maswann Posted October 15, 2009 Posted October 15, 2009 I'll try not to make this too long but it is deep. I have a red IS300 bought new in 2002, just rolled over to 60,000 miles and in showroom floor condition. Two months ago lightning struck a tree and part of that tree fell on my car. It didn't hit it dead on top kind of to the side. Damaged the top, drivers side door and mirror, rear window and a few dings here and there. I instantly flew out to cover the blown out sunroof and rear window with a tarp to prevent further water damage. Before the tow truck took my car I vaccuumed the glass out of the center console and covered it to prevent further damage when put in gear etc.. I did all I could to have minimum interior damage. Long story as short as I can: $11,400 later dents around sunroof in new top, didn't remove dent in drivers door, they say they broke my windshield when removing (I have 3 witness' that saw my windshield in the shop with my other contents before painting) and replaced it with a POS Pinklington. Sorry to those of you that like them but I have been driving my IS for 7 years now and the new glass doen't even compare to the Lexus windshield, it is terrible. So they took my $1500 windshield and gave me a $200 windshield. My headliner no longer is snug to the windshield, it drops down. And the passenger dash airbag cover was a sticky mess. I had thought they had dropped adhesive or something on it and they redyed it. What????????????? There was nothing wrong with it when I brought it in. In researching this issue here I see it happens to some that are in the heat. Mine was in perfect condition. My console is also all torn up. It almost seems as if they took my perfect parts and gave me some old worn parts. While my car was in this shop it was stated from a worker that it was a sought after car and that one of the men had 2 of them, hmmmmmm. Took it to the Lexus dealer yesterday (I know the service manager) and she said no way, don't accept it! Told me to talk to the owner of the shop he's a good christian man who's been building his bus for a long time. Called him asked him to sit down with me and go over issues with my car. He cut me off and said no, he wasn't doing anything else to my car. They did me a good job and obviously I expected too much. He had the b**lls to say, "You drive an old car, if you want a new car go buy one". I was mortified! I called my ins com and they were supposed to call me back but..........didn't. What do I do? Are there numbers or anything that would specify if my airbag is the original? Help, I know they took my dash cover for a fact the one on there is not mine. It looks like crap! I am at my whits end, everybody is treating me like I'm the bad guy.
flop170 Posted October 15, 2009 Posted October 15, 2009 dang sorry bro... that definitely sucks sorry ur having to mess with all that.... hope u get it straightened out!
maswann Posted October 15, 2009 Author Posted October 15, 2009 Oh and their top class work and awesome paint job...........aholes painted my trunk key hole red. It looks so cheap, I hate it!
LEXIRX330 Posted October 15, 2009 Posted October 15, 2009 Oh and their top class work and awesome paint job...........aholes painted my trunk key hole red. It looks so cheap, I hate it! If this shop is an approved body shop then your insurance company should be able to help you. It would be a good idea to call your insurance agent and ask for his/her advice. The insuance companies most of the time will work with the shop to make sure you are satisfied. Good Luck.
maswann Posted October 15, 2009 Author Posted October 15, 2009 Oh and their top class work and awesome paint job...........aholes painted my trunk key hole red. It looks so cheap, I hate it! If this shop is an approved body shop then your insurance company should be able to help you. It would be a good idea to call your insurance agent and ask for his/her advice. The insuance companies most of the time will work with the shop to make sure you are satisfied. Good Luck. I picked the shop because that is where Lexus sends their customers. They are supposedly one of the best in town. Something happened with my car. They blew my airbags or something because there is no other reason for them to have even touched my cover on my dash. They say they don't know what happened. It looks like pry marks around the cover. My insurance company isn't much help and I'm tired of being talked to like a POS. I will be calling and making threats tomorrow am.
LEXIRX330 Posted October 15, 2009 Posted October 15, 2009 Oh and their top class work and awesome paint job...........aholes painted my trunk key hole red. It looks so cheap, I hate it! If this shop is an approved body shop then your insurance company should be able to help you. It would be a good idea to call your insurance agent and ask for his/her advice. The insuance companies most of the time will work with the shop to make sure you are satisfied. Good Luck. I picked the shop because that is where Lexus sends their customers. They are supposedly one of the best in town. Something happened with my car. They blew my airbags or something because there is no other reason for them to have even touched my cover on my dash. They say they don't know what happened. It looks like pry marks around the cover. My insurance company isn't much help and I'm tired of being talked to like a POS. I will be calling and making threats tomorrow am. OK...just my FYI. Calling and making threats is more than likely not going to help but make matters worse for you. What insurance company are you with? Any insurance company that is paying a claim should be able to intervene and help you out. After all you are the customer and they are picking up the tab if you know what I mean. They may have you take the car to another shop...and actually that is what I would insist on. This is one of the times it would have been better to use a shop that the insurance company recommends as then the insurance company has more leverage. My advice is to go in and person and talk to the manger or owner of the shop and ask him to explain the damage that is on the car. If he is unwilling to fix the car then maybe speak to whoever at Lexus that recommended the shop and see if they would make a call. If they get a call from someone who refers business to them they may be more inclined to help out. Good Luck. By the way I am an insurance agent and I have picked up the phone many times myself and had issues resolved regarding customers that are unhappy with the finished work. Sometimes it is a matter of the car being re sprayed at the same shop and sometimes it is getting the car to a new shop. All I can say is that it blows my mind that they would actually damage parts of the car that had no damage previously as you describe and replace parts with worn or damaged parts.
maswann Posted October 15, 2009 Author Posted October 15, 2009 Oh and their top class work and awesome paint job...........aholes painted my trunk key hole red. It looks so cheap, I hate it! If this shop is an approved body shop then your insurance company should be able to help you. It would be a good idea to call your insurance agent and ask for his/her advice. The insuance companies most of the time will work with the shop to make sure you are satisfied. Good Luck. I picked the shop because that is where Lexus sends their customers. They are supposedly one of the best in town. Something happened with my car. They blew my airbags or something because there is no other reason for them to have even touched my cover on my dash. They say they don't know what happened. It looks like pry marks around the cover. My insurance company isn't much help and I'm tired of being talked to like a POS. I will be calling and making threats tomorrow am. OK...just my FYI. Calling and making threats is more than likely not going to help but make matters worse for you. What insurance company are you with? Any insurance company that is paying a claim should be able to intervene and help you out. After all you are the customer and they are picking up the tab if you know what I mean. They may have you take the car to another shop...and actually that is what I would insist on. This is one of the times it would have been better to use a shop that the insurance company recommends as then the insurance company has more leverage. My advice is to go in and person and talk to the manger or owner of the shop and ask him to explain the damage that is on the car. If he is unwilling to fix the car then maybe speak to whoever at Lexus that recommended the shop and see if they would make a call. If they get a call from someone who refers business to them they may be more inclined to help out. Good Luck. By the way I am an insurance agent and I have picked up the phone many times myself and had issues resolved regarding customers that are unhappy with the finished work. Sometimes it is a matter of the car being re sprayed at the same shop and sometimes it is getting the car to a new shop. All I can say is that it blows my mind that they would actually damage parts of the car that had no damage previously as you describe and replace parts with worn or damaged parts. I talked with my insurance adjuster this a.m. and talked with them about my issues. I will not talk to the body shop owner again after the way he spoke to me. When I did try to set up an appt. with him to discuss the problems I told him that the Lexus Service Manager recommended that I talk with him directly. He was so rude to me I was shocked and so are the people I have told since it happened. The SM @ Lexus looked over my car and she said SHE wouldn't accept it if it were her and told me not to just let it go. She knows how my car was prior to this accident and how anal I am about it. She said the parts they put on are NOT "like quality" parts. I don't know exactly what transpired down at that shop with my car but they did something shady and I am going to fight them. It almost feels as if they stripped my car of the pieces they wanted and replaced them with older used pieces. I know my car inside and out and the air bag cover on the dash is NOT from my car! Also when I asked one of the body shop workers how come they took my windshield he said they broke it taking it out. Well, I went and looked at my car in the shop when they were getting ready to paint and 3 people that were with me saw my windshield sitting with all the other pieces from my car. So that was a bold faced lie. The body shop currently has a console piece my adj ordered that I will go and pick up because I refuse to let them touch my car again or speak to me like I was previously spoken to. I have been in touch with someone else in town that would love to check out what's been done and see how it can be fixed so that's what I'm shooting for. They seem to have knowledge of other issues with this shop but did not elaborate. I will be filling Lexus in on everything as I go along. I am prepared to seek and attorney if need be because I believe myself and the isurance company have been ripped off. A measley $11,400 later and I have dents that weren't there before the accident and my interior looks worse than before it went to the shop, I am flabbergasted!
1990LS400 Posted October 15, 2009 Posted October 15, 2009 The odd aspect of your situation is that most insurance companies would have "totaled" your car, paid you its estimated cash value and sold the car for salvage. By my calculations, the $11,400 spent so substantially exceeds 80% of what your car is worth if it had been in "Excellent" condition before the incident. If that "$1500" Lexus windshield had been used, the repair cost would have substantially exceeded 90% of the car's value. I'm not sure you should blame the body shop for using a non-Lexus windshield. The insurance adjuster should have approved the parts used to repair your car and he may have approved and even specified the use of the afftermarket windshield. It sounds like it is not going to be possible to repair your car to your satisfaction. Talk with your insurance company -- maybe they will still take it off your hands and give you the cash value rather than keep pumping money into more repairs.
maswann Posted October 15, 2009 Author Posted October 15, 2009 The odd aspect of your situation is that most insurance companies would have "totaled" your car, paid you its estimated cash value and sold the car for salvage. By my calculations, the $11,400 spent so substantially exceeds 80% of what your car is worth if it had been in "Excellent" condition before the incident. If that "$1500" Lexus windshield had been used, the repair cost would have substantially exceeded 90% of the car's value.I'm not sure you should blame the body shop for using a non-Lexus windshield. The insurance adjuster should have approved the parts used to repair your car and he may have approved and even specified the use of the afftermarket windshield. It sounds like it is not going to be possible to repair your car to your satisfaction. Talk with your insurance company -- maybe they will still take it off your hands and give you the cash value rather than keep pumping money into more repairs. The initial estimate was around $6,500 and has been steadily going up. I asked had they known would they have totaled it and my adjuster said no. As far as the windshield, it was supposedly broken by the body shop upon removal. However 3 people saw my windshield at a later date along with my other items taken out of the car for other work. My policy states they have to use "like quality" parts and a $200 windshield doesn't even compare to my stock windshield that the body shop did not put back on my car. It also has to be in the same shape and of the same value as before this incident. I also think $11,400 is absolutely outrageous especially when it isn't even back in the same shape as before the accident. The body shop is a rip-off!
maswann Posted October 22, 2009 Author Posted October 22, 2009 Well things are finally moving along. I went to the body shop that did the work and picked up my replacement console and the money they were paid to install it. They wanted to put it in for me and I said no way not after the way the owner spoke to me and the shoddy work that had been done. They were all nice, polite and apologetic. Anyway, took my car to another body shop highly recommended by a guy who I have had take a couple of door dings out of my car in the past. The woman that runs this shop was great. Went through the invoices, the car etc.. She was floored, as am I, at the quality of work. She made a list of the things that need to be redone (long list) and called my adjuster. I am to have my car there next week to be fixed. I asked how would it be paid, who pays etc.. She said not to worry about it, it will be fixed and she will be paid. Everything that needs to be done is work the other body shop did. Unbelievable work for $11,400. Oh, and on my way home I noticed that my panel under my steering column was just hanging there. You guessed it, a bolt missing. Geez, will it never end?! I am so excited to be getting somewhere on this.
Lexus300Stock Posted October 29, 2009 Posted October 29, 2009 that is *BLEEP*ed up... i would be one *BLEEP*ed off dude and would sue there bodyshop for lots o money...
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