It's my turn to go through this

[resolute]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Very sorry to see your car. I feel for you. I had this experience about 10 years ago with a Mk2 Jetta I was planning to keep forever. It was stock, but in great shape and I had just spent a few thousand at the dealer in the last 8 months on timing belt, suspension components, tires and I forget what else to be sure the car was in top condition. Then got hit while stopped at a red light.

My insurer was TD Monnex, supposedly one of the better companies. They gave me a low-ball offer and wouldn't give me any allowance for all the work I had had done even when I sent them my last two years worth of invoices. All they would accept was my cost comparison for other cars of that year on Kijiji or Autotrader. Doing that, I managed to talk them up about $1000, but that was it. So I wouldn't get your hopes up about credit for all the things that make your car special.

It looks like both your quarter panels are lightly damaged at the tail lights. Not sure if body shops will pull them out or want to replace them (that gets expensive). I've been to Cosmos twice as a result of recommendations on this board. They did good thorough jobs, but there were little things that left me feeling "this is a premium shop?". Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is I'll be inclined to try one of the shops recommended in this thread. Although then you get in to the "are they really using VW OEM, or are they using aftermarket? Can I be sure and how much does it matter?"

[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Guys thanks to everyone who chimed in with advice and direction. Today I got in touch with the adjuster who is dealing with my claim, he started bombarding me with questions and steering the whole thing to his advantage almost resulting into me agreeing to let him tow the car to one of their "yards" where their wrote off vehicles go and have his appraiser determine if my car was a write off there...until I realized that the guy was about to close off the deal pretty much without even getting the car looked at by a body shop, that's when I told him to pump the brakes and slow down because I had 10k worth of receipts in maintenance/upgrades that had to be looked at and taken into consideration. About a half hour later Roberto @ compact tuning lab called me. Colin passed on my info and situation to him (huge thanks). I know Nick is gonna like this . So within the first 5 minutes he had my attention and trust and made it clear that he wanted to both help me and get the business of fixing my car. When I brought the car to his shop he entertained every question I had and then educated me for an hour and a half on the whole situation. He told me that I have a few things working in my favour and a few that are not but he made me very aware that it is going to be a grind to get what we want from them but also doable. It will be hard finding other Passats, same year and in the same shape as mine is, mechanically and with a straight clean body (prior to the accident). So that makes the car somewhat of a special example of a Passat. That's it for now. I'll update as it all unfolds.


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[cam_wmh]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Good luck!

[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Thanks man!


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[JricardoVW]

It's my turn to go through this

So small update: appraiser came today to view the car. Intact decided to farm out my claim to a third party, I'm guessing because they are just too busy. This makes viewing and appraising the car a bit unbiased as a third party is not necessarily trying to low ball me and cut a cheque right away. We have a number for the expenses in parts, 4k and it's a safe measure to say labour will be just as much. The guy took pictures of all my receipts and comparative for sale ads. The average price of a clean trouble free b5/b5.5 Passat is anywhere between 4k-6k with the very odd cherry going for close to 7k. That and them being able to honour up to (apparently) 50% of maintenance/upgrades will hopefully put the car in a good position to get repaired. We will have word in 24 to 48 hrs.


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[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

I'm reminiscing...








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[Canadian Turbo]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Fingers crossed, and she is a beauty!!

[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

I finally have an answer. We proposed to do what it's called a "contract repair". They are gonna give me X amount of money for the repair and that will be the end of it, if that doesn't cover the entire cost of the repairs then I'm on my own and anything extra the car needs will have to come out of my pocket. Not exactly happy about it but the car gets to keep a clean title. I can't wait to get it all fixed up.


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[All_Euro]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

As long as you’re happy with the amount, I’d say that’s the best option. Good to hear you got this sorted.

[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Between the estimate and the amount they have offered, it's gonna be tight. Man I also had a look at your thread, lagoon blue and tornado red are my favourite colours so I hope you get your GLI fixed as well. Hail has been particularly bad this year.


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[All_Euro]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

I’m negotiating with insurance over the value right now but I do plan to keep the car either way - will end up doing a bunch of work myself to make it work but that’s ok.

Maybe there’ll be some “while I’m in there” type of things you can do during the resto - would be nice for you to come out better than before if possible. Looking forward to seeing the rebuild.

[stefan]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Mentioned it in another thread, but there have been a few decent Passats at Pick n Pull Barlow lately. The 2 B5.5 TDIs I was interested in got recycled some time last week, unfortunately, but there are some ok B5's still. Many are front end damage, so the tail ends are decent. The one B5.5 was really clean other than front end. It's a shame they scrapped it so fast.

[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

I’m negotiating with insurance over the value right now but I do plan to keep the car either way - will end up doing a bunch of work myself to make it work but that’s ok.

Maybe there’ll be some “while I’m in there” type of things you can do during the resto - would be nice for you to come out better than before if possible. Looking forward to seeing the rebuild.

Negotiating with the insurance was a royal PITA. My idea is to have the car fully re-sprayed "while we're in there" yes. Unfortunately I have no knowledge about body work and basic knowledge about mechanical work, I do my own minor tune ups when I'm motivated enough! Hehe. Once the car is repaired I'm gonna have it appraised and I will put an insurance policy on it according to it.


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[JricardoVW]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

Mentioned it in another thread, but there have been a few decent Passats at Pick n Pull Barlow lately. The 2 B5.5 TDIs I was interested in got recycled some time last week, unfortunately, but there are some ok B5's still. Many are front end damage, so the tail ends are decent. The one B5.5 was really clean other than front end. It's a shame they scrapped it so fast.

Thanks for the tip Stefan, I'll definitely pass the info to Roberto, hopefully we can check them out before they decide to recycle them.


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[kujiwara]

Re: It's my turn to go through this

If insurance is giving you money to fix they car, you can consider fixing the car in vancouver if you have relatives to let you stay, because calgary bodyshops are ripoffs(crowfoot image 3 years ago charged me 9k to change the headlight and bumper cover on our mercedes, yes headlight is 2k but still a bumper and spray plus labor should not be anywhere close to 7k). It's quite a bit cheaper to fix cars here, much cheaper. A quality full color change, including door jams was quoted 3500$ for pearl paint on my jetta here, it's at least double in calgary since theres so few reputable shops and they can pretty much charge anything they want.