ISRabbit

Long story short, guy stopped short in front of me and I didn't react fast enough. Was my fault for leaving from the light right behind him. I should have left a gap, but I guess he didn't notice traffic only inched forward so he took off then immediately slammed on his brakes.

Anyways, thats not what this thread is about. I have full coverage insurance on my car (Geico). I have an appointment wednesday to have the car looked at and get me a rental car. My question is has anyone had them replace the parts with aftermarket? I know a lot of stock parts can be really pricey. Sometimes you can find them aftermarket cheaper anyways. Right now it looks like I need a hood, headlights, bumper, and grill of course. I haven't popped the hood because I know it wont close again, but i'm about 99% certain I didn't bend the radiator support or anything structural.

For the record, I got to about 5mph. Plastic and thin sheet metal isn't very forgiving There goes my insurance. My first accident in almost 9 years. I've only had one other and I was rear ended while sitting at a light. Oh well...it was a good run. Florida sucks and I had a **** ton of rock chips in my front end so trying to look at the bright side. I JUST bought a new front lip and was going to install it this weekend. Glad I didn't.

kwikshift

here's my 2 cents from what i know in IL. you could get an estimate, have geico approve the amount for the repairs. geico will send you a check for the amount minus your deductible and you can do as you please. only possible downside is if you end up needing additional parts, an adjuster usually has to come out and approve the extra parts in order for the insurance company to make sure its legitimate. At that point it could go either way where the adjuster may say something or he will go about his business and pay up. Another contributing factor is if the body shop is willing to help you out with what you are trying to do. Hopefully this helps.

ISRabbit

That's kind of what I was hoping for. The body shop has already said whether its factory or aftermarket wont matter to them unless it becomes more work.

toan414

Depends on what aftermarket parts you want, if its direct replacement, they dont care. I took my car the the dealership and had an adjuster come there, dealership was one of their approved list, they settled on the final price including materials and labor. After he left, I told the dealership that I wanted aftermarket pieces on instead of OEM, they didnt care much, just told me to tell them where to buy the parts. My pieces were all cosmetic, including front bumper, lip, intake and engine cover. As long as its below or the same price as what the insurance is, they didnt care, if it was more, I had to pay the remainder out of pocket.

ISRabbit

Thank you, this is kind of what I'm hoping for. I'm just looking to do a carbon fiber hood. Now i'm up in the air on this though. I had bought a lip off ebay, trimmed it to fit nicely and was getting ready to do a CF overlay on it. I was going to do a CF hood half painted to match, but now that the front end is being repainted i'm debating on just having them paint my lip at the same time. They already said it wouldn't be anymore work and they would just mount it and paint it with the new bumper.

Thanks for the reply guys. I really just want my baby back

MikeyK02

iTrader: (7)

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah good luck buddy. I have geico too, and it didnt work like that. Here's the problem I encountered with Geico, A, those adjusters suck ***, to the point where they tried to lowball the hell out of my estimate (Yes it's there job, but I'm talking real bad) B, depending on what year your car is, they will actually look for used parts for your vehicle (to keep the cost down on them) they would look for. I luckily too mine to a shop that the guy knew how to get the adjusters quote up (by upping paint cost and hours) Geico dealt directly with the shop, and I ended up paying out of pocket for what I wanted, and then reimbursed by the shop that did my repairs (thank god sewells stuff is painted) The problem came in, when the insurance adjusters requested to see the work when it was completed. Luckily I picked up my car, before the guy came back

dorkacho

iTrader: (5)

dont have any experience in this area, but am sorry to hear about the accident

hope everything turns out ok!

cdtran2

I just had the front bumper cover and one of my fender's replaced from an accident and the aftermarket parts didn't fit so they had to get the oem ones. Basically, insurance companies are trying to save the most money, so they'll go with aftermarket or reconditioned parts. They way most work is if these parts don't fit or look right, the shop has to get you the oem parts. My insurance company (safeco) actually has this policy add on now where if you make any claim, it'll automatically get replaced with oem parts. Otherwise, you wait for the shop to get the aftermarket parts and have them not fit and you have to wait longer for the oem parts. You should always have the option for the oem parts, its just a matter of if you want to wait for the aftermarket parts to not fit right or just pay for the difference upfront and have them order the oem parts.

sprcheese

I have esurance and had to work through the repair facility to get them to buy the parts I wanted. They were very nice and worked with me and I only had to cover the difference in parts that were over OEM prices.