Accident advise? 02 Body shops in SoCal?

[josh72ooh2]

Well... today every idiot was on the road creating havoc in the Los Angeles area. While patiently waiting to get from one freeway to the next, some stupid woman tried to cut in front of the driver behind me. He didn't let her. She then cut in behind him and proceeded to rear-end his truck, then he plowed into me, then i nudged the driver in front of me.

We all went through the regular insurance motions.... we all have the same carrier (Mercury)

i have full coverage and the car is insured for up to $6000.

Hopefully they won't total the car...

It has a good chunk of body damage.

I will definitely want the car repaired. I have no intentions of junking it.

I also don't want to take it to just any auto-body shop.

Will insurance let me take it to a specialist?

Does anybody know of a place in the Los Angeles area who specializes in body work on these old gals?

I am praying that it gets restored to it's original condition... if not better!

Any other advice on the matter would be appreciated.

The damage to the front of the car is minimal. The bumper is bent, and the grill was cracked. I'm worried that the brackets and mounts on the car are totally out of whack.

Oh... and myself and my 9yr old daughter (in the back seat) are fine. Blue Devil's seatbelts came in rear handy today....

[c.d.iesel]

glad the young-uns seat worked

well my long-distance Connecticut body estimate

is $5,000.oo++ . but look very closely inside the trunk,

spare-well. and up from under the car with the wheels off

for the slightest signs of buckling, paint cracking, folding.....

same for the front - best to have it up in the air

with wheels off for a good look.

[RayC911]

I've been driving in LA traffic all day today. No place for our 02 IMO. Glad you and the lil one are ok. You should be able take it to any body shop of your choice. GL

[M3M3]

sounds like you may be under insured and that looks like a couple grand damage easy. that means car totalled. you may have to buy it back from ins co and get it fixed yourself.

start gathering research on 2002 values for the condition yours is in and ger ready for the battle.

[josh72ooh2]

sounds like you may be under insured and that looks like a couple grand damage easy. that means car totalled. you may have to buy it back from ins co and get it fixed yourself.

start gathering research on 2002 values for the condition yours is in and ger ready for the battle.

so much for positive hope... did you have to be such a negative Nelly on an already grim situation?

Ugh... and a week before i get another car as a daily driver to retire the 02 to being a pleasure car.

Fingers crossed this all works out...

[osbourne]

Hopefully, the car is still in your physical posession. If the insurance company gets ahold of it and takes it to one of their "holding areas", they will be holding all of the cards. The car looks to be driveable, so, if you haven't already done so, get it to your home ASAP.

I don't have a clue as to what CA law says about cars that are declaired total losses. But, if it's anything like PA, you don't want to go there. Find a couple of shops that know 02s really well. Take it to them for estimates and let them know, up front, that you do NOT want the car to be totalled.

It sounds like you may be a bit under-insured, but if you can establish a good pre-accident valuse for your car, they should be willing to do a bit more to "make you whole" again.

The trouble is, 02s in general are pretty under-valued. That's both a good and a bad thing. It's good in that it keeps them affordable for the true enthusiasts among us and keeps the collectors from getting too interested and driving the prices up (can you say Porsche 356?). It also goes a long way toward keeping parts reasonably priced (and by and large, 02 parts are still pretty reasonable). The bad is when they get wrecked or stolen and you want to repair them

[M3M3]

not negative...realistic unfortunately. have you had body work done lately? it's expensive. kinda looks like that hit got into bumper, rear panel, left side quarter panel. do a quick search on how much those parts are... could they be fixed with banging them out and lots of bondo? sure, but do you want that on your nice car? of course we all hope the ins co makes it right, but that may take a lot of fight....or they will cut their losses and total it.

[Richard]

I am sorry for your loss and glad the munchkin is okay. One thing though. Once a car is hit as hard as yours it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove all signs of repair and return it better than new. I look forward to peanut gallery opinions. Not trying to be negative just the facts.....

[jerry]

josh, so sorry to see this. glad you and your daughter are okay.

i do not know what the front end looks like, but that car has survived other assaults on it and lived another day. replacing the tail panel is not a big deal for a competent bodyshop and i know from seeing a friend's 02, that it can be done without much evidence.

besides, the original tailpanel had 'oilcanned' at that exact spot so replacing it would be an improvement. it's too bad that the old methods of shrinking and stretching metal is not well understood or practiced these days. seems everyone goes the route of cutting and replacing panels. 'time is money' sort of thing.

did your quarter panel buckle or is it merely dented locally? it would surprise you what can be pulled out with patience, a 'comealong', some heat, hammer and dollies.

this could be an opportunity to give it the paint job it deserves. hang in there. i've got its sister up in marin (built one week before yours) with a much worse hit to the DS rear quarter than you are showing. i have faith it can be pulled out.

i've seen the workmanship of a coworker who saved a 1960's musclecar that was crushed from behind. took him 2 weeks (of evening work) of slowly pulling, heating, banging, stretching and shrinking to bring it back into shape. he's old-skool but cut his teeth with racecars.

i hope you save it. it would be a shame to loose another 'blue-plate' survivor....

good luck

[vinceinIL]

Sorry to hear about the accident, especially because of how it happened.

Gather your information so you know where you stand and be prepared to send it to the insurance company to verify what they should pay.

Be firm and businesslike with them, but don't let them BS you. If they say well, it's an old car...counter with so what, you oughta be glad it wasn't a new Benz! Remind them that it was the other driver's reckless actions that caused the damage, it wasn't just a little bump, it pushed the pickup truck into you HARD, look at that picture. Did that woman think she was at a demolition derby? And oh yeah, how are they going to compensate you for your time wasted because of THE other driver. Tell them they can get the money easily by RAISING the other driver's premium.

You got rear ended....did you have a doctor check yourself and your child out? Wait for a few days to see if anything turns up before saying you're fine.

In short, be nice and firm, and know what you want. Don't be afraid to fight for it, they count on people giving up easily and when you don't, they are much more likely to give you what you want if it's fair to get the case closed. Don't be afraid to be a dick to get fair compensation, it's your right.

Good luck,

vince

[josh72ooh2]

I won't let Betty die. Ill fight tooth and nail to make sure she gets a new tight butt.

Stay tuned! Thanks for the kind words and bits of hope.

Great ideas of standing a firm ground with the insurance company. Sometimes i wish i had some law school under my belt for this kind of crap.

unfortunately, we ALL had the same insurance company....

The latest damage assessment is this:

Front - appears the bumper, brackets, chrome ring around the headlight and some paint damage. the grill looks OK (it was a shallow grill and the headlight sticked out a bit). Sheet metal is still intact.

Rear:

The dent is local. just pushed in. We were all standing still until the crazy bitch played pumper cars.

The seam inside the trunk, on the driver's side of the car where it meets the spare wheel well is split.

The side of the car around the rear drivers side tire is all wavy too.

The spare tire looks like it is slightly pinched in from the rear dent.

Bumper, rear trim, brackets, tail light, license plate light, sheet metal = shot.

Trunk lid seems OK. It was all under the trunk trim.

And if anybody has repair/02/body shops in so-cal, please recommend?

I'm gonna see what Coupe King says... Hey, i know they aren't cheap but they'd fix it right.

And this happened exactly 1 Week prior to me flying to Oregon to pick up a new daily driver so i wouldn't have to worry as much about things like this. I'm Getting an 05 VW diesel station wagon that gets 40MPG to drive back to LA.... if anybody in the bay area/san Jose has an 02 rear end they can part with for free/cheap. Please shout.

-josh

[Devian]

You have the right to pic the body shop. I would advise against letting the insurance company pick because they go with shops that give them discounts and do things on the cheap. As for who to go to, I don't know in LA.

[nesky45]

I damaged my front end last year..bumper wrecked, dented hood, pushed in left fender and belt line trim. 2,100 bucks. The adjuster began with questioning the shop about repairing such an old car, but shop said car was very nice and worth repairing. I got rechromned bumper from Aardvark racing, and trim from Bavarian autosport. Worked closely with the shop to source the parts. Car came out great, they even fixed some rust that had not repaired properly. I paid for rust repair myself.

Never heard of Mercury insurance. If you have an agent they can sometimes help

Your car looks sweet and worth repairing.

Good luck.

Craig

[Richard]

What jerry said is dead on. Bodyworrk is parts and very little quality. The lost art of coachworks is available but very expensive.I have seen accident damage repaired that is better than new. Price: 3-4 times better than the crap they do in most body shops. Do not count or think of anything north of your policy.Find out first if your rear wheels are aligned. If you have a kink in the monoframe your at $2,000 for that issue alone maybe more......

[vinceinIL]

Glad to be of some help...

Rear end can probably be saved.

Peter at CoupeKing is good and an old friend. Stuff like this is often best done by people who like these old cars, and might be cheaper in the long run.

vince