Do we have any members experienced in paint and body work? I need a bumper replaced on my vehicle but it would require painting the new one which I don’t have the capability to do.
Not a member-owned company (AFAIK), but after some extensive hail damage 3 years ago I had a good experience with Caliber Collision in Allen (on the street behind Cabela’s).
My insurance has sent me to Caliber Collision (I used one in Frisco last time) a couple of times, always with good results. I’d recommend them as well.
Thanks. Geico sent me to Service King and I was exceptionally displeased with the quote. I know it’s possible that some damage can be hidden behind a bumper since they’re all squishy plastic now…but a parking lot hit and run that was MAYBE 10 mph doesn’t warrant 3 hours of labor on the roof and brand new tail lights. At least half of it was nonsense.
Something I was surprised about when my RAV4 was totaled by a hit an run, it was covered by my uninsured motorist portion of coverage: deductible was only $250 (lower than $1,000 I had on collision) plus was not chargeable as an accident against my driving history which could raise rates. You may want to check these out.
Also, usually if the shop is a company suggested by insurer they don’t argue about the claim cost (they often get a discount like medical insurers do.) That or make sure in writing that service provider accepts insurer’s payment as full payment less your deductible.
Good points. I’ll make sure that bit about my deductible being full payment is added the estimate where it goes. It’s just a new bumper and possibly trailer hitch. While I know it’s the shop’s prerogative to get the insurance to pay for as much as possible, I have no interest in attaching ridiculous repairs to my VIN and having it look like a parking lot kiss from some idiot backing up was a major rear end collision, ya know?
Be sure to look into a diminished value claim.
When I damaged the bumper on mom’s Prius I ordered an aftermarket bumper cover from eBay. The seller was offering pre-painted ones where you simply ordered and messaged them the paint code from the car.
The bumper arrived in less than a week from Houston and fit without issues.
Service King is actually pretty great, maybe not economical but you can expect a very good paint job and a warranty on their work supported by an actual chain not an individual shop.
I’m a body guy but not prepared to do any painting at the moment.
But why are they adding things like roof parts and brand new tail lights on a claim when none of them is damaged? Looking at their estimate you’d think the entire back corner was crumbled not just the bumper. I want it fixed correctly of course, but I don’t want an extensive repair history unless it’s necessary that can lead to wars on warranty claims.
Any other suggestions for where to go?
I’ll suggest talking to the person bidding. I did that when my wife’s car was rear-ended because I didn’t see where some things were needed. The fellow pointed to the components, said this is how this SHOULD look, showed me pics of the parts and what was wrong. It was really nice, and I had missed a number of bent components in my haste. I was really glad I did it. Regrettably the car was “fixed right” but never worked properly again… But I felt better about all the $$for components i didn’t realize were damaged…
So just ask them to point at the part and explain what’s wrong with it. Usually they will…
What’s your actual complaint here, are you paying out of pocket, or is this is an insurance claim?
There may be damage you don’t see, there may be broken tabs and things like that, it’s hard to say without actually being able to look at it. if this is an insurance claim it is always possible they’re adding extra parts to replace so that they get paid for extra work, but I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion immediately. They’re more likely to do it because is an insurance claim and you technically the customer isn’t going to eat the cost of it because you pay deductible or someone else’s insurance is covering it.
If this is an out-of-pocket repair, look at it decide if it needs to be done and tell them yes or no.
No complaint. I had planned to cash pay the repairs if they were under a certain threshold and skip insurance. I was hoping to throw the business to a member who could do it or at least find a trustworthy shop. Body repair isn’t in my wheelhouse but signs pointed to something amiss.
We ended up filing a claim since the estimates were on the bubble and went with Calliber. So far they seem very professional.
It will be interesting to see what they come back with when they write-up the specific damages they find.
They’re slow so they had it torn down a few hours later. New bumper assembly/painting of said bumper was all it needed. Teensy amount of time to touch up the quarter panel where the bumper scratched over it. Just waiting on parts.
Idly wishing we could go back to days of yore when they didn’t make them from plastic. 3 days in the shop for this is asinine
Hey, I prefer plastic cars, I want to go back to the days pre airbag. Requiring all cars to have airbags has been detrimental to innovation in vehicle safety.
Glad you’ve got a plan for repair. I could have looked at it and told you if the repairs were nonsense for not. My guess on the caliber quote is that it’s in the 1-1.5k range if all it was, was bumper and paint. Maybe a little less if the replacement bumper is cheaper than normal.
It was probably back around 1991, I was visiting my parents back in Washington state while on Christmas break from Texas A&M. It had snowed overnight, and partially melted, leaving bare, wet ruts for the lanes during the day, when I drove a few miles to the next town.
As I’m driving back, after dark, things are starting to get sketchy as that melt between the snow is starting to freeze up. The 1976 ford LTD I was driving might not be the best car for brakes, but when I realized that there was an accident closing the road after the bridge, I managed to get under 1 MPH before tapping the van at the end of the line. Unfortunately, the Tempo that I thought was plenty far back to avoid us, didn’t. It not just pushed the LTD and the van into a truck in front of the van, but pushed that truck into another van. The LTD and everything in front of it drove away, though as I understand it, at least one of the drivers in front of me filed a medical claim. I had collected the insurance info from the tempo driver and shared with the rest at the next convenience store. That tempo had spilled every kind of automotive fluid it held, and had parts of the frame resting on the road. I’m pretty sure it was totaled. The LTD, we kept looking at, and we think it picked up one fairly minor scratch on the rear bumper chrome. Otherwise we couldn’t find any body or mechanical problems, and my parents still had it a few years later when they moved to Texas.
You’d be correct. Meanwhile the Service King punch sheet was over 2k with double the labor hours + a page and a half part of me wonders if they would have been successful in scamming insurance for it
Countless body shops have been successful at scamming insurance companies, ultimately the cost gets passed down to you, the customer. I buy salvage cars, cars that the insurance has totaled because the body shop gave them a quote 75% or higher of the value of the car. I’ve come across cars that had the body shop quote in them looked at labor and parts, looked at the car and been able to tell that somebody had a buddy at the body shop and just wanted to get out of their lone with their Gap coverage. I looked at HHR once that was flawless except for a slightly distorted bumper. Sub frame and suspension were perfect, however the body shop quoted a new sub frame and suspension.
We had our roof redone, the final receipt had fence repair, paint work, all these stupid items added that were not necessary to fix and were never even fake fixed. My husband is one of those people who was convinced if he signed off on the bill he would go to jail for fraud. He hassled the insurance for a good two weeks to get it fixed. The only response from insurance was they did not care about the overcharges just sign it and move on. So I would say yes they probably would have gotten away with it.