability.

Didn't entirely work on me. I still wrecked my explorer (running 60mph on ice) but the $800 in repairs hurt alot more than that ditch.

Get a rusty, clamped out 2nd Gen to replace it.

i must have been one of the few kids that guarded his vehicle with his life. back in 89/90 we inherited my grandfathers 87 plane jane ranger. when i was 16 my folks let me drive it (they had their own vehicles). it got to the point that my dad started getting mad at me because i washed it to much, and did the oil changes on it to soon. they ended up giving me the truck when i was around 20. when i was around 24 or 25 i ended up painting it (i was a bodyman by trade) and sold it (to a older person that i knew would take care of it, but unfortunately ended up passing 2 years afterwards, and i tried like hell to find it to buy it back). my folks were very happy that i did take great care of it. after seeing posted that the kid has a bad habit of not caring, my answer is, you to shouldnt care then if he has something and tell him to invest in a bus pass. thats me however.

My dad passed away 2 years ago in Nov, just as both my kids were ready for their 1st car. My plan was to buy the 1st car, and they would be own their own after that. Didn't quite work that way.

My daughter (16) liked my dad's '98 Buick LeSabre, so I bought it from the estate for her for less than I would have paid elsewhere. She let some friends drive it one night - supposedly for a short distance. Don't know what they did, but somehow the engine that had never had a problem locked up. We then bought her a nice '02 Sable with 112,000 miles. She had $$ from a settlement from an accident she was in as a passenger, and used some of that towards the Sable. I kicked in what I had in the Buick since it wasn't her fault it locked up. 6 weeks later, a less experienced 16 yr old merged into the right front of the Sable and totaled it. She never stopped driving it though, but it looks like crap through neglect on her part and the actions of her idiot friends who obviously have no respect for someone else's property.

I found a very nice '97 Mounty for my son. 196,000 miles, but in very good condition. He drove it sparingly for 10 months, and a year ago next week, somebody pulled out in front of him while he was going 55 mph on a country road. Absolutely totaled his Mounty. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=403808 Replaced it with another nice '97 Mounty, 123,000 miles, but 2WD, using money from the settlement.

2 kids, each had a car totaled due to someone else's action. My daughter might have avoided the crash if she had been more aware of her surroundings, like she is now. Absolutely nothing my son could have done to avoid his wreck. Inexperience, other drivers, and idiot teenagers with no respect for other's property are good reasons to buy something cheap, but safe, for their 1st car.

If all goes according to plan it will ride again!

I was staring at the repair estimate and realized if we drop painting and some other minor fixups the settlement will pay for a new front end. He did not tweak the frame. So I am buying it back from the insurance company for salvage price and have already applied for a PA certificate of salvage.

We have told our son he will have to save his money to pay for repainting it. For a while it will be mis-matched but that is his problem. (As you can tell I am more than pissed at him.) We will make him contribute to the complete restoration.

The downside to this is that the new title (which he will also have to pay for) will be a PA reconstructed vehicle title AKA a salvage title.

When we kept my daughter's Sable after it was totaled, we (I) didn't have to do anything with the title. It just stayed in my name as it was. Of course, I'm sure Ia and Pa do things differently, and I kept the car as part of the settlement. It was never signed over to the insurance co, so there was no buying it back. My daughter drove it home after the accident, so we had physical possession of the car all through the process. I pulled the fender out and did some trimming so I could get the headlight in, and got a mirror for it. Otherwise she's been driving it as is. Had the inner fender structure been pushed in another 3/4", it would have been into the engine (mounted sideways ) and it wouldn't have been worth keeping. It will take more extensive repairs to get your Sport Trac on the road, but I'm glad to hear that's your plan. Hope it goes well!

Since we had collision on it the insurance totaled it and the title now falls under PA salvage rules. The bummer of that besides we lop 40% off the value due to the salvage we have to pay for a new title.

Mark2003 said:

I am buying it back from the insurance company for salvage price and have already applied for a PA certificate of salvage.

We have told our son he will have to save his money to pay for repainting it. For a while it will be mis-matched but that is his problem. (As you can tell I am more than pissed at him.) We will make him contribute to the complete restoration.

The downside to this is that the new title (which he will also have to pay for) will be a PA reconstructed vehicle title AKA a salvage title.

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I'm glad to hear there may be a (somewhat) silver lining to this. If it is as nice as you say, it's good that you will be able to use it. Your son having to contribute to the process should be a good lesson as well. I had a junkyard rear hatch on my truck for awhile, so I am familiar with having mis-matched color parts. Everyday I walked past the truck, as well as anyone else, it was a good reminder to get paint on there. Luckily, mine wasn't from a collision but it still stared at me in the face every day until I got it painted.

I've been traveling way too much for work and remiss in posting the end result.



Once I got the insurance company to understand that I wanted to buy the Ford back (that took a couple of attempts) they got me to the right person. Waiting for the certificate of salvage to get them to release the $$$ took about three weeks. The whole re-build took about 1.5 months.

Besides painting dear son will have to pay for:

• New title
• Certificate of salvage
• Tax on buying the Ford back from insurance
• Enhanced safety inspection (since it is now considered reconstructed and the title says so)
• Difference between insurance payout and final repair price

All that is around $600.

I bought all my vehicles with my money and carried the insurance as well. I had accidents, but I learned and fixed them. Its important to not have a vehicle handed to a new driver, but rather have them work for it. They will respect it more.

Hell im 25 and still drive the cheapest vehicles! I have a mountain bike thats worth more then both my Explorer and Ranger LMAO. Glad to see it road worthy again!

I had never heard of a tax on buying your own vehicle back from the insurance company. I guess PA gets their money where they can. I also got a chuckle out of the "enhanced state inspection". What the heck is the states deal? It was wrecked and rebuilt, the salvage title is more than enough slander.

I have owned one rebuilt/ reconstructed/ salvage title truck in my life. It was a damn good truck, and I would still have it if the transmission hadn't quit on me among other things.

I bought all of my vehicles from the git go, because I worked from age 13 on mowing yards and such. I'm 35 now and there's too much lack of respect from the kids of today. I almost bet if they work for it, they will respect it more.

I had my car privileges stripped away once when I was 17, for getting a traffic ticket. A month on foot or bumming rides taught me to "pay attention".