Car wreck, lowball offer.

Never happens. Body shops try but it’s beyond rare a human can replicate what precise robots could do.
This is what I am afraid of. I have seen so many paint jobs come out looking so noticeable. Not what we want on our new car with only 4K miles on it. We will see what happens.
 
Greg look up Paint Society on YT. I think he's in your area and he does excellent work. His shop is at an Acura dealership but I forget which one.
 
This is what I am afraid of. I have seen so many paint jobs come out looking so noticeable. Not what we want on our new car with only 4K miles on it. We will see what happens.
Completely understandable. I would have an honest conversation with the body shop manager and explain that your car is nearly new with 4K miles and you want it to look brand new.
 
Title is kinda clickbaity but I understand your anguish after the last car with paint imperfection.

An extremely minor fender bender? tapper? And not even getting a quote
doesnt exactly equal CAR WRECK WITH LOWBALL PAYOUT.

In the end its a car in a world of other people who dont care. This isnt a garage queen rare car.. move on with life after doing the best you can getting it fixed.

My 2002 ranger 4x4 4.0 offroad with 3k miles on it.. I had just finished a marathon 6hour wash and detail on it.. and some bozo hit both driver doors somehow at home depot.. i was last car in the lot with giant concrete around 2 sides of car.. That did make me mad.

I only stopped because I was early for dinner and was grabbing some bolts or washers (I forget) I was in home depot 10min.
 
In high school I worked in a warehouse next to a body shop, 1980. Was a high end car independent body shop.

During breaks I would talk to the owner of the body shop. He was a perfectionist and could not keep body men employed because he expected high standards- he payed the most in town yet all that worked for him wanted to take short cuts.

One of many lessons he taught me was to always "smell gas" after any accident. Have the car at the shop of one's choosing, and when contacting the insurance company tell them its at "ABC body shop", and you think you smell gas. The insurance company will send a adjustor to that body shop, and the body shop will do the negotiations with the adjustor.

Number one rule of negotiations- never have the decision maker (owner of the car) be directly in the negotiation-, if so they will lose. That is why car dealers avoid having the decision maker on the dealer part work directly with the car buyer. The new car dealer has a middleman- so should the buyer when feasible.

Finally, I never ever make a insurance claim unless it is a catastrophic loss. As others have posted in this thread, lots of second and third results from filing a claim. Even if the claim was not covered, insurance company paid out no monies, there will be a direct or indirect cost to the person filing the claim, possibly for many years. For a homeowner, a prior claim may come up when going to sell the house many years later.
 
On what planet?
My planet of New Hampshire :) They were blowing them out for $16,800 out the door for the S model with a stick when I leased mine in 2019.

Today - who knows. Let's look ....

Nothing, No Inventory.

What a difference a day makes. VW must be loving this car shortage. This dealer was sitting on almost one hundred cars not long ago
 
We now have the drop off date set up. Hopefully they will start about 2 weeks from now. Initially they said they were booked out until August due to a local hail storm but were able to squeeze us in a bit sooner. I'll post up updates as they come.
 
Same thing happened to me in the same spot. 500.00 about 5 years ago. Paint color was a black pearl metallic.
 
Yea-no matter what kind of work the body shop does-it will not be good enough for the OP.
Yeah, I agree.
The amount of unnecessary effort and stress gives me a headache just thinking about it.
😫
 
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Yeah, I agree.
The amount of unnecessary effort and stress gives me a headache just thinking about it.
😫
I have since moved and retired. But where I lived in Southern California, I had a long standing relationship with a local good quality body shop. More than once-when I needed their services, I simply dropped off the vehicle-signed a form and left. In a reasonable amount of time my vehicle was done. No sweat on my part.

And yes-one of those time was for an expensive Silverado with just a few miles on it. I was kind of broad sided and scrapped by somebody on their cellphone in a small car. Their insurer was Geico and that's a whole other story.
 
If your insurance is AAA, State Farm or All State, your premium probably won't go. But it depends on your insurance company and also the state you live in.

When I got rear ended in bumper to bumper traffic in CA, my ML320 with tow hitch receiver shows no damage but the damage on the other party was very visible. The other party was also uninsured. I had to call CHP since wife had minor whiplash. When home, I called my insurance(Ameriprise through Costco) just in case wife's whiplash got worsened. Ended up we never filed any claim after all, but when the time came for renewal, my insurance bumped up more than 30%. That was only incident we ever reported!

Called to ask for explanation, were told it's just company-wide rate increase not the accident we reported. Shopping around for lower rates, we found out that accident had bigger role for the rate increase. So, your insurance may tell you they won't raise rate for this claim, there's some chance depending on your insurance company.

When we were insured with AAA for decades, they never hiked my insurance for not-at-fault accident, but their rate went up so high year after year for the first class service, we had to move to cheaper insurance.

why did you switch from USAA? I search every few years and can’t find anyone even close to the same rate for the same coverages!
 
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