On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 19:02:36 -0400, SilverEightynine@earthlink.net
(Terrible Tom) wrote:
>
>First I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes. My family and I
>appreciate them :-) I'm almost back to normal but my mother and
>especially my grandmother - will take longer to recover. Despite this
>spirits are pretty good.
I can relate. A similar thing happened to my grandparents last year
and it took them a while to recover. My grandmother still has some
pain as a result of the guy who decided not to stop for a red light
and broadsided them at 45+ mph.
>I snapped stills from video I took of the Ram and the remains of the
>Explorer. They can be seen at the following URLs:
>
>http://home.earthlink.net/~silvereightynine/ford/
>
>The local Ford dealer says the repairs will cost over $8000 and we will
>"never know it was in an accident"
That's a crock of s***. There's obvious major suspension damage to
that truck which will never be repaired correctly even if the guys
there are excellent at what they do. There are just certain things
that can't be fixed back to factory specs without the backing of the
factory... Anytime the wheel sits at an angle like that = big $$$$ to
repair. Just from what I see in those pictures, it would be close to
$8000 just for the body work, not taking into account any of the
suspension repairs. There will be very major damage that the shop
will start to find once they tear things apart and see what's hidden
underneath all of the fancy outside pieces. There's probably also
going to be a significant amount of mechanical that will need to be
repaired.
>I find this hard to believe considering there are strong indicators that
>the entire body of the Explorer has sustaned damage. This is based upon
>my observations that the rear hatch and passenger-side doors are
>seriously misaligned... indicating that the body structure has been
>pretty well deformed. The floor of the SUV is also seriously buckled.
Yep. I agree. There's a good chance that the frame is bent, too.
>State Farm says that they will only total the truck if the cost of
>repair is 70% or greater. The amount of $8000+ seems low to me as a
>figure that will enclude repairing EVERYTHING that is wrong with it.
>(dash, windsheild, doors, all new front suspension, nerfbar, fender,
>hood, floor, A-pillar... plus there are scrapes in the body that will
>need to be filled - and an all new paint job? Sounds to me like the
>dealer isn't going to be able to fix everything for just over eight grand.
Anything that's scraped will need to be repainted for sure. That's
expensive, too.
>That truck will never be right - no matter how good they say they can
>repair it. I don't want to get stuck with a half-ass POS repair job
>because State Farm took the cheaper route. Can the insurance company
>FORCE us to take the call of repair VS total?
Probably, yes. The insurance company can basically force you to do
whatever they want. When someone else is at fault, though, they will
frequently gauge their degree of flexibility based on the amount of
coverage that the responsible party has. The responsible party's
insurance will usually just pay out the a$$ to avoid litigation, which
always ends up costing significantly more than if they just settled.
>That truck will never be right - no matter how good they say they can
>repair it. I don't want to get stuck with a half-ass POS repair job
>because State Farm took the cheaper route. Do we have any options?
Probably. Find out from your agent (and possibly do some research
online about state laws -- the agent might try to mislead you.. they
do, after all, work for state farm and not for you) if they will let
you choose your own shop. I know that I can choose whatever shop I
want to have repairs done and the insurance will pick up the tab. (Of
course, when things are your own fault, they really don't care what
you do because you pay them back several times over by way of the
increase in your premiums... but we won't discuss why I know about
that ;-) ). If you can choose your own shop, try to get opinions from
as many places as possible. Everyone will tell you that they can fix
it back to "like new" because they want your business. THey don't get
your business at all if the insurance just totals the car and you get
a new one. But get as many estimates as you can -- and get full,
detailed esimates that list everything the shop thinks needs to be
done to the car. That will put you in a better position to compare
your options and will also give you a feel for that rates/prices are.
If you can choose any shop, tell your insurance that you want to use
whatever shop turns out to be the most expensive. (To find out what
shops are the most expensive, call around to your local BMW and MB
dealers and ask them what body shop they recommend) When you get a
figure that's closer to the totalling threshold, you might be in
better shape. Even if they won't total it or you can't push it that
far, you should definitely get several estimates and compare the list
of things that the different shops think need to be done. Some won't
do enough, some will do too much, etc.
-Bill
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:47:04 EST