I was on Montague today and was "tapped" while stopped at a traffic light. The damage that resulted was two moderate-sized dents on the bumper from the other car's license plate screws. I received a quote from a reputable body shop for $860 to repair the bumper cover, sand, prime, respray and re-clearcoat the entire bumper using Glasurit products. My suspicion is that the other party's insurer will not pay that much for the repairs. I would like to consider other options as well. IIRC, macman408's car received significant repairs by one of the Carwest facilities with good results. Thanks in advance.
Why won't they pay for it? You're entitled to use whatever body shop you decide. $860 doesn't sound too terrible, but for that it seems like they could just replace the bumper and paint it, unless you have a body kit or special paint?
You are in California. You have the right to take your car to whom ever you want. The other parties insurance, they were at fault, will pay, with no deductible to you! I would ask your local Toyota dealers who they recommend for body work. Take the car to the shop, your insurance will get their money from the other parties insurance, and your car will look fine!
Well, an insurance carrier is always going to write their estimate and pay what is fair, in their eyes. It's up to the shop to work with that, at that point. The other party's insurance has not gotten back to me yet, however. I may go with a DRP repair shop (CarWest Elite) just to make things easier, though I am a bit leery about those types of programs.
Just go into whatever repair shop you want and get the repair done under your insurance and your insurance company will get their money from the other insurance company. You do not have to go thru any BS, just get it repaired. It is up to your repair shop to decide what materials they will use and you decide if that is what you want. I'd ask for a new bumper cover. A real good repair shop will have no problem getting your car done right. Mike
When someone hit my Prius years ago and knocked the rear bumper cover off, I think my insurance and Toyota Sunnyvale recommended Sunnyvale Auto Body Collision Repair And Detail - Da-Les Auto Body. IIRC, the latter sends cars there for body work. To me, they did a pretty good job.
El Camino body shop in Santa Clara. When my 2010 was 8 months old someone ripped the front right fender in a parking lot. It caused the headlight mount to be cracked and other miscellaneous cosmetic damage. They fixed it like new and matched the paint. Mike
Another thing you could do is find a junkyard with a nice bumper cover and do it yourself. Same color so no painting required. Mike
This morning, I dropped off the car at Carwest Elite in Fremont. So far, this has been an extremely professional body shop with a very nice facility. Per the phone call that I received this afternoon, the car should be done by tomorrow afternoon. I got a MB C250 as a rental (had to pay for the upgrade, of course), and I will be very sad to return it....
Got the car back from the body shop. Carwest Elite in Fremont, CA, is truly a top-notch facility. Car West Elite Auto Body - Fremont, CA The paint match is great, and the car was returned to me in record time. I dropped the car off yesterday at 8am, and the car was completed today at 3pm. They repaired the damaged area, primed, and painted/blended a portion of the bumper. The entire bumper was re-clearcoated. Based on the literature in the waiting room, they use the Nexa Aquabase Plus refinishing system (water-based).
I'm a bit late to this party, but yes, Carwest did my repairs (paid by my insurance after it was keyed). If you look extremely closely, you can tell that the color doesn't perfectly match, but since they did the entirety of all the affected panels, there's a gap between the different colors, so it's really hard to tell. They did have to touch up the clear coat a bit when I picked it up, as there was a tiny little drip mark; they were able to buff it out in about 5 minutes while I waited. I'm sure there are probably better body shops (for whatever your personal definition of "better" may be - faster, cheaper, higher quality), but I have no complaints about Carwest.
I agree with you, I recently had some "minor" repairs done caused by a large truck's tires rubbing up on the rear driver side of my Prius. Appeared to be some small dents and tire marks, but in the end, the repair cost about $2,800 bucks, no new parts, all repaired, and the bulk of the cost was labor. Best wishes.
