Rear ended. First accident..ever advice?

[Burrito]

So made it almost 20 years driving without an accident but some lady rear ended me yesterday. Teslacam caught it too. I had a police report and insurance has it all.

My agent hasn’t called me back yet (farmers) but the person who hit me insurance did today (progressive). What should I be doing in this process? The damage is minor, about an 2 inch sq of paint is gone, no dent. Just a bunch of scuffs outside the missing paint.
I’m very anal about my car so I want it fixed. Can I just have her insurance pay to have a pre painted bumper installed at Tesla?

Can’t seem to upload .mov files for the camera photo.

 

[PNWLeccy]

Sorry about this. I just had the same thing happen to mine 3 weeks after taking delivery. Similar situation where there was no dent, mostly paint transfer from other cars license plate and two small puncture holes from the plate holder.

I contacted my insurance with the other persons insurance info and they got a claim number for me. I had to wait until they could get in touch with them, they accepted fault. I went to SC to discuss the options for a fix. I had a mobile service apt. In the mean time and he told me that Tesla just started doing bumpers in house recently, at least here in Seattle. However, they only do a replace and do not repair.

I had assumed that the best route was to just get a completely new one, which are now pre-painted from Tesla (I also have MSM). Tesla actually invited someone over from the auto body shop they work with across the street to assess and give her opinion. She did not try to push a repair vs replace at all but told me that she could pad the repair cost estimate a little to make a replace option more appealing to my insurance if I wanted. I did that. I then sent Tesla’s estimate and the body shop repair estimate to my insurance adjuster. The adjuster then came out to Tesla to inspect herself and recommended a repair vs a replace from Tesla. Her argument was that the pre-painted bumper from Tesla often doesn’t match the rest of your car like they can when repairing/ repainting. Because the damage was so minimal- like yours - I decided to go this route. I talked to the auto body shop and they told me they literally do this Tesla paint matching all the time and it would be a perfect match. It turned out excellent. Exact match and can’t tell anything ever happened.


This experience was kind of annoying but actually didn’t have any real problems with a car that looks as good as new. Now onto the hard part of claiming diminished value since there will be an accident on my car history. Even though it was minimal, there’s lots of people who will not touch a car with an accident on its history since carfax doesn’t provide any detail whether it’s a low speed rear end vs highway speed collision...which is dumb.

 

[OCR1]

I tend to think that a car with a replaced bumper might have less of an issue with diminished value than a repaired bumper, since the damaged part was completely removed and replaced with a new one. But aside from diminished value I agree that there is no issue with doing the repair if the body shop does the job correctly.

 

[PNWLeccy]

I tend to think that a car with a replaced bumper might have less of an issue with diminished value than a repaired bumper, since the damaged part was completely removed and replaced with a new one. But aside from diminished value I agree that there is no issue with doing the repair if the body shop does the job correctly.

Yea I generally would tend to agree but with this minimal level of damage, hit at very low speed, no structural damage, I know it’s fine. I’m most annoyed by the fact that whoever pulls a carfax doesn’t know anything besides “1 accident”. The details on if it was repaired or replaced would also not be included on the carfax so not sure it makes a difference when it comes to DV.

 

[Burrito]

So how much diminished value does a car fax hit warrant?

 

[Burrito]

crash

s/ithead who caused it

 

[youngmcdonald]

So made it almost 20 years driving without an accident but some lady rear ended me yesterday. Teslacam caught it too. I had a police report and insurance has it all.

My agent hasn’t called me back yet (farmers) but the person who hit me insurance did today (progressive). What should I be doing in this process? The damage is minor, about an 2 inch sq of paint is gone, no dent. Just a bunch of scuffs outside the missing paint.
I’m very anal about my car so I want it fixed. Can I just have her insurance pay to have a pre painted bumper installed at Tesla?

Can’t seem to upload .mov files for the camera photo.
View attachment 467996
View attachment 467998

Buff out or replace the bumper. This is very minor. Don’t bother with the diminished value. You won’t get more than a couple hundred if that.

It’ll be on CarFax because you filed a police report. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been.

 

[Burrito]

Easy for a billionaire to say..also the person who hit me asked for the police, not me.

 

[Kiwiadventure]

So how much diminished value does a car fax hit warrant?

What are young on about just let your insurance company look after it and move on.

 

[dmurphy]

crash

s/ithead who caused it

oh man, that stinks. Right in front of the Old Mill Inn, it looks like. Ugh. I’m 15 mins from there in Parsippany so if you need anything - ride to the body shop or whatever - just shoot me a message!

Can I ask what body shop you went to? I just put a small scrape on my bumper with a parking bollard today (ugh) - so can use someone local that knows Tesla paint. No damage to the bumper cover other than the scraped up paint. Just needs a small section touched up; it’s almost in a spot you can’t see.

thanks!

 

[Rockster]

So how much diminished value does a car fax hit warrant?

The best way to answer that question is to have a diminished value appraisal. Our Model S was rear ended similarly, causing damage to the bumper cover and a total repair coast of about $1200 to replace the bumper cover and repaint. The diminished value estimate from Petty Details in north Texas was $5900, which is what we ended up recovering after battling the other insurance company all the way to a small claims court trial.

As for whether a repair ends up in Car Fax or not, there are no hard and fast rules. Some body shops have estimating software whose license agreement includes data mining of repairs for reporting to car fax other purposes and the body shop doesn't even know that.

 

[Burrito]

Hey Dennis, thanks and your correct on location.

it happened yesterday leaving work (was another vz employee too who hit me), so I haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet.

body shop recommendations in central NJ? Does the Springfield Tesla do repairs?

 

[dmurphy]

Hey Dennis, thanks and your correct on location.

it happened yesterday leaving work (was another vz employee too who hit me), so I haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet.

body shop recommendations in central NJ? Does the Springfield Tesla do repairs?

Oh man, didn’t realize it was you! So sorry - at least maybe now the tabs on your trunk opening will line up ... (there’s the glass half full!)

The only body shop I’ve got experience with is Open Road in Morristown, but they’re a GM dealership so not likely to touch a Tesla.

Peotter’s in Summit seems to get good reviews. I’m probably going to try D&M in Rockaway, since they’re more in my neck of the woods.

Keep me posted and seriously, if you need a lift or anything, just shout!

 

[Tam]

...mov files...

So, the accident wouldn't happen if the car in front of you didn't perform an illegal u-turn in the middle of the road and right after the left turn!

Anyhow, the good thing is the collision is quite minor and not structural.

Either way of replacement or repainted would be fine with me but I would choose the one that with a quicker return time.

 

[KenC]

Did that Volvo just make a U-turn? Nuts.

 

[dmurphy]

Did that Volvo just make a U-turn? Nuts.

I do believe that’s a Pennsy driver; can’t tell from here - but I do know that’s NOT a NJ plate.

 

[C141medic]

Although the Volvo was a contributor to the accident, the driver behind you was more at fault due to not providing sufficient following distance which would’ve prevented you getting rear ended. Did the driver that hit you get a citation? I’d also make sure with my insurance company that they list this accident under your policy as 100% not your fault. In NJ, I had a similar accident (got sideswiped) years ago but my rates didn’t go up because the accident was deemed 100% the fault of the other driver (even though the accident was listed in my insurance policy records for 3 years).

 

[Socal3XXXX]

First time I heard about claiming for diminished value. I always thought that, but didn’t know you can. Reading on it now, sounds like a long uphill fight though

 

[hridge2020]

So made it almost 20 years driving without an accident but some lady rear ended me yesterday. Teslacam caught it too. I had a police report and insurance has it all.

My agent hasn’t called me back yet (farmers) but the person who hit me insurance did today (progressive). What should I be doing in this process? The damage is minor, about an 2 inch sq of paint is gone, no dent. Just a bunch of scuffs outside the missing paint.
I’m very anal about my car so I want it fixed. Can I just have her insurance pay to have a pre painted bumper installed at Tesla?

Can’t seem to upload .mov files for the camera photo.
View attachment 467996
View attachment 467998

 

[hridge2020]

watch yourself at all times . ...