Last Saturday started perfectly - it was nice weather, I went with my girlfriend to my dropzone
to make some jumps, everything was fine till less then a mile away from home I became
a victim of hit and run

I was driving on two way city street, going about 5-10 mile per hour while all of sudden I
noticed a pick up truck going right into me from a small connecting street on my right. There was a
stop sign on that street but the guy behind the wheel of the truck didn't even bother to stop.
He plowed into me, stopped, hesitated for a second, pushed me a bit more and then
simply sped off ! Kinda silly thing to do in a day light. We took down the license plate,
cops showed up and run it and found him.

All the damage is localized to passenger rear door. Nothing else seems to be affected.
So it looks like I will be getting a new door and he will be getting a criminal charge for
leaving the scene of the accident.

Still sucks though to go thru all the pain of fixing it and doing all the paperwork. I contacted
my lawyer since I think my resale value just dropped and I want some compensation for
that. We'll see how it goes ...

Just out of curiosity, how much does an OEM rear door cost ? I tried to search online and
here, but couldn't find. And would body shop receive it painted or would they paint it
themselves ? Since my car is black, I don't think there would be any matching color
problems ...

Stan.

 

That sucks. At least there will be no arguing about what happened. The truck driver lost all his credibility once he hit the gas. At least it is only the one door and not the whole side.

It looks like your airbag did not deploy. Did it feel like a pretty hard hit?

 

no, it was a very low speed collision. he basically just pushed us a foot or two and that was it.

 

Sounds to me from your description, that the other driver made three serious infractions: running a stop sign, willful destruction of private property, and leaving the scene of an accident. Wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

Really sorry for your misfortune, but glad no one in your vehicle was hurt.

 

the outer door shell is probably around 500 bucks and it comes to the body shop unpainted...but like you said its a black car so they'll probably have no problem matching the color

 

Since you were moving slowely and the car was only moved one or two feet lateraly it may only be the door/door skin that got damaged. It could posible be a little more, check the door jamb and the interior side of the door for scratches. Also check the door alignment to see if it will need ajustment.

 

You did everything by the book!

You are right about depreciated value, the only thing you will have to figure is by how much?

If you can, get it fixed at the dealer as should you ever have a problem in that area, they will have a hard time blaming someone else for it and give them reason to deny warranty.


Reminds me of our VP who lives in Boston. 3 years ago after owning a 2003 TL for less then 2 weeks, he was t-boned at an intersection by a SUV. His car was at the dealer's bodyshop for 3 months undegoing surgery. He walked away from this accident without a scratch but had almost $20K of damages.

Best regards from Montreal

frenchnew

 

Insurance has problems with dealership since they charge too much. The have list
of "preferred" auto bodys that they guarantee price and workmanship. I'm not very thrilled to go to any of them, but it looks like it's something I would have to do.

The other options would going to Acura dealership and then covering the difference in cost with bad guy's money. But looks like the first option would do fine since repair appears to be simple.

There is no visible damage inside, door hinges are fine and it aligns properly too. So it's just the outter shell and all the things inside of the door is a bit all over the place.

 

well i say let the dealer fix it sure it will cost the other guys insurance more but who care about his premium going up luckily you managed to get the plate following a freinds advice i started keeping a disposable camera in the drivers door pocket just for that reason.

 

i had a camera too, but there as no time for it ...

 

In California, the insurance companies have their preferred lists as well but you are not required to go to them and the insurance companies cannot 'punish' you for going to another shop. They usually do increase the 'guarantee' on the workmanship quality if you use them. At least they seem to do that in California. I am not sure how the laws work in your state but here they cannot even recommend a shop, they can only hand you a list of insurance preferred shops and hope you take the bait.

The shop I took my car to was not an insurance preferred shop and they said they refuse to be a part of the insurance companies preferred lists because they do not want to discount their work since they do such a high quality job. He said if they got paid less then they would pay their workers less and the good body/paint people would go to another higher paying shop.

$$$ = Quality (most of the time)

 

If the dealer has a body shop, and not all of them do I would be hesitant to take my car there for body work. Dealerships are notoriously cheap when it comes to keeping up with state of the art equipment especially in their body shops and in the alignment equipment on premises. I worked for several DC metro area dealerships and would never let any of them repair damage to any of my automobiles. Good luck with your repair work and glad noboby was injured.

 

The insurance company can't force you to go to a shop on its preferred list... but in most or maybe all states you'll have to pay any higher cost for the shop you want to use. It still may be worth it. (However, in my experience, dealership bodyshops aren't always the best ones around. They don't use "factory" paint - they buy paint at the same places the other shops do). It's possible that a company on the insurance company's list is a good shop. You'll have to ask around.

 

We have Insurance companies here too that do not like to deal with the dealer's bodyshop but they will not reccomend any in fears of being sued.

If it was my car, it would go to the dealer period. Then argue with the Insurance company for the difference.

The way I see it, the insurance companies do not tell us that they gave us a better price for our premiums because you are expected to go to one of their preferred bodyshops when we initially get our car insured.

You mentioned that you had a lawyer, you better give him a call on this one.

Best regards

frenchnew

 

Glad you're okay.

When an insurance company wants you to go to one of their DRPs, they are trying to control the cost of the claim. The insurance companies have a lot of power over these shops for fear they will no longer direct jobs to them if they don't play ball. A good shop will stand up to them but sometimes it's not that easy.

As was stated above, you can go anywhere you want. In this case, I would take it to an outside shop that has no affiliation with the insurance company and let them deal with the adjuster. They can get the most out of the claim. By no means let them come out and do the adjustment at your home or in one of their drive in facilities; they will low ball the damage. Take it to the shop and let them do an estimate on their software so they can be prepared when the adjuster comes out. Also, don't under estimate how much additional damage there may be that you can't see.

Good luck.

 

In CT an insurance company cannot force you to chose their preferred repair shops by law. I know this is true in many other states as well. They may require multiple quotes, which can mean going to more than one dealership.

 

ok, here is some updates on the case ...

i haven't received any papers from either police, insurance or adjuster at this point, but i finally talked to my lawyer.

he says the cases where is no personal injury are hard to go around and i would be better off in this case going to small claim court without him. but here is a caveat - i need some number that i should claim my resale value dropped. which is pretty hard to come up, since appraisal is usually given for damage inflicted.

i want to talk to my insurance to see if they have any procedures in place for situation like that.

also i went to kbb.com to price my car and one of the questions in the car condition quiz is about frame or unibody and the possible options are unaltered, repaired or altered and damaged. i think that my damage/fix could qualify as "repaired or altered frame or unibody". in this case the resale value drops by $1670. at least it's some number i can start at.

i'll try to get some more information and run by my lawyer.

does anyone have any suggestions on how to get some estimates for loss of resale value ?? any help is really appreciated.

any way, i think it's still worth a shot, small court doesn't cost that much ..

 

just got an appraisal result - $1727.29. not sure what's included, i didn't see an actual report, just the final number

 

my sister was involved in a hit and run. the guy backed up into her. she got out of the car to confront her and he sped off..... she jumped back into her car and chased the guy down.. All the while on the phone to the police telling them what happened... the cops finally caught him they ripped him out of his truck and gave him a beat down... he fled bc he was drunk, didn't have a license since 1985, and the truck wasn't his.... Diver, good thing they caught the guy... scumbag.. they should take away his license...

 

What you did by using kbb to find out what a normal TL in your area is worth is exactly how you would determine diminished value. Check out Edmunds and a few other valuation sites to get an average. That would be a fair number to ask for (and obviously if you go to court, take your proof of value-normal and value-wrecked).

 

Update on an old story... This one is turning out to be a one with a good ending ...

The total cost of repairs ended up being $2600 and basically a door was replaced. I came up with the numbers for the value of my car before and after the hit using kbb and filed a claim in local small claim court, for the difference which came at $1670.

Long story short, the court hearing happened last Friday and the defendant didn't show up, so I won the case by default.

Payment and how it's gonna happen is a different story, but for now I won !

 

wow, thats alot for just a door.

 

Damage is damage, no matter hor minor it is, but 2600 does seem like a lot for a door replacement.

 

I would suspect that since he ran in the first place, he has something else to hide.

It was his fault. Take the car where you want. Tell his insurance company to go after him for any difference they don't want to pay.

You won the small claims judgement. Now you will have to go after him for payment. That can be in many ways. You can garnish his wages, claim his property, claim his bank accounts, etc. But each time, you will have to go get the paperwork to do those....so it's no easy task. But I'd sure do it if I were you!!

 

the original estimate was $1700 and they (body shop) bumped it up to 2600. it was insurance "preferred" body shop, so insurance would pay whatever they quote them. i didn't see adime of that money. and i didn't want to, i just wanted my car to be back the way it was.

 

Glad to hear it was a happy ending, hopefully you'll get your money!

 

Same thing happened to us last year...16 yo girl backs into my wife in the Hollywood Video parking lot. Then..she takes off! My wife chases her through town while on the phone w/911...then finally catches her. Girls tried to act like nothing happened.


Turns out she has no insurance...they try and give us expired insurance which turns out to be no good, then they try and sign up for insurance really quick the next day, and use that too (wasn't happening). We were actually nice and tried to call the people, and tell them we'd just fix it through a cheaper body shop we know if they wanted, they didnt' want to discuss it with us. We end up having to go to multiple court dates, and claim the repair on our own insurance. The guy tells us he will pay us back our $500 deductible and doesn't, so after multiple court dates the judge orders them to pay us back and gives them a 6 month time window to do so. We then show up to the next court date as they haven't paid, and they then enter a judgment against the girl (meaning taking away her license if she doesn't pay)...and only then do we finally get a check for $500... it was a huge pain and took us months to get back our $$. We were prepared to go to as many court dates as need be to make sure we get our $$ back, and fortunately the judge was on our side. These people were compeltely dishonest and tried to say they had insurance when they didn't, wouldn't return our phone calls or pay, and basically weren't going to give us a dime until the judge ordered them to...hehe...and the most beautiful day was the one when the judge ordered the states attorney to write up a "court order" for these people to pay us back our $500 "or else"! hehe... I felt like justice served us that day, although it still took nearly 10 months to recoup our deductible, at least we got it back eventually.

The ironic thing is that they will have to pay back the insurance company now too (ours).

Insurance is mandatory in IL as well...hopefully that's one less person on the road without it now, they learned their lesson!

The other best part of the story....this was my old 98 Altima that got hit...and it had quite a few miles on it at the time (although it was still a very pristine car)...but was eventually replaced with the TL in Sept 2005...so at least it wasn't the new car that got hit!!

I also learned that you can only get charged for leaving the scene of an accident if there's major personal injury, death, or major destruction or property, at least in IL. This accident didn't qualify, even though it was a $2500 repair. In spite of all of that when she was on the phone with 911 they still made her go down to the police station (with the defendent now and her mom who showed up) to fill out a report.