Laurelcrest

My poor TL-S was involved recently in an accident with a huge truck that hit us from behind. The truck's insurance appraiser is coming tomorrow, and I had my body shop fax me a detailed estimate. Part of the damage included my two back rims- he grinded into one and the other scraped a fire hydrant.

This is from the body shop quote:

Replace LT/Rear Wheel, alloy 17" (1) $305.12
Replace RT/Rear Wheel, alloy 17" (1) $305.12

$305.12 seems a bit high when the rims I have been seeing on websites go for 100-200 and are 'designer', i.e. not OEM. Will the appraiser look at this like the body shop is trying to rip him off?
Can he dispute the claim? I'm afraid once he sees that he'll look more closely at all the other costs, which I as a non-professional do not know whether they are accurate, and tell me to take a hike.

Any thoughts?

mackdaddy

Absolutely not. Acura TLS/CLS OE alloy wheels are expensive.

~ $300 ea. is a retail figure, mind you.... but legit just the same.

Jim

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Totally agree with Mackdaddy... the CL-S/TL-S rims are very expensive. ~$300 seems pretty accurate......

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

Well the bottom line is that if they can be replaced for less than what your shop quoted, fine, so long as they are new OEM wheels.

It's not like they can put any old wheel on your car. If they can be bought for less, so be it.

Laurelcrest

Thanks. I'm thinking of asking my body shop to order flashier rims instead, with the money given to them by the insurance company. I was just surprised to see that OEM rims would be so much more expensive than the ones found on all the websites out there.