Sideswiped: The Pain and Suffering

[FireLT]

Hi All,
Yesterday evening, on my way home, the unthinkable finally happened.... I got side swiped!!:crying::crying::cursing: Damaging my driver side mirror, front fender, front wheel and bumper. Needless to say I am really annoyed and upset with this. I just got cquartz and expel ultimate (full front wrap) on it last week!!! and my car is less than 2 months old with less than 3,000 miles on it!. It was clearly the other driver's fault as he was changing his lane and he even admitted to it, even in front of the cop.
Now, I know the entire damage can easily be fixed, but I have few questions to help me guide towards the right decision.

1) Will his insurance cover the cost of cquartz and expel again?
2) Will they cover my fuel cost for rental?
3) What about depreciation? Will they cover that as well?

I don't really want to be driving around with the thought of having an accident with less than 2 months in the back of my mind. Maybe get a new one? I know in the end, it's just a car, but still.. accident with less than 2 months of owning such a beauty?!!?! Maybe I am just over thinking.

Naman

 

[DingDingDao]

Sorry to hear about your car.

I think the answer to the first two questions will be very dependent on the insurance company, but for #3, you can and should file a diminished value claim with the other driver's insurance company. This will cover the lost resale value due to the accident and should be in addition to the money they pay you for the actual repair. Be aware that their insurance company will put up a fight on diminished value--they will not want to help you with this and you will need to be persistent, possibly to the point of lawyering up.

 

[lolachampcar]

How have you handled accident damage (as in I'm looking for other's experience)

FireLT
There is a lot to your questions and some good resources for you.What you can recover should be covered under the standard jury instructions for property loss in your state. Make sure you are armed with this knowledge and be sufficiently versed in it to quote it when you talk with the insurance company. They will give you the least possible, not what you may be rightly owed. They know attorney's and litigation are expensive so they can hose you for a good bit before there is sufficient pain to have you sue.

At least your guy admitted it. The lady that T-boned my wife when she pulled out from a parking lot onto a major road said my wife "changed lanes" into the FRONT of her car. Based on that statement and even though their insured was cited for failure to yield right of way causing an accident, her insurance company is denying all liability and even seeking payment from our insurance company.

Remember, its just business and they are the 800lb gorilla. Go in prepared; if not, go in well lubed.

 

[SCW-Greg]

Bummer!!!
And you just did all the right things to protect your car from road debris too.
If only there was some sort of dumb driver repellant/cushion they could invent!

My heart goes out to you. Keep us posted (and send pics) and here's to a speedy and good outcome in the midst of this.

 

[Krugerrand]

That sucks!

 

[notice]

Ouch. That's a lot worse than my hood damage from ice falling on my parked S85 (also with 3,000 miles) all day from a connector bridge across two buildings several stories up.

My experience so far with insurance has been frustrating: I brought the car to the only authorized Tesla body shop in New England (Hollis) in addition to conversations with Tesla HQ and our local service center in Watertown MA. The consensus is that the aluminum hood can not be repaired and must be replaced. Their labor rates are $125/hour at Hollis (compared to most generic autobody shops at $40/hour). When the insurance adjuster came out to see the damage, I told her all of this and that I expected this would cost on the order of $4,000 give or take, and she said "it shouldn't be a problem". Then I saw her estimate a few days later - came to $625 (less my $500 deductible) and the insurance company sent me a check for $125. Not exactly a good start. They wrote up the estimate as repairable with 10 hours of labor at $40/hour plus paint. I went a bit ballistic. And I used words like "I expect the insurance company to honor our contract for insurance and pay what is required to have my car restored to new condition without litigation". In any case, I am expecting a written estimate from Hollis today that I will pass along, and I've been aggressive about reminding all parties what the likely costs are likely to be when anyone hints that it might be less. Reading between the lines, this is just a game that insurance companies play as standard operating procedure - they want to pay as little as possible and they'll start with a low-ball estimate and make the body shop justify every increase. That being said, the body shop is quite used to this and good at playing the game on their side too. So you might want to get advice from your Tesla-authorized body shop about how to best handle things (the piece of advice that they gave me and I ignored, but kind of wish I didn't, was to arrange to have the insurance adjuster see the car at the body shop so they could begin negotiating with them at the get go - in my case the car is completely drivable and the shop is inconvenient for me, so didn't want to make more trips than necessary).

Good luck and let us know how it all turns out!

 

[zwede]

With the caveat that state laws differ:

1: Yes. They have to return your car to the pre-accident condition. If you had wrap, they have to pay for it to be fixed/re-applied.
2: No
3: They will not unless you make a stink.

- - - Updated - - -

@notice: What I've found really help in the past is to have a written estimate from a shop before the ins adjuster looks at it. I have a vintage car that was rear ended twice (sigh) and in both cases they just wrote a check in the amount on the estimate. Both adjusters admitted they didn't have a clue what it cost to repair a 1971 Corvette so they were grateful I'd done the legwork.

 

[notice]

@zwede -thanks - in hindsight, that sounds like good advice! Just got the estimate for my Tesla hood damage - a little over $4K as I told the adjuster (guess they aren't allowed to take my word for it) - hopefully they'll swallow it and we can all move on!

Many years ago ('87) I had a brand new Alfa Romeo Milano that got rear-ended in upstate NY by a tractor trailer - I was living there at the time and had it towed to a high-end local shop, but nobody in the region knew a thing about Alfas - adjuster came out and wanted to repair it. What they didn't seem to understand was that this car had the transmission and clutch installed in the rear, engine in the front, and a drive-shaft that spins at engine speed (8K RPM, imagine that being out of balance!) - I ended up having to tow the car to Boston at my expense to get a different adjuster to look at it with the mechanic from the dealer to convince them to total it. I got a new car.

 

[GDH]

No pics?

 

[brianman]

Regardless how you feel about the EV vs. ICE battle...

I have a vintage car that was rear ended twice (sigh) ... 1971 Corvette

This sucks for the world.

 

[zwede]

Regardless how you feel about the EV vs. ICE battle...

This sucks for the world.

Thank you. It turned out alright. The insurance money got me most of the way through a complete body restoration (I did a lot of the work myself). It's now in better than new condition.

 

[FireLT]

Thanks for all the input everybody. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow. I looked at it again today and doesn't seem that bad. I will probably just end up getting it fixed. The adjuster will be calling me tomorrow. I will keep you all updated as to what they say.