Insurance repair jobs

[demuck]

Hey guys.

I have a VT Commodore Acclaim and a few months ago I was hit from behind which resulted in my front and rear bumpers being cracked (when I was hit I was pushed into the car in front).

AAMI have booked my car in for repairs and said I will get both bumpers replaced (it's all free since I was not at fault).

My question is, is there anyway I would be able to get a different bumper in place of the stock one? I was hoping to get VX SS front and rear because it just looks sooo much nicer than the stock VT acclaim bumpers.

What do you guys think/know?

Demuck

[glenn l]

being a vt i doubt aami will give you new bumpers, they proberly will be change over or second hand ones. also putting on a vx bumper requires new head lights. have you taken your car to a panel shop for a quote or to aami? if you can take it to a panel shop for a quote you might be able to speak to them about getting the vx bumpers if you supply vx head lights.

[lein]

Just ask the panel beaters. Tell them you'll pay the difference between what AAMI are paying and what it will cost. That's all I've ever done when I wanted something other than what my insurers were going to pay for.

[jetboy]

AAMI new bumpers !!!!!!! ha ha ha ha lmfao FAT CHANCE no way , and you wont be able to do a deal with the panel shop either because AAMI supply all the parts to the repairer these days so's the poor old beater cant make any markup on his parts ( arseholes ) in fact most insurance companies are opperating this way now . So sorry bud the only way u are gunna get your VX SS front bar is to dig into your own back pocket . P.S one chance you may have , is that if AAMI are acting for the fool that ran up your arse and is not your insurance company you may be able to jump up an down an insist on a cheque for the cost of the repairs an then take the dough an try to get sum half arse beater to fix ur car including the revised front , but then of course you wont have any gaurantee on the repairs

[wikky]

AAMI new bumpers !!!!!!! ha ha ha ha lmfao FAT CHANCE no way , and you wont be able to do a deal with the panel shop either because AAMI supply all the parts to the repairer these days so's the poor old beater cant make any markup on his parts ( arseholes ) in fact most insurance companies are opperating this way now .

That's not 100% true. Early last year I had an accident, insurerd with AAMI and chose my repairer. At first AAMI told my repairer to use secondhand panels and parts where possible but my repairer told them there was no chance in hell he was going to do this. The repairer sourced ALL the parts required for the fix (everything in front of the windscreen). AAMI forked out the best part of $25k for the whole repair.

[jetboy]

That's not 100% true. Early last year I had an accident, insurerd with AAMI and chose my repairer. At first AAMI told my repairer to use secondhand panels and parts where possible but my repairer told them there was no chance in hell he was going to do this. The repairer sourced ALL the parts required for the fix (everything in front of the windscreen). AAMI forked out the best part of $25k for the whole repair.

Yeah well there musta been a lot of jumping up an down going on , i note that you said AAMI wanted to use second hand parts , see thats wht i said . I am a panel beater by trade over 25 years in the industry , oh an by the way it is only in metro areas that the companies are suppling the parts . Well done on getting your car repaired properly by AAMI like i said there musta been a lot of jumpin up an down going on , the industry is screwed just as Soop he'll back me up.

[wikky]

No there was no jumping up and down at all. The assessor said to use secondhand parts where possible and my repairer straight out said "not a chance in hell mate". I was there when this conversation took place. The assessor then said "just do what you have to do to get the car right." I may have just been lucky in this instance. The only problem was AAMI organised an auto elec to 'finish off' the wiring in the engine bay and AAMI's mechanic had left many thing undone (repairs). The panel work was fine but the mechanical side of things was FUBAR. The car had 14 unroadworthy issues and they wanted the car to go back to their mechanic and auto elec to 'get fixed'. (I was picking the car up from the panel beater). I basically said no way those monkeys were touching my car again so I got a quote for my tuner and his auto elec to fix all the problems. This came to ~$5k. AAMI paid for my car to be trucked from one side of Melb to the other for the worked to be done. My tuner submitted the bill to AAMI and got paid and there was no yelling and screaming involved at all.

[jetboy]

Lucky !! lucky is an understatement , i take it we are talking about a VZ SS here which has a redbook value of $22,000 , insurance company policy is to not spend any more than 60% of the vehicles market value on repairs any more an the car is deemed an ' economic writeoff ' and is then sold as a ' repairable writeoff ' at auction . Now you are saying that they spent 30k repairing your car thats 8k over what the vehicle is worth !!! . Not withstanding that , i have seen this before and usually carries a lot of ' insistance ' (aka jumping up an down ) from the owner that his vehicle must be repaired . Insurance companys use redbook.com.au to asses a vehicles market value .

[wikky]

My car's a VZ SSZ but far from stock though. It's insured for an agreed value of ~$55k with ALL my mods listed. Like I said, there was no arm twisting or ranting and raving about getting it fixed. The repairer I used has been in the business for a very long time and knows the bullshit that goes on with insurance companies and wasn't going to be walked over.

[jetboy]

Fair enough , obviously payin the premium to boot , anyway well done ,not often u hear about someone getting looked after by an insurance company , rare very rare indeed

[Muscular Jesus]

The reason why insurance companies are cracking down so hard, supplying their own parts and sending assessors to every job is pretty easily explained. There is a certain percentage of crash repairers who have been taking the piss for a long, long time. Take a damaged car to a crash repairers and tell them you need a quote to repair it but you have no insurance. Now imagine that same scenario except tell them you are fully insured and watch that same quote magically grow. Crash repairers know the insurance game better than the insurance company themselves. They will quote the shit out of repairs, hoping no assessor will be appointed or maybe the claims guy is busy that day and simply rubber stamps it to get it off his desk. I know because I've been that claims guy.

I agree that using second hand parts is piss poor, the insurance company I worked for actually insisted on using genuine parts because of repairs not being done properly with used parts constantly coming back with problems.

Jetboy, I agree the system is ####ed but unfortunately it is what it is. Greedy, ruthless ####ers on both sides trying to get rich.

[wikky]

Fair enough , obviously payin the premium to boot

Annually I pay $820 full comp with $550 excess. It's not that bad.