Taco Flavored Kisses (Tacoma collision)

first, glad you are okay...
second... bummer on your truck.
I would buy it back & make it a trail rig.
Even if the front end is bent, any decent frame shop can straighten it out.
If you do part it out... you will get your money back and more.

 

Hey man, Sorry to see that happen to your truck! A similar thing happened to my truck when my dad was driving it. Someone pulled right out in front of him and BAM. Needed a new drivers side fender, grill, bumper. But the worst part out of all that damage was that the rack and pinion from the impact of the collision formed a crack in it. That was realized after the body work was fixed. The idiot who hit the trucks insurance REFUSED to pay for that additional damage. The toyota dealership we took it to said there was no doubt that was what it was from. So my advice to you is run it through your insurance. Make sure its fixed right. Because the person who hit you, their insurance company will nickel and dime you. I would make the claim through AAA. Hopefully its not totaled.

Hopefully you dont end up with a $2000 bill like I did.

 

Exactly. And, based on (sadly) more than a couple of similar situations I've been in I learned that very importantly, that's 70% of the RETAIL value of the vehicle. Meaning, don't look it up at KBB based on what an individual could sell it for - it's what you would expect to pay at a dealer.

Good luck! And nice avatar!

 

The taco image was posted on an image board years ago, I figured I had to save it for when I finally got active on Tacoma World. I was like WTF, when I saw your avatar, thinking, " I don't remember posting last night..."

I lawyered up, and good thing I did: the woman who hit me is lying as to what happened and her insurance is refusing my claim. I've already started rebuilding through AAA, I'm getting the work done at a custom truck shop. Not only Is the woman lying about how we were hit, she is filing personal injury claims for her and her brood of children that were in the car.

My kid now freaks out whenever a car drives by when we're in a parking lot or says things like, "oh, I thought we were about to get into another accident" while we're out driving. I'll bring it up to his doctor tomorrow, but she's an old hard ass, I'm expecting her to tell us to just suck it up and deal with it.

As far as the truck goes, the shop is telling me 2 weeks to straighten out the brackets in the front before a bumper and fenders can be added. The assessor at the shop is kind of derpy, I feel he might be skimping over things.. Like I have the TRD SR5 package with color matched flares and chrome accents, but because I've everything blacked out, he's only quoting me for black plastic hardware. I brought the trim package to his attention and he was like "it's only a couple dollars difference".....

The second estimate at the custom shop was $2300 more than originally assessed, and they're saying the rack and pinion might be damaged but they have to break things down and see first. The lower control arm is bent and since that has to be replace, they're recommending a total chaos long travel kit. parts are over $2k and labor is like $700 on the install......I'm hoping my lawyers can get me a nice settlement and I can cover all the costs if I decide to upgrade the damaged suspension.