I was in a fender bender yesterday. A guy cut across 3 lanes of traffic, he thought it was clear, well i was in his blindspot. Anyway, just had an estimate done, I could not believe how much they quoted me. $3500! It was his fault and his insurance is paying for it. Here are two pictures.

Hood & Bumper

Fender

 

make sure you get an aluminum hood!

 

Have them write out a chek to you and fix it yourself!

 

Man some lady hit me yesterday just smudged the paint. I hope I get a fraction of that much!

 

I got into a similar fender bender. (not my fault but no collision coverage for me, so I'm paying out of pocket, and it's going to be fully insured after it's done).

Figured about $500 in parts. Went to three body shops, quoting 3600, 4000+ and 2400 respectively. (but that's with a new paint job, other bodywork, and rust repair). I also spent over $1000 on other parts and mechanical work that needed to be done.

 

I got into a similar fender bender. (not my fault but no collision coverage for me, so I'm paying out of pocket, and it's going to be fully insured after it's done).

Figured about $500 in parts. Went to three body shops, quoting 3600, 4000+ and 2400 respectively. (but that's with a new paint job, other bodywork, and rust repair). I also spent over $1000 on other parts and mechanical work that needed to be done.

Looks like the labor is mainly in getting your frame realigned. That was part of the damage to my car (my hood and fenders didn't line up). Very laborous, but not bad (just another 275 for my car).

 

I hope they don't try to tell you it's totalled and try and only give you 1200 like they did to me when someone pulled out in front of my n/a

 

Just looked at the pics. Thats a hell of a lot of money for that little damage. With mine, the bumper was smashed, the front right fender was wrinkled and crushed into the tire and i also had dents along the side where i hit the other car after i turned back towards her hard so i didn't go head on into oncoming traffic. the estimate was only for 2400$ i'd take the check and find somewhere else to fix it

 

yearrgh, what happened, did you have no other option than to accept the 1200??

 

they said the frame is bent, i think that is what will cost the most. this shop also does their estimates based on oem new parts. they said if the insurance company gets them used parts, they have to be like brand new, otherwise they won't use them. it is bruce's auto body shop here in richmond.

 

They might want to total your car...

 

How many miles on it robin?

 

147,000

 

and don't let them tell you your frame is bent, i highly doubt it is since mine was much worse and they told me it was bent, but it wasn't. i'd get someone to pull the dent for a couple hundered bucks, then get the re anemaya light kit with the rest

 

KBB for your car with that mileage is around 3200...

This is getting sad...

 

hell no, i fought with them over it for about a year and eventually got 2200 and got them to not declare it a total loss. then since i had already bought my tII i traded it to my best friend for a 4000$ laptop

 

if they give you trouble let me know and i'll tell you what i did. one thing that i didn't do is make sure that besides the damage, make sure you car is clean, waxed, vacumed and looking beautiful before they come to inspect it so they don't try to say it's in poor condition.

 

they won't use kbb, they use a private service that i can't remember the name of right now. what insurance company does the other driver have?

 

here is what mine looks like, i know its an escort but id rather have it hit then the 7

 

thanks for the tip, i will get that done before they come to look at it....when they totalled your car did they want to give you a check and take your car or just give you a check and let you be on your way?

 

Erie Insurance

 

pic was too big never mind

 

I was afraid you we're going to say that. Thats who i had to fight. One good thing is that they never fought with me about retaining salvage, just subtracted 150$ from the total amount. i would start by looking on autotrader and in newspapers for 7's the same year as yours. they're going to tell you that their estimate of value is based on the "local market" in reality, there isn't much of a market for this car in the area since there aren't that many of them. in my case, the "market" turned out to be only 3 cars and one of those was broken. in all i found about 8 cars for sale, and they gave me the average between the average of those 8 cars, and kbb for ok condition.

 

Damn, this is getting better and better. One good thing is that I have State Farm Insurance. SF said that if Erie disputes it and tries not to pay they will assign one of their adjustors or whatever they are called to do a sort of investigation and basically put the pressure on Erie to pay.

 

do you have collision?