If you find a great body shop, they will fix them and you'll see no difference before the incident.

PS: Got into a stupid accident like yours

 

i'm sorry to hear the incident. best of luck on the repairs =)

 

RXSF - so sorry to hear about this happening. Get her fixed and keep this garage managers feet to the fire as it not right when this happens once, but its completely unacceptable to happen 3 times with no fix or plan to resolve the root cause.

 

You can always take him to small claims court.

 

thanks for the well wishes.

the estimate came in today from the insurance company (not the body shop I plan to go to), and it was a little shy of $1500. Will head down to the body shop of my choice to see what they say.

 

Went to the body shop about a week ago that my Lexus dealer uses, and they estimated a whopping $4000.

That includes just refinishing the front fender
repainting the entire door for a nick
replacing the side mirror
and here is where it gets interesting: there are some light but noticeable and feel-able scratches on the A pillar. the body shop says that they have no where to stop if they repaint it and has to repaint the entire frame of the car along the roof and back to the rear fender. that is a big no no to me. so i have been working with the insurance company to try to find a solution. Currently, we agree that we should try to buff it out first. this will save the insurance company about 1500 dollars and also I get to keep my factory paint on the majority of that side of the car.

regarding the garage owner. We are at a standstill. He continues to not accept blame, the other renters dont have any gusto to go after him. Small claims court will take forever and will cost more. my insurance company wont go after him. I have 6 more days on my monthly lease, and I will be out of there. I chalk it up to bad luck.

turned the car to the body shop just last night, and am just playing the waiting game now.

 

Thanks for the update. Best of luck on the repairs and getting your RX back all better. And definitely go after the SOB garage owner. He needs to pay big time.

 

I hate it when crap like this happens. Good luck with the buff out attempt.

 

I hear you, I think it is best to keep as much of the factory paint as possible. When something like that happened to my Ford it didn't bother me near as much as it did with my Lexus.
It's a shame that the garage owner has learned nothing from this and he just goes on down the road.
Best of luck on your repair and keep us posted.

 

Small claims does take time but you don't need a lawyer for that. For that amount of money, I would go for it so at least I can be at peace that I did something to it rather than asking myself the 'what ifs' down the road.

 

That is really awful, I hope you get your car fixed and this whole ordeal behind you soon.

 

my deductible is just $500. Im not sure if im willing to go that route just for 500

 

RXSF,

You said in an earlier post that your insurer won't go after the garage owner. That says to me that they are going to treat this as a chargeable accident (i.e., your fault). Depending on the insurance laws in CA and on your policy, that could mean a surcharge on your policy for the next few years -- that would be the case for me in NY and with my insurer. So the cost to you for this may be greater than the $500 deductible when you look at the whole picture.

(I know this because my wife managed to scrape the entire passenger side of her Pilot, including front & rear bumpers, on the corner of a parked truck. It was just over $4300 to repair. I will have a surcharge for each of the next 3 years, I think in the $300-500 range. I won't know the amount for sure until policy renewal in January.)

I also think you would have a tough time winning in small claims court. If it were clearly the fault of the garage owner, your insurer would be pursuing a claim against him.

 

^I was gonna say that about the insurance making you for at fault. But ask your insurance agent.

 

oh but my insurance is filing this under comprehensive. Doesnt that mean its not my fault?