My TL was rear ended about 3 weeks ago

At the time, it looked like most of the damage was confined to the rear bumper cover and spoiler base. I was thinking maybe $1000 in damage. The lady who hit me has Geico (so do I), so I had to take it to a claims adjuster to get an estimate. The estimate was about $1600 (and 5 days of work). This is more than I thought, but not that much.

So I take my car to a body shop in northern VA. I got the recommendation by looking through posts on this forum. I won't name the body shop right now, but I will let you know later.

Anyway, I leave the car on a Monday morning (2/26) hoping to get it back on Friday (3/2). On Friday, I get a call from the shop. They say they've found another $1900 in damage and it will take another week until Friday 3/9. I'm surprised by this as the accident wasn't that bad. I have no idea where $3500 of work would go. I had another accident 3 years ago that ended up being $5000 and this accident was nothing close to that one. But it's all covered by Geico, so I say ok.

Friday 3/9 comes and they are not ready. Lots of calls from me, few answers. Finally I get a call yesterday (3/13) to come get my car. I pick it up any pay $1600 on my credit card (Geico gave me a check for $1600 and a check directly to them for the extra $1900).

Immediately I notice these things:

• Paint job is subpar. Some small bubbles in the paint. There is some matte finish at one point just above my right rear tire.
• They have performed work all the way to both rear quarter panels all the way to the front of the rear tires. By looking at my car after the accident, there's no way you would have though the QPs needed any work beyond that mentioned in next item in the list. This is where some of the subpar paint is.
• MAJOR ITEM: In the picture below, where the red circles are, my trunk lid had scratched against the top corner of the QPs. It looked like it needed some sanding and then paint, and only at the very corners of the trunk lid and then the matching places on the QPs. Instead, it looks like they tore a chunk of the QPs off, bondo'd a good 6 inches on each side, and then didn't even fix the original issue!!! With the trunk lid closed, you can still easily see where the paint is STILL MESSED UP like it was when I took it in!
• MAJOR ITEM: They claim to have replaced the bumper cover, but I know they are lying. My old bumper cover had a large chip in it where it meets the tail light (see the yellow circle in the picture below). One look at the car yesterday and I can see that this spot was just painted over. And not painted over well either, they just globbed some paint on it. I called them out on this and the manager claimed that he looked into it and that they really had replaced the bumper cover. In order to prove it, he put the car up on the lift and showed me the bumper from underneath. It looked somewhat clean from BEHIND the bumper, and there was some chalk marking (part number?) you could see from the inside. He claims that this is proof that the bumper is new. BUT I am 100% positive that they are lying. They could have easily cleaned the inside of the old bumper and even put on a chalk mark if they wanted to. I can guarantee the that chip was there before, and the same exact chip (horribly painted over) is still there.

So I need some advice on what to do with the two major items? How do I prove that the bumper in the car is the old one? Or that it's not new as they claim? And what do I do about the corners of the trunk lid?

The car is still in the shop and the guy says he's going to fix all of the issues I have listed above, but at the end of the day he is still going to charge Geico for a new bumper when he hasn't replaced the old one AND he's messed up the inside of the trunk lid permanently!

I swear that if you had seen my car after the accident, you would have thought that all you needed to do was to replace the bumper cover and spoiler base. Now I look at my car and it looks like it's had major work done on it (more money for the shop!). I was considering selling the car just recently in order to buy a new 2007, but anyone who looks at it now will think that it's been in a major accident, dropping the value by thousands of dollars.

Any thoughts?


BTW, this is NOT my car. Mine is a black 2005 with the wing spoiler and the ground spoilers. I'm just using this one for illustration

 

Not to be a pain in the ass, but I appreciate my pic helped you illustrate this, but as I put copyright notices onmy pics you could have at least left it there.
Sorry about your car, if the body shop does not step up then get the insurance company involved, thay all warranty repairs for the time you own the car. If the bumper has not been replaced and you can prove it (should be a VIN tag on the bottom or inside with your VIN and a replacement will have something other than your VIN) then challenge them, you are paying for this as so is the insurance company, but be able to provie it. You might demand to see their bill of sale for the bumper, but my guess is they dont; have to show it to you, but I bet they have to show it to the insurance company. Was the body shop on the insurance comapnies recommended list? I know when I had minor issues with mine the insurance company called the body shop and you would be surprised how responsive they were. Body shops can't afford to be taken off insurance company approved lists.

 

Hey Keith. Sorry about the picture, I was in a hurry trying to find a pic to illustrate my point and didn't notice the copyright when I was remove the framing around the pic. I'll find another picture to replace this one.

Also, thanks for the advice. I didn't know about the VIN on the bumper. I'll have to check that out. Any idea where it would be on a 2005 TL?

 

Sorry to hear about your experience and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like your mechanic is one of the many out there that is more interested in making money and taking advantage of the insurance system than providing quality service.

To address point number two, I think you would be surprised at how far back on the quarter panel they paint. I had a minor impact just in front of the tail light and my shop painted all the way to the rear doors, basically the whole quarter panel. I have a WDP so it is harder to match but they should paint a significant distance to make sure the new and old paint match. Unfortunately, like their other work, it sounds like it was a quick and cheap paint job.

Regarding the two "major" problems (personally I would also consider bad paint as a major problem) I think there are only a couple things you can do.

One, continue to fight with the body shop for acceptable work. I have State Farm and I know that the job must be done to my satisfaction or they need to do it over. Obviously there are limits but State Farm supports this. You should contact Geico immediately and let them know about the sub par work. If the shop is a Geico approved facility they may have some leverage to help you.

Two, if they did not replace the bumper cover you should notify Geico immediately. This is insurance fraud and there is a chance that Geico will take this very seriously. Again, they may have some leverage here.

As a last resort you may try calling both the BBB and your county/state district attorney to notify them of the service and more importantly the potential for insurance fraud with the bumper. I wouldn't do this though until after your other options have been exhausted.

Good luck

 

Keith, I replaced the picture with one taken from the Acura site. Sorry again.

Slapmesilly, thanks for the advice. I'm trying to figure out if I should call Geico now or if I should wait to see what the shop does to my car over the next few days....

 

Don't wait man, call your insurance company IMMEDIATELY. I recently had some work done on my car as well, and I had to inspect it myself and let the rep know I was satisfied before they gave me the go ahead to roll out (all repairs are guaranteed for as long as I own the car btw since it was done at my insurance company's chosen shop).

Insurance companies want you to be satisfied since, let's face it, most of us don't really find out just how good our insurance company's service is until we get in an accident. Your satisfaction insures premium payments in the future in the same way a bodyshop's quality work guarantees a steady flow of insurance claim work.

It doesn't sound like this place was the chosen Geico shop, but that shouldn't change their committment to ensure your satisfaction. Call Geico man, don't worry about the bodyshop for now, they've been f@#$ing you enough for one week. Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

if you dont mind the distance, I highly recommend In & Out autobody in Rockville


They dont have much of a web site:

http://www.inandoutautobody.com/

But I trust the owners and they do good work at very good prices.

They are also Geico approved and will drop you off, pick you up from the rockville metro

 

if u have an 05 the wear and tear on the rear bumper is going to be completely noticable and 100% distinguishable from a brand new bumper, even if u cleaned it.

stick your head under the car and look at the bottom of the bumper...it's going to have rock chips and dirt embedded into it from 2 years of driving. even if u clean it, it will still be chipped unless u sanded it and repainted it. a brand new one is going to be shiny, painted, and almost flawless even if u did some test drives cus there has not been much of a chance for it to get damaged by road debris.

this is just something i noticed when i removed my '05 rear bumper to put the a-spec cover on...hope this helps.

 

it sucks that places out there do this and try to take advantage of people who are in a bind. i bet it is even worse when they are paying out of pocket, because they dont have their insurance companies to back them up if something goes wrong. hope everything goes well.

 

Chalk marks inside the bumper cover LOL
That means it was either the stock one marked to identify it while floating around the shop OR one from the "auto recyclers" aka junkyard.

A new or original will have paper tags with VIN or part # on it
and be spotless clean
Body shops have to paint way past damage or it will stand out really bad in the sunlight
We need to know what they said was extra repairs to help you more
Call Geico and BBB immedialtly
Geico will be happy to reinspect your car since they put out money for certain things and if they were not done as stated- thats called fraud- Insurance Fraud and more.
You should not have paid for any extras- if needed Geico would have been called and the extra work approved by them

Should you pursure this to Small Claims Court- the shop will have to provide receipts for all parts- with tracking number related to your car- not just that same part

If it helps, a MINOR backing into a pole is 1000 bucks if you are buddies with the shop!!
If mufflers, exhaust piping, suspension or other thngs took a hit- price jumps

In closing I must wonder why you went to a shop of your choice rather than recommended one?
Is this one of those- a guy said he could knock off the deductible for me if I came there?
I worked in a body shop just long enough to learn the deep dark dirty secret that they are far worse than any auto repair shop!

 

Yah... last time I went to a body shop I kept finding things that they didnt do once I started poking around. It looked okay from the outside, but they didnt replace emission info in the engine compartment, The completely left out a brake duct, I found bungie cords holding up part of the bumper. The windshield washer pump worked only sporadically... a couple other things too.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your car. I've known people that have had similar experiences. Basically it comes down to the fact that they take the insurance money that is provided through the claim, do a "good enough" job that costs less and pocket the rest as profit. In short, it is an egregious abuse of the insurance system and only serves to create dissatisfied customers and higher premiums for us. Unfortunately there are far too many repair shops that know how to play that game.

Another fun variant on this can be when they receive claim money for new parts but then go to the junkyard and get used parts off of a wreck.

As far as the chalk markings go... That's BS. Every body shop places an inconspicuous marking on their repair work so if you return for warranty repair they can tell if they were the ones who did the work originally or if it has since been repaired by another shop.

Honda does put a VIN sticker on many parts of their cars so it makes it easier to tell if body work has been done. On my 2006 the sticker for the rear bumper can be viewed by opening the trunk and looking near where the bumper cover meets the body/tail light area. On genuine Honda replacement parts the sticker is a different size/shape than the original and is not imprinted with the VIN. I think it says something like "Honda Genuine Parts" or some such.

In your case, if the VIN sticker is there and either has your VIN printed on it or is painted over but is the same size/shape as the originals (on the doors, etc.) you probably still have your original bumper. If the sticker is missing (they may have removed it) or if it is a "genuine parts" sticker it may be harder to tell. Obviously if it has a VIN that does not match yours, it is a part from a junkyard that they have harvested to use on your repair job.

Chances are the extra damage/claim work they "found" was impact absorbers, tow hook damage, etc. behind the bumper. Whether or not that was really there - or if they really fixed it instead of pocketing the money would take a dedicated and trained eye to see but if you climbed under there and took a look you could probably tell if you knew what to look for.

I'm not sure what else you can do except to leave the car with them until they make it right. I would make an attempt to be diplomatic and to stay on good terms with them but be persistent until it is fixed to your satisfaction. If you can prove that they did a crappy job or didn't do what the estimate said they were going to do, I would certainly raise that issue with your insurance company and with the GM of the body shop.

Good luck! These things are tough - especially when your car is in the shop and they have it ripped apart.

 

I'm not sure this would work for me. I have both the rear bumper cover and the body spoiler. The body spoiler covers the lower part of the rear bumper and all of the underside. When the car was on the lift, I looked at the inside of the rear bumper and it was clean from what I could see, but I'm not sure that part ever gets that messed up

 

I called up Radley Acura (where I bought my car) and the service department said that there are no markings (VIN, etc) on the bumper cover that could help me.

I'm not paying for anything out of pocket. Geico is paying the full claim, but I'm still upset that these guys are charging for a new bumper when they are using the old one.

They did replace 1 muffler and tip, at a cost of around $550.

First, I was thinking that the Geico recommended shop may have more interest in helping Geico than me.

Second, I found this shop using this forum. It was recommended in a few threads. I had used another shop for a minor scratch recently and wasn't happy that they scratched the interior of my car, so I was looking for a new one. I did not know this new shop in any way and didn't need to knock off a deductible or anything like that.

 

Hmmm....I wonder if the Acura dealership gave me bad info about the VIN. You're the 3rd person to tell me to check this. I may stop by the dealership tonight to find out more about this...

Thanks everyone for the advise so far!

 

A shop may make an identifying mark on parts to indicate they installed them, but in most cases they put the shops intitials or similar.

 

Went to the dealership and they confirmed that there is not identifying mark on the bumper cover. There is a VIN at the bottom of the trunk lid, but they didn't claim that they replaced that....

 

Still a BRAND NEW cover should not show signs of botched repair in the exact spot the original had

It should be perfect new spotless

 

[quote]First, I was thinking that the Geico recommended shop may have more interest in helping Geico than me.
[/quote/

Not necessarily. Usually these are shops that the company has worked with before and they don't get complaints about. The insurance company has no motivation to send you to a shop that does crappy work requiring even more money to fix.

The cover should have been off the car when painted. This process may have included cleaning it which would remove any stickers or such. The chalk then would have been as mentioned, something added by the shop to tag it to your car.

Once they got the cover off they may have found additional problems underneath. That styrofoam and aluminum thing that manufacturers euphemistically call a 'bumper' can hardly stand up to a sneeze, much less an impact from another car.

I was watching a news report where NHTSA ( or some similar group ) had recently tested different cars for both front and rear impacts at 3mph to see what damage occured. It was interesting that (I think) the Acura and Lexus had huge damage ($3000 - $9000) estimates at impacts equivalent to walking speeds.

You got off lucky.

 

The whole "5mph bumper" is really a thing of the past. Part of the reason I hate parking on the street is people tear the crap out of body colored bumpers while they park by braille.