am i going to get ripped off?

[toph99]

the girl i had the accident with yesterday called me to say that the local mechanic estimated $600 in parts to 'repair' her car. The thing is a mid-late 80's POS, i didn't pay close attention to what it was(looked like a chevy) for a piece of rubber that fell off(i found it, the thing was barely hanging on from the looks of it) and an alleged crack in the fiberglass below her grill. The crack may have been there beforehand, as the thing looked like someone had taken a baseball bat or two to it. Is this a total bullsh!t estimate? it's in canadian $ btw. the only other thing wrong that i saw was my bumper paint was on her bumper... but it wasn't bent or damaged at all.

Also, does anyone know how much GM rear bumpers go for?(2000 alero) i couldn't find a price anywhere

 

[Ramsnake]

i think 300$ is a fair estimate for that damage...

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: Ramsnake
i think 300$ is a fair estimate for that damage...

very fair. If that was fiberglass damage, then the mechanic should replace the entire part, not just patch it up. Labor is expensive, parts are cheap.

Sounds good to me.

<--- was a mechanic so take with a grain of salt.

 

[waggy]

Well since niether of you called the cops i would do that right now!

My wife was in somthing close to this. She was at a stop sign when a women cut the corner to close and ended up scraping the back end of her car on my wifes front end. Niether of them called the cops since neither car had any damage.

about 3 days later she called and demanded $500 or she would go to the cops. my wife said call them and hung up. since it was so late at night we called them in the morning. The girl did call the cops early that morning and when we called they were on there way over. The cop looked at the front end of my wife's car (a small white mark on it no other damage) and didnt t hink it was my wife that did it.

We asked to see her car so the cop took us over there. When we got there the car had a small dent on the high end of the side of the car and about 6inches below that a redmark (the color of my wife's car). the girls boyfriend (also a cop but a city cop) said that there was nothing worthc doing and they would not call insurance.

Well we went in to pay insurance and told them what happend and they said they would contact us if they got called from her. well a week later my insuarance agent said they made a claim against us. With a estimate for $2300 she was claiming a huge dent and the wheel well was messed up. she also needed a new axle.

We talked to insurance and they said they would send us copys of them. When we got htem we could not belive how much damage there was. We told insurance not to pay and we would take full responbility for it (which you can legally do). We then had the cop come out and showed him the picture and asked if we go to court would he back us up that we did not do this damage. he said he cant say that but would say that the damage in the pics were not there when he looked at the car. we then sent the girl a letter saying what happend and we will fight it.

We never heard from her after that. heh


So my advice is call the cops and try to take pictures! i dont think she can sue for more then the worth of the car. so good luck

 

[toph99]

two of my friends saw the damage, and were at the scene, an and abulance happened to show up by luck, but they saw no one was injured and there was nothing seriously damaged, so they left. If the fiberglass was damaged by me, then i'd have no problem at all paying for it, but i have my doubts that it was me who did it. I haven't seen where it is, if it's near where i hit then i'll assume i did it, but if it's a ways off, i'm not so sure i did... the hit wasn't hard at all, my bumper gave, and has a little lump from where it got hit(about 1cm in diameter, 5-6mm high) and her car was missing a turn signal, so i assume she had hit something before we had our incident, because i know for a fact i didn't do that. I'm probably just going to end up paying it just to get it over with... there goes the money i had saved up from working...

 

[Soybomb]

Yeah if the bumper is cracked and they need to get a new one and paint it, it can be 500-600 pretty easily. Just because its an old car doesn't mean its cheap

 

[toph99]

well i talked to my dad about this and he said that if they are actually planning on fixing the car(i doubt they would) then we're going to take it to three places to get estimates, one place of their choice, one of our choice and one we mutually agree on. I went to discuss this with her but she unfortunatly wasn't home.

and yes soybomb, i know that just because it's old doesn't mean it's cheap(sometimes more expensive if it's hard to find) but this car was in a state of disrepair, missing a signal light etc.(is it legal to drive without all your signals functioning properly?) and i have doubts that they'd actually use the money to fix the car.

oh, and it wasn't her bumper that cracked, it was(allegedly) the piece under her grill. this could have happened when whatever it was took out her headlight as well, and i didn't see it when i looked after the accident so i assume it just split. my bumper is another story unfortunatly...

 

[geekender]

My wife was tapped in the rear ( no comments ) of our caravan by a VW Beetle. Looked like a small dent. Whole bumper assembly had to be replaced. Don't forget bumper, labor, paint, and prep. Our total was $1200....thank goodness her insurance had to pay.

 

[toph99]

good news is that for $250 and the rubber piece i found they'll settle... they had no intention on doing the repairs except for that piece. bad news is i still have to find out how much my bumper is going to be.. if it's any more than $1450 i'm gonna be in some trouble

 

[rutchtkim]

my sister got into a minor fender bender about 4 years ago, damage looked very minor, few bumps and scratches here and there. i etimated like $300 in damages, it wound up being like $1500. so dont come to conclusions

 

[777php]

I was in an accident around 2 years ago where this girl backed up into my car. She didn't want to claim insurance and agreed to pay for the damages. The very same day I went to 3 auto body shops and got estimates for the damages, printed and signed. I then used those printouts to estimate my damage costs.

You should ask her to do the exact same thing, just so you can be sure you're not getting ripped off.

 

[sheselectric]

from now on make sure you have a camera in your car at all times!!!