Thank you very much for posting all this just now today! I stomach turned when I saw this post, Geico Insurance told us that the car would cost over $35k to fix it and the adjustor strongly recommended that we let them total out the car, that we wouldn't want this car back... ever, that stuff underneath would never be right, the stuff we couldn't see from the damage pics I took of it, etc...

So your hypothesis is that the car was fixed for around $8k instead? Damn, we would have kept the car but it's too late now so it's just sour grapes on my part but I feel like we were given bad advice from our insurance company. The car had around 41k miles when it was totalled and now it has $49k miles? That is totally insane. Someone fixed it and it looks brand new and probably drives like a dream.

Amazing. I talked to the sales rep at the dealership that is selling it earlier today and he said that the car has been in an accident but it had minor damage to the rear bumper. I then said, "that is not correct, it was hit on the rear driver door and smashed hard", he said "how do you know this"? I said... "because it's my car!!!". He was amazed. I told him that we were told to total it, that is would take $35k to fix it, and he was left speechless.

Well, we of course have a 2025 S63 now and we like it a lot but we totally LOVED this car. Oh well, such is life. The quality of our problems. This isn't the worst problem to have, to have found this out tonight, but I feel sick to my stomach seeing those pics of my old car.

Steve, I wouldn't feel too bad if I were you. Nobody really knows how much was sepnt to make the car right, and how "right" it really is. One of the problems with anyone trying to buy a used S63 is there's normallyt no baseline to judge the car against. The very first 4 year old S63 I drove was very different from the same year S63 I wound up buying. I realized that some drove great and others not so much. I'm glad I drove 5+ W222 S63s before purchasing mine, even though the process lasted more than 6 months.
10+ years ago, I almost bought a Hyundai Equus from a local independent dealership. The car looked amazing and drove like a dream! I got suspicious because the price was a little too good to be true. Turns out the car had been totalled. I don't remember how I found out, but when I spoke to the dealership about it they tried to deny it was the same car, then begrudingly admitted it "could" be. It was a salvage title car.
Your old car looks amazing, but it's NOT the same car as when it left the factory, or even what it was the day before your accident. You had the privilege to enjoy it for 6 years, and now you get to enjoy your newer S63 for many more. Thanks for confirming its your old car

I really appreciate your words. It was like a therapy session for me when I read it late last night. Couldn't sleep a wink though, thinking about this situation. It so off centered me and caused a huge depression and bewilderment. I planned to keep that car till I died and when they totaled it, I thought it died, but it lives! In any case, I need to let this go and just appreciate the fact that I have a 2025 and all is good, though I much preferred my simpler 2018 S63 to be totally honest. The controls on it, the looks, the radio, the heating and AC controls, easier to clean wheels, they were all much better on the older car but yeah, that's old news now. Peace out, ya'all.

My assumption of 8K was based on what a flipper mechanic/body person probably did to get the car cosmetically repaired. If it makes you feel any better it would probably have been twice that or more to really do it right. A flipper can pull out dents on the quarter panel and fill it in with loads of bondo and it will look great for a while but it is not structurally the same as removing the entire rear quarter panel and sub assemblies and replacing all metal with new and then seam sealing and treating all areas inside for rust proofing. Same with the door, they probably just purchased a used donor door, painted it and swapped over the parts. You can take hundreds of shortcuts if you don't care about the long term quality of the job or a true restoration. I don't see how it was 30K or more to fix though, but in the end it doesn't matter. Enjoy the new car and hopefully you get many years of enjoyment from it.

Like Carlos said, don't be upset by this. Some hack fixed it for $8k but that doesn't mean it was done right or that it looked perfect at all, or that it drives right. You made the right decision moving on from it.

I'm so sorry Steve, I didn't post it to make you feel bad. I agree with the other guys about the mystery of the renovation/rebuild process.

And if it makes you feel any better, you might want to know why I found your car. I make it a point to review Carfax reports every 60-90 days. I look at every 2018-2020 S63 sedan and coupe and count the number of RMS repairs I see on Carfax reports. I know you had a 10 year warranty so it wasn't a big deal for you...but I'm driving "bareback". I keep a folder with all the RMS Carfax reports that I've found and track the percentag of RMS repairs - nomally around 6%-8% - but I know every RMS repair isn't shown on Carfax reports. And occasionally I call the repair shops on the report and ask what they charged for the repair. I've been quoted as low as $1200 for a car that was going to the Manheim auction in PA, to over $9K in SoCal. My expectation is that I'll pay around $5K when mine bites the dust. That's something you never have to think about...But welcome to my world