Las thursday, my car got sideswiped by another car, while parked. The damage consisted of: 3.5' long stripe down the quarter from the other car's rearview mirror 6" of paint taken down to primer before rear wheel 6" of paint taken down to primer after rear wheel Plenty of paint from other car smeared above wheel opening molding paint on my rear quarter above wheel opening molding scraped but not down to primer. I just got off the phone with the appraiser. He is awarding me just over two hundred dollars to repair this! This is to, quote "re-paint the whole quarter" I told him my estimate was just over two hundred for labor alone! He asked me "Have you ever been a licensed appraiser in the State of Massachusetts?" :af: Wrong button to push, my friend I said, "No. have you ever been a pro bodyman?" He says yes, I ask when. Now he gets mad. Good. I'm mad too. He tells me it's going to be 2.5 hours tp repair all damage, then the car gets paint "which takes no time" No time?!?! What about masking the car and prepping the booth? What about mixing the paint? What about color sand? He thinks one coat of paint will do it? What about clear coat? What about buffing out the paint afterwards?!!? My estimate is about 6 hours to do the job right. I come up with 360 bucks to do an acceptable job. He says it's about 200. Apparently he thinks paint is given away free. Which one of us is one dope, him or me? I talked to the shop that painted it yesterday. they agree that labor is 200 bucks, then add the cost of materials and paint.
That guy is on drugs!!!! Sorry to hear about your car. :af: I had a similar thing happen last summer, I have a 98 Chevy Lumina LTZ and some dumbass was trying to back into the parking space next to me. The friggin parking lot was empty for gods sake, and he HAD to park in that particular space!! He had a Ford Ranger and swiped the quarter panel right behind my rear door, just above the wheel well. It didn't do any body damage, just paint. The only thing that my car has that is out of the ordinary is a stripe that the dealership put on. My estimate was to get the whole quarter painted and clearcoated and it was over $700. I'm in Michigan, which may make it higher priced, but I can't imagine it being that much higher. Since it is my daily driver, I took the money from the guy (Who didn't have insurance and didn't want me to make an issue) and touched it up with a bottle of Duplicolor. Every adjuster that I've ever dealt with has been really cool, but a buddy of mine is going through he** with his adjuster right now and it's driving him crazy. He's got a new Ram truck that got hit by a tow truck, while he was pumping gas in it, and they want to use aftermarket, cheapo parts, on his truck that has less than 5000 miles on it. Hope you have some better luck with this than my friend has.
I got $500 for less damage not long ago. Times like this [its to late maybe] but there is a site called prepaidlegal.com or something. Its $7 a month to have lawyers threaten people over the phone and write nasty letters. If you could get a lawyer to just talk to him over the phone cheap, he will give in. Is this your insurance company or the person who hit you? Your ins company is obligated to provide you with a defense if it needs to go to court. They also are obligated for what ever the other company doesn't pay. minus any delectables. Plus you can sue the car owner for any losses. It is a classic car an I bet he treating you like that cause its old in his book. Id take it to the priciest best guy in your town and just let him do it and pay yourself. Then haggle it out between him and your ins and maybe even in court. Who can argue with the best body man in town. if it take 6hrs it takes 6hrs and cost them $1500 now instead of under $400
I don't know about how it works up there but down here you can take it to whatever shop you want and they deal with the insurance company....pick your shop (a good one) and let them deal with these jerks. Patton
Good advice, but there's a hitch- the car is outside in all weather, and it was forcast to (and did) rain. So, I already fixed it- the primer I used before paint was not a sealer. I had to choose between exposing the primer to moisture now and keeping the damage for the re-appraisal and potentially causing rust issues later on, or fixing it now to protect the primer. Rattle can job, but the bodywork is done. The heck of it is, this 200 is supposed to be "to paint the quarter". I won't get anyone to just shoot paint for 200 bucks. I'll talk to whatver shop I go to and maybe iron it out with them. I'm gonna be out of pocket on this, I can feel it. The shop that did the car 3 years ago was the one I talked to yesterday, and the owner started talking to the paint guy, about my car, in another language. I demanded to know what they were saying, of course. But I no longer trust them to wipe their own butts, let alone work on my car.
I'm sure I had less damage than you, and last year Hagerty paid $600 for paint/body work, actual repair bill from shop.
I hate that the fact of the matter is: they say you don't know how much it will be, while forgetting that a person who owns a car like this probably DOES have a good feel for how much it will be, because that person has seen it all before. Like the guy asking if I was ever a pro appraiser. No, but that means I can't tell how much damage there is to MY car? I mean, seriously, 200 bucks wouldn't replace the wheel opening molding if it got crunched. Nothing costs "only" two hundred when paint repair is concerned and this guy should know that...
the front black and green areas are the other car's paint and bumper rubber, also the vertical line at the front of the scrape is actually also pressed in- the paint is compressed, no dent in metal luckily
different angle. Rubber and paint is smeared all over the lower part of the body line, and the wheel opening body line is flattened Bad pics when reproduced here. Also note green paint all over wheel opening molding. I had to buff out a lot of scratches on the molding as well.
last one- racing stripe from other car's rear view mirror. This stripe was about 3.5' long and not easily buffed out- the plastic was sort of pressed into the paint
Lousy pic of the stripe- the dashed black line was actually solid- it was too bright out for the camera Not a huge amount of damage but even if the damage was simply able to be buffed out with no paint repair or body work it would cost almost a hundred bucks for the buff alone, I should think. It took almost an hour and a half to buff the stripe and the green paint off- since I was on the body line, burnthrough was a real concern and I had to go very slowly. A pro might be faster at it, but also I took chances the pro wouldn't, with the bonnet edge right on the crease behind the rear wheel
Just be glad she wasn't half blind and took off the whole side of the car! I'm guessing she was driving a suv since the tire marks are so high?
Chris Is all this damage on the same panel? If so, forget polishing the scuffs and the paint residue from the other car. Soon as the paint was broken or damaged beyond polishing, then your paying to paint the entire panel. What is the body and paint labor rate in your area? Your appraiser is going to pay you for the time that it would take the average professional bodyman and painter to do the repair, not how long it would take you. He'll also pay for the paint materials which are calculated by multiplying the PAINT labor hours times the material rate in your area. (Down here the labor rates are B-$38hr, P-$38hr and $25 per paint hour). Don't look at the scuffs and scratches as each being a separate repair. The majority of those scuffs and scratches will disappear when the panel is prepped for paint. There will be some metal repair around the wheel opening area, 1-1.5 hrs worth. He may not be far off, but it's hard to tell from photos. Did he pay you for another wheel opening mldg? Are there any other METAL damages?
When my girl's 86 Mustang GT was totalled, the other parties insurance company wanted to settle for 900.00. And then I could buy back the wreck for 500.00. The damage was 3600.00. My girl wanted the car fixed. There was no changing her mind and that was that! She simply kept refusing their offers "to settle" at a ridiculous price. From what Im told, insurance companies need to get claims off thier books. After a certain amount of time. Jennifer eventually got a check for 3600.00. It took a while though Jason
I know you care about your car but you should of left the damage alone and if anything put it in a body shop the next day. fixing it your self makes it harder to plead your case. and if it had rusted that would be more money it would of cost them to fix it right. Shoot ya should of made the scratch or the damage worse rather then fixing it so quick.
