Well if your blessed by being handy and can fix it yourself for about a $1000 or so then its not worth reporting.. Im not %100 sure but if you report it as a claim wouldnt it higher your insurance rate since its considered an accident? Secondly if your insurance fixes it then they might ask for a police report which in turn usually gets reported to carfax which then lowers the value of your car.. Hmmm makes you think huh lol
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I am pretty handy when it comes to cars, so the work wouldn't be too bad do to on my own, hence me wanting to do the repairs myself. I have a friend that does paint work on the side as a hobby (if any of you are on vp6.net, he's "nexson" on there) and does flawless work. Was going to just have him fix the little things the new bumper needs, see if the lip is salvagable and go from there, but now i'm thinking about if i should file a claim or not.

 

In order for it too match correctly i'd take it to a body shop that has one of those camera's that take macro shots of your paint. Then they use that picture to produce an almost exact replica of whats next too it, and blend away.

I got hit by debris in the road from an accident about a month ago. needed a new bumper, fender liners, and splash guards. paint matched almost flawlessly for the, not blending at all.

But then last friday ( a week and a half after i got it back -_____- ) by buddies dad backs into my door. -_____- Now im getting the WHOLE car re-painted free of charge by them. (including a new door of course. )

 

Still debating my course of action. I pulled the bumper,fender, and headlight off the the car yesterday so i could drive it since the fender was rubbing on the tire a bit and the bumper was dragging. If I decide to go through the insurance, and let an adjuster look at it, i would have to put the parts back on correct?

 

That i dont know about. You could tell him that you were concerned with having the car mobile, and needed to take off the bumper/ you wanted to check the headlight (since they're very valuable) to see if it was damaged. fender i would throw back on tho. Oh, or if you had it towed, you could tell him you needed to take it off because of the truck. lol

 

Going to skip the insurance. I called my agent, who happens to be a good friend of mine, and he told me it would skyrocket with a second claim. I'm handy when it comes to this sort of thing, and already have a friend who does great paint work that can do the work for me for cheaper than a shop. Doing some crude math, this is what I'm thinking as far as cost of repairs are concerned.

Used silverstone ap2 bumper cover - $250 (purchased yesterday)
Used silverstone fender - $200
Lower control arm - $50-$100 (found on craigslist)
Headlight bracket - $20 (found on ebay)
Alignment - $100
Repair wheel - $150 (quote from local wheel repair place. only has a small bend on the lip)

Comes out to around $800, plus whatever it would cost to repaint the bumper i purchased and repair/repaint the lip. Figure about $300-400 rough estimate (cost me $275 to have my back bumper re-sprayed last year, hence the estimate)

Comes out to around $1200 roughly. Even if it ends up costing me a few bills more than 1200 worst case scenario, it would cost me less overall than paying the large insurance increase.

I appreciate all the help guys. Reasons like this make me appreciate this forum. Thanks.

 

Dunno if its been said already but often the body shop of choice will help pay your deductable to get to work on your car, go ask around. Id do it, what is insurance for?

 

Good luck with the repairs!

 

Been doing some thinking about this whole thing. I went online and did a few quotes through other insurance companies, and while allstate would raise my rate significantly, putting in a hypothetical second claim while getting a quote through progressive and geico has it going up about $30 through progressive and about $10 through geico. As a result, I'm thinking of doing the following

-File claim through allstate
-let them pay out for the damages
-have car repaired
-switch insurance providers to one of the above that's cheaper.

Thoughts?

 

Looks like i'll be going through the insurance. I was looking around the car yesterday, doing a little inspecting, when I noticed what appears to be frame damage. Going to have a local body shop check it out to confirm :\

 

damn, that's why I roll with a 250 deductible.