when a car is totaled what happens?

You need to have a heart to heart with your insurance company. I doubt they'll let you basically 'strip' the car once they've agreed on a total settlement. What happens more often than not is they'll let you 'buy' the car back from them for a very reasonable price. Then it's yours to strip as you please. Ask them about it straight up - they'll tell you what your options are. Doesn't much matter what we tell you - what your adjuster tells you will determine the outcome.

I doubt they will let let you pull the engine - that's pushing things a little. It will depend on what the agreed value of your vehicle is - in other words, after you did the upgrades, did you go to your insurance co and say "here's all the money I spent etc etc now my car is worth $X dollars - please insure it as such" If so, then you will be reimbursed for that amount, without having to strip the car of the goodies. If you haven't done that, then I think it is fair for you to remove any after market stuff that you added, since you didn't have a rider on the insurance for that stuff - such as the audio system, exhaust, etc etc. The insurance company will want to recoup their losses by selling it as Michael indicated, so that is another way of getting your parts back.

Good luck

Howard

Varies from insurance company to company. A friend of mine had his 1998 Cobra totalled, and they offered him about 15K if they kept the car or 13K and he kept it. He ended up selling the thing for 6 grand on eBay. Once the insurance compay has declared the car a total loss, it is basically illegal for you to take parts from the car unless there was an agreement reached beforehand.