vassey50

Good afternoon CL. Last week my ES300 was in a near miss by inches and then 20 sec later another person cutting across traffic and bam! Poor car. My insurance wants to write the car off , to which i said (insert expletives here). I found a body shop that will do the work but I'm in need of a front bumper for the 2001 model year.

Crappy thing is, is that I am located in Canada and there just isn't a lot of donor cars out there. I am wondering if anybody has used salvage yards in the past and had some good contacts or yards, whether in Canada or the USA. I used one in Texas for my steering wheel upgrade. If anybody can suggest anything, I'd be very greatful. And remember, safe driving. It's lose - lose when you get into accident with these later model cars, insurance simply bends you over, regardless what the car means to us. Thanks.

V

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

The insurance company does what makes the most sense to them financially, you can't blame them for that. The only other choice is having Classic Car insurance, but your car would not qualify for that.

How bad is the damage, do you have pictures? Just make sure your title doesn't change to a Salvage, that would really suck.

About the bumper, you could try eBay. I've seen a lot of salvaged bumpers on there.

vassey50

The dealer quote for the damage appraisal was over $5000. There's a big gash in the front bumper which is plastic / resin material. The bodyshop guy brought me in to look at it and they're trying to melt / mend it together. It doesn't sound sexy, but I hope they can manage something to help me get it back on the road.

It's been a silly week of fighting with my insurance company, adjusters, apprasiers etc. Didn't agree with the car valuation, got a second bodyshop quote. It's frigging endless and it's sad because the car is in excellent condition and just got new tires on it ready for the summer season. My Lexus service shop was even upset when i told them the news because they know the car and it's condition. Thanks for the advice, I'll check out ebay I'll try and get some pics up, still hard to look at.

V

PFB

Try this site. If you're lucky you'll find one in Nova Scotia,

http://car-part.com

You probably just need a bumper cover, not the whole bumper. Also, if your bumper cover is not missing anything, but is just banged in, it could probably be repaired almost as good as new.

If pssible, post a picture.


Phil

speedkar9

A bumper cover isn't $5000 in damage.

The reason why the insurance company wants to total it is because the damage exceeds the value of the car. While you may look and see a gash in the bumper and a broken grill, a proper appraisal would have found the radiator support bent and damage to the re-bar and possibly radiator and A/C condenser damaged as well.

I'd still proceed with caution on this - have the body shop remove the bumper cover, headlights, plastic trim (and fenders if applicable) so you can have a look at the damage behind all the panels. If the frame is bent, there's no point in restoring this car (unless it has great sentimental value), and your better off salvaging parts from it for your next ES300.

Post up some pics!

imherenow

that sucks bro..you can try Kijiji across Canada. Maybe someone is selling ES300 for parts. I would try that.

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

The fly-by-night shop quote sounds very fishy. This is done via an automated program that simply lists off rounded off prices per part, per vehicle. I have close friends' in the business, and I've seen the procedure [and went through them]...

Anything lexus will be 1000$ ++ in damage. No matter what, each & every time.

With that said, have the shop check the rad support, aprons for shifting, & rebar. If it's 5k, I'm afraid there may be a lot more than the eye can see. And if you simply fix the cosmetics whilst ignoring potential damage affecting the frame the car won't drive right - trust me on this. Get it checked out.

My entire rear-end respray with straitening the ***-end was over 3k with paint.