Crashed My Car...Advice / Suggestions?
 

i crashed my 93 toyota paseo after sliding on a huge patch of black ice. The whole right side of my car is riddled with dents and scratches. My front right turn signal is smashed off and im guessing i blew a fuse because my signals no longer work. The alignment on my front right wheel is fuked, when the wheels should be straight the right one is turned to the right. ( kinda like this : | --- / ) I didnt get any tickets or anything because of the weather which is good, the car i hit isnt too bad other then a smashed back left light, and dents down the left side. At least his still drives.... mine is limited to about 10km. I barely got her home. But anyways im gonna post some pics and hopefully you guys can help me out with some advice or suggestions, or perhaps if you have a source for the parts i may need. Thanks alot.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/mdv_paseo/1.jpg

Note: That wheel should be straight.

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Amazing how little it takes to rack up a $3-$4000 body shop bill.

Let me guess... last Saturday night's little snow storm? So many cars out there, so few available spots in the ditches.....

If you have collision you might as well claim it. Seeing as you hit another car and a police report was taken, your insurance company will find out about it anyways.

Also, you're going to need to put the thing in for unibody frame alignment check. If you hit hard enough to misalign your steering gear by that much, you may also have twisted the unibody. You may as well do that before you put any money into body work..

look like enough damage to go through insurance to me ... from the looks of it, body damage alone is about 2k+ plus fixing your alignment (which is probably what's going to cost the most) which i'm guessing is another 2k+, if your driving record and insurance claims is clean and clear, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to claim it since you're 25, u might not get as raped as bad

going through your insurance company is not a good idea. your rates will go up quite a bit. Also considerng is a 93 PASEO the black book value of the car might be lower than the repair is so insurance might not cover the repair bill.

Making a claim may sound good. but collision centers charge more to fix damages if your insurance company is paying for it.


What i would do:
goto a collision centre and get a free quote.(many places do this and they'll give u a list of all the parts needed to fix and how much there gunna charge etc..)

Call around scrap yards and see if you can hunt the parts down for your car.(considering its an older model there should be a few parts cars lying around somewhere.)

Get a body shop to install parts or do it yourself. youl save tons of cash and your insurance rates will stay the same!

Good luck!

DO NOT go through insurance.. you will become facility...

A person i knew crashed their vehicle (smacked the bumper off a medium) and was FORCED to claim... original quote of $1500 to repair, with insurance paying it was $4800..
Their insurance went upto $10,000 a year, they were later dropped. THey havent had insurance since.
1 accident
10 years of driving
no tickets

and they went to pay for it themselves. Body ship accidently called the INUSRANCE company :smilie_da

DO NOT PAY the insurance co.

Get an alignment done or repair suspension. Save money to fix the rest of the car

There's something else going on if your insurance company drops you for making one claim after 10 years of accident-free driving. Maybe some sort of insurance fraud or misrepresentation of risk would be my bet, but nobody with a clean record and who has been totally straight with their insurance company need fear making a claim.

Besides, this was a two-car collision involving damage to both vehicles, and police were called. Police would have filed an accident report, and the other driver would likely be going through his own insurance.

That means this guy's insurance will likely find out about the accident whether or not he claims it, and this guy's insurance will chalk it up as a chargeable accident whether or not he claims it, and his rates will be affected accordingly whether or not he claims on it. He wasn't charged as a result of the collision so at least he won't pay a ticket surcharge on his insurance.

If he has collision coverage, and his rates will be affected anyways, he would be stupid not to claim it. His rates might go up because ofthe claim, but assuming $3 to $4,000 in damage and a typical deductable of $500, that is $3,500 he won't be paying out of pocket to fix the car himself. Unless he already has a history of claims, this one claim isn't going to hurt him bad.

Who cares if the body shop charges more for an insirance job than for a privately-fixed car? The difference is often in the work done to fix the car, and the corners in time and quality that are cut to meet the lower price. Bondo vs replacement panels. Proper frame alignment vs letting the car stay slightly twisted. Properly checking for possible hidden driveline damage and fixing same vs just hoping nothing internal got hurt. Your time vs their's to fix the car.

And very few people have a frame alignment set-up or puller in their driveway to straighten out or even check the frame for twisting, which is a real possibility with this crash.

Parking lot dings, simple bumper mashing, glass, that you can do yourself. But anything involving possible frame or hidden driveline damage should go into a shop, not only so it is fixed properly, but so it is fixed safely.

hey guys, thanks for the responses ..... by the way no i do not have collision so yes its coming out of my pocket. 2nd the guy i hit didnt seem too keen about going through insurance so im hoping he wont, the car is already at a body shop... my dad co-owns a car dealership and he knows the neighboring body shop owner pretty well. It was taken in yesterday, but i havent got a quote yet from my dad. As for the body damage im not planning on going all out as of right now.... basically i just want to do what needs to be done to make it driveable again.

im obviously going to have to replace the fender and the smashed off turn signal, which i am in the process of trying to locate through paseo related forums and general car related forums for cheaper then ordering cost. Although the door suffered a large dent it still works perfectly.

As for the frame damage, I really doubt there is any, at least i hope not. I dont think there is because i was only going about 40 clicks and it wasnt as if it was dead on it was basically a fender to left ass cheek bump.



o and goneinsixtyseconds .... im not 25 i have 25 posts haha :urbuddy: so technically im 26 now. jus jkin ....but im actually 18.

DON'T GO THROUGH INSURANCE.. comeon, i have sneezed and left more damage then that... thats minor.. go get the placements parts from a wrecker and put em on... more then likely you wil find one the same colour...

Call some wreckers and give the paint / trim code , its likely they,ll have something in your colour.If you can drive and type , you gotta be able to change the fender and headlight..77.

^^^^ yup.. and also.. live with the dent in the rear panel until you can afford to get it fixed... just avoid insurance.. they will you in the ass if you claim...

whooops, haha, i guess i wasn't paying much attention to that panel :) but that changes a lot, being 18 and claiming a fairly large accident may not be such a great idea than.

me and my insurance agent are pretty open about accidents/claims. we even discuss what would be the best possible solution when i had my accidents in the past (as in, i told him that i had an accident and he told me what would happen to my rates if i were to claim it) i'm not sure if u could do the same, but if u could than u can go in with your eyes open so to speak