Damage / Insurance Advice
 

Hello everyone,

I've been a long time reader but rarely post. I'm not sure if this belong in the insurance section or the exterior section so general should be the happy medium.

Anyways coming home from work on the highway the other night, the gray curse reached out and grabbed a hold of the underside of my 8 in the form of a 18 wheeler tire. There was a car in front of me so I didn't see it until the last second and ran over it completely. Here is a pic of the damage...

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/9296/imgp0075hb4.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8734/imgp0076sn9.jpg

It seems the clips holding my undercarriage have broken off and it sags down a bit. I have never dealt with insurance before and my deductible is $500. I've been looking at body kits for a while and noticed this part doesn't show on most of them. Is it removed or just covered up? I'm just wondering if buying a custom front bumper would be an alternative to a fix. I was planning on buying a body kit anyways but was just going to wait. I dont see the point in fixing this if it is going to come off when I put on a body kit though.

I see people say "oh well at least you'll get a free body kit out of it" when people get in wrecks and have to go to insurance. Maybe it's just wishful thinking but I'm just wondering how that would work. Wouldn't the body shop have to replace the part with the exact part? How would a custom body kit work into the insurance issue?

Now for the rear bumper which was a separate occasion....

I basically backed up into a pillar in a poorly designed apartment complex. Yes I was angry but it was still my fault.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8634/imgp0077ut2.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/9986/imgp0078sz5.jpg

As far as insurance goes, if I paid for the deductible for my front bumper, would I have to pay it again if I wanted the rear bumper fixed also? Would a new all around body kit solve everything? I'm just trying to make the best economical decision but don't know much about how insurance works.

Any advice or comments are appreciated, thanks.

It Hit You!!!!!!!

When you talk to your insurance company, the tire hit you. There was nothing you could do to avoid the accident.
If you hit something, it is your fault, you pay for everything.
If it hit you, insurance will cover it, you just pay the deductable.

You can replace the stock pieces with aftermarket ones. Just make sure you tell the body shop that before they order the stock parts.

What if a shopping cart hit my rear bumper in a parking lot...? :) Would I still have to pay both deductibles?

^^^
It would have to be 2 seperate claims.
Unless you can figure out how that tire ran under the car and flapped up against your bumper on its way out? :)

easy solution: Drive your car really fast, spin out, and make sure you hit the front and rear of the vehicle.

Now you have damage to everything from one accident.

Does anyone know if that would call for a new front bumper though or just the plastic part under it?

Uhhh...not quite

If you hit something, even if it's your own fault, your collision insurance covers it and you pay the deductable.

If something hits you, and it's not an entity that can be sued (e.g., hit and run while parked, road debris, anonymous shopping cart), your collision covers it and you pay the deductable.

Only difference is whether the insurance company will consider you to be at fault and possibly jack up your rates.

Ken

the damage looks repairable to the front. i dont think you'll need a new front bumper cover.

the rear is another story. the only way they could repair it is if they painted the black part ti-gray. otherwise you need an entirely new bumper cover as the black part is impossible to fix to its new state. its unpainted plastic that is molded. no way to remold it. only way is to repair and then paint it. you could have them paint it black though. another option would be to have them repair the top dents in the painted area and then get a mazdaspeed rear diffuser, which replaces the black plastic part.

related note, sorry for the thread jack... but I hate creating new threads for pointless stuff...

I backed into a TALL curb, and put a mark similar to his lower rear bumper mark, nto a big deal, all in the plastic. The "probelm" is, now my inner fender lining on that side doesn't want to line up correctly and falls
"out" of where I jam it in, and rubs... easy sollution?


BTW, didn't it SUCK when that tired went ALL the way under your car and came back and slapped yoru rear bumper? I mean you couldn't have missed the thing n the first place, btu to hit both ends royally sucks!