Wheel fell off today...

Update :

Truck is still at the body shop and should be ready by next week.

From what they told me, insurance is only covering the drivers side lower balljoint, the drivers side rotor and the body work.

Body shop wants me to pay out of pocket for the following "maintenance" :

Driver/passenger front upper ball joints
Driver/passenger front tie rod ends
Driver/passenger front endlinks
Passenger side cv boot

They want to charge me about $1,850 for the parts and labor.

Should insurance be covering some of this stuff based on the accident I had? Am I getting ripped off? Pretty sure I am based on the prices he was giving me. Just had my frame replaced so not sure if any of these parts were included in that work done.

 

Your body shop is
A) a bunch of idiots
B) a bunch of thieves
C) a bunch of thieving idiots
D) a bunch of methheads that need money for their addiction.

 

I agree, that was my first thought. At the very least I'm trying to get the price WAY down so that they can align the whole thing at the end.

Any of these parts do you think would have been affected in the accident?

 

E) a bunch of thieving idiot methheads that need money for their addiction

 

I could definitely see the outer tie rods and CV getting trashed if the wheel fell off and it got dragged as far as it did. 1st gen Tacomas are cursed with shitty lower ball joints and when they fail, the same thing happens...the wheel falls off. You almost always have to replace every part of the suspension on that side when that happens, assuming it happens at speed. If it just pops out while your moving 5mph that's one thing, but at speed is another

Whether or not your insurance should be covering it is another thing, I can't speak to that

 

I seriously doubt that any of those parts need replacing. Body shop guys are not suspension experts. They are trained to look for bent or broken stuff. Somebody's trying bend you over.

 

Any chance you can get us some more pics of the items they say need replaced? Up close shots inside the wheel well of the tie rods, CV axle, etc.

 

I'm heading there soon, I'll see what I can do

 

I can't imagine the wheel coming off damaged the upper ball joint unless they're just saying it's bad in general from before the accident. The only thing that makes sense to me is the outer tie rod because the impact of the truck hitting the ground and dragging could easily have messed that up I would think. Outer tie rods are cheap and easy to do though so hopefully the quote for that isn't too high

Also the lower ball joint too I would bet is messed up but at least insurance is taking care of that

 

how many miles on your truck? its possible those parts are bad but depending on miles and environmental conditions/use most of the parts should last into the 200,000mile range...

 

Agreed on the lower balljoint and potentially tie rod. The other parts they are saying are worn but because they need to do an alignment after everything, they want to fix the steering/suspension components first. Puts me in a bit of a jam versus being able to take the truck back and source the repairs myself.

 

Canadian truck but technically just under 130k miles. Rust on all the components might play a factor in there too.

 

Yeah I've been in that boat before. Had a wheel bearing go bad on a road trip and since I was out of town away from my tools, and the shop already had my truck, I had to bite the bullet on the repairs to the tune of about $1k. Sucked lol.

The road trip was to my wedding too, so that bill hurt extra bad

 

On 2nd thought, I'll bet a box of Voodoo donuts that a sloppy flatbed driver poked the CV joint boot with a J hook.

If you just had the frame replaced, they did an alignment at that time and should have spotted worn parts.

 

I've had my lug nuts loosen up to 60 ft. lbs. from 80 ft. lbs. from driving on rough roads. I'll check mine before I drive my truck again since I haven't checked them in awhile.

 

perhaps, I had someone try stealing my F150 truck rims in Walmart parking lot. They sheared one of the studs and the other 5 were loose. Only reason I noticed was because I heard a clunking in the front. I hadnt been anywhere else...

 

If these items are indeed out of insurance coverage, can't the body shop still do their work and you take the truck elsewhere to a proper mechanic for a more reasonable price? I'm trying to understand how those parts affect the body work since they're just calling it maintenance anyways.

 

I agree with everyone, not only the quote seems outrageous but I'm kind of stuck since they have to change the tierods and balljoint at a minimum to get a good alignment.

I got the quote down to $1,100. That includes all the parts listed above except they're giving me some parts at cost, plus removed some of the labor. They've also agreed to install the 3rd gen front coil assemblies for me with the lean spacer at no additional cost before alignment.

All to say, I think it's still steep but it's at least saving me a few hundred in install/alignment costs for the 1" lift.

 

I still call BS. Tell your insurance company your truck drove fine before and that the body shop wants you to pay them for parts that may or may not be worn out. Tell them that the dealer just aligned it X,000 miles ago.

 

What did you find out about the CV joint boot? If it looks like somebody gave it a Columbian necktie and there's NO grease flung all over the place, then the boot definately was torn post crash.