Accident appraisal - what to watch for?

My truck was rear ended last Sunday. I was stopped in traffic, and the car behind me hit me at about 40 MPH with no sign of touching their brakes. Luckily no one in either vehicle was hurt even though their car was totaled. Amazingly they were fully insured which in Houston is a miracle in itself. My truck is driveable, but the rear bumper and driver side fender are destroyed. The tail gate is damaged and not working right. The bed hit the cab on the driver side, and even now the gap between the bed and cab are not equal per side. I can't see any cracks in the plastic bed, but the steel bed support under the bed is damaged from where the bumper brackets rotated upwards when the bumper went under the truck.

I'm going to have the damage appraised today, so is there anything I should know or bring up? I'm not going to accept anything except for OEM Toyota replacement parts since this wasn't my fault. I'm going to push for a brand new bed since it seems like mine is tweaked in several places. Even if there isn't a crack visible at the moment, I don't want one opening up down the road. My rear suspension seems much louder than before, well beyond the normal taco squeak, and its obvious the car did tag my shackle hanger and spring when it submarined under my truck, so I'm definitely bringing that up. The plan is also to upgrade the rear bumper to an aftermarket plate one while everything else is being repaired.

 

My fear would be frame damage.

 

+1 -- frame damage. If the bed hit the cab, that's likely a bent frame. The ends of the frame are for sure gone if your bumper looks like that. My guess is if there's frame damage they'll just total it, but if they don't I'd push for that.

Glad everyone walked away from it. Judging from the damage to both vehicles, it doesn't even look like they were involved in the same collision.

 

Crumple zones did their thing in whatever is left of that thing that hit him.

 

yeah, the frame is a concern. I crawled around underneath it with a tap measure and most of it seemed squared up, but we'll see what the appraiser says

 

Oddly enough their air bags did not go off.

 

I will say the bumper seemed to rotate downwards, pivoting at the back bumper bracket bolt locations. The front bracket hole (the slotted one) just ripped away as the bumper rotated downwards. The brackets ended pushing into the bottom of the bed (the steel support area). My guess is if I was stock height it would be guaranteed to have been totaled for sure.

 

I too had the exact same accident in my 07 Prerunner. Crumple zones saved my neck, literally. Ins. Co. wanted to total the truck and offered me $6K for the truck with 120,000 miles on it. I found a repair shop in Asheville, NC with a 5 point frame machine that is operated by a 75 year old guy. Outfitted with only ball peen hammers and the jig, this guy took the crumpled frame sections behind the rear spring shackles and without heat, made them perfect. A quick prime coat and some RustOleum Industrial Enamel paint and my frame was set. Tracks 100% perfect. The shop replaced the bed and they got an aftermarket rear bumper which isn't perfect, but I got my Taco back and have put 26K miles on it without issue. Biltmore Body Thompson St. Asheville, NC did my work.

 

i got rear ended in my single cab a few months ago, got hit HARD from the rear, by a lowered S10....luckily the s10 somehow got shoved downward and almost underneath, kinda like tectonic plates moving under each other, and it just bent up my rear chrome bumper, and all the support brackets....they appraised me for all of it, bought the parts at a local toyota dealer, and just replaced myself