Rant: Accident right after replacing parts

[MaximumMini]

Not wrong, just takes court time and perseverance.

The insurance companies lie with their illegal steering and resultant “proprietary” rate structures. Lowballing is nothing new either.

I won't even mention that the same insurance companies hired a PI to watch me for a full month after the accident.
I lived so far down a road there was no traffic....he said he was "buying the land and just doing some cleaning up".....yeah.

Just in case they needed evidence photos to show me acting normally. I never hired a lawyer or took it to court but I was hit while standing still by a minivan doing 60mph. It hurt like hell and all I remember was a bright flash and stars...then nothing for about 10 minutes. The car was crushed right up to the back of the driver seat.

 

[Opelman]

Opel got hit while parked the other day. Going to be interesting figuring out the repair. New fender available in Germany but the vendor won't ship large sheetmetal. Guy was very apologetic and has insurance. Fender was perfectly rust free with no previous repairs.

 

[eljefino]

Why am I reading this thread?!?!?

Because Arco saw some

 

[brages]

1. Got a Fusion cheap because the expensive electric steering rack was bad. Put off replacing it for a few months, but finally swapped it out (junkyard part). A couple months later, my son is driving in a parking lot and gets hit - Totaled. Other party tried to claim he was at fault, but they were going the wrong way.

2. Fast forward a few months... Replaced the A/C system in my Volvo after the compressor failed. A few months later, my son (the same one) is driving it, loses control... totaled. This time it's his fault. Liability insurance only, ouch. I let the insurance pay for the damages to the guardrail (over a thousand dollars).

3. A few more months... Same son is on 10-day leave from boot camp, driving my old Ranger. Gets rear-ended turning out of Home Depot! Damaged bumper and tailgate. That guy is a magnet for trouble, lol!! Driver was apologetic; instead of sending it to insurance (probably would have totaled it) I just took a little cash for the repairs. Got a junkyard bumper in the garage right now.

 

[nomas]

That's totaled ..... Last Monday afternoon .

 

[Exhaustgases]

If a front tire gets hit, that could also damage the steering rack if it puts a sudden turning load to it so be careful if you keep it.

 

[AdmiralYoda]

Update. Insurance adjuster came and thinks it will be repairable. Initial estimate is $4,300 and the repair shop will now take some stuff apart to assess any hidden damage. Fingers crossed because I didn't want a car payment!

The real pain is the person at-fault's insurance. A 17 year old borrowing his grandfathers car caused the accident. The kid isn't returning phone calls and the number for the grandfather has been disconnected, looks like an old land-line. The kid isn't on the policy, which is fine but the at-fault insurance company wants to check all their boxes before they accept liability.

The police report says the kid was at fault and he was issued a citation for failure to yield and causing the accident. The insurance company is still in no rush to hand out cash and won't accept liability until they go through their process.

Meanwhile we are left holding the bag getting a rental and paying for it....only to hope to be reimbursed by the at-fault insurance company someday!

Moral of the story.... make sure you have rental coverage on your own policy. In that event no matter what happens or who is at fault...just go through your own company and they will handle everything for you. We didn't have rental coverage so now we are chasing the other insurance company ourselves for the rental while our own insurance deals with the collision.

My father had an auto repair business and always had spare cars around so I never considered rental coverage. He retired this year.....Murphy's law, no more spare cars! I just now put rental coverage on our policy but that doesn't help us for this previous accident.

 

[Brons2]

Think so? In MA the law states to use the "Total Loss Formula" which is the Fair Market Value minus the Scrap Value. KBB and my own searching show that Fair Market Value to be around $9-11k depending on private party or dealer.

Scrap Value is about $500 based on internet estimates. Even if the Total Loss Formula says the magic number is $8k....I don't know if that would be enough to total it.

As long as there is no structural damage, which I didn't see....I have a hard time seeing that much $$$. I can buy the fender, hood, inner fender, bumper, headlight and all the plastics for about $750 through RockAuto. Of course a repair shop is probably going to have higher costs due to overhead and markup.... but still.

It is crazy that your insurance is trying to total your 2016 Suburban....that looks like an easy repair!

Interesting, thanks.

 

[AdmiralYoda]

Final update. They totaled it. They took it apart a bit to look for unseen damage and found that the subframe was tweaked and it needed lots of suspension work. They offered us $8,500 which actually wasn't that bad but I got them up to $10,500.

Bummer. It was perfectly maintained and in pretty good shape! I just switched all the fluids over to HPL too! The junkyard is going to get a good one.

Also...the 17 year old driver that caused the accident is in big doo-doo. More specifically his grandfather is. Apparently the 17 year old's parents are dead-beats or something and the grandfather is taking care of the kid and letting the kid live with him.

I guess he didn't add the kid as a household driver because he was afraid his policy would cost more. So his insurance is considering making the grandfather 100% liable for the whole accident. Whoooops. Our insurance is taking care of our end....but ****.

 

[John105]

Sorry to hear. We’re in an opposite scenario. I have a basement full of Buick Enclave parts and was planning to do a lot of repair / maintenance. Then the car was a total loss. I’m thankful that the work wasn’t done first, but at the same time, those parts are an eyesore reminder of wasted funds. Some are really good parts such as OE wiper blades, filters, exhaust parts, etc. I made a recommendation on a thread to never buy this vehicle. Or it’d be tempting to get one cheap and use said parts.

 

[Sumboodie]

Almost a guarantee that I get a nassty rock chip within a week or two of putting a new windshield in.

The only one on my truck so far happened like 3 or 4 days after. Old windshield was cracked, fogged up and came unglued and basically fell out.
Was wondering how junk from trees and snow was getting on the dash