Should I try to tackle this repair myself?

My insurance adjuster is estimating the repairs to be $5900. Body shop nearby said $6600. With a little research and patience I feel I can do it for $2500-$3000. You guys think its worth the hassle? Hardest part will be sourcing a white rear quarter panel. Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

honestly if youre trying to pocket the money and have the means.. go for it.. but damage like that runs the risk of stuff behind it being compromised then turning into way more money. typically i'd just leave it to insurance and body shop for this kind of stuff.

my brothers light fender bender started out at a 2100 dollar estimate. it later turned into 6100 all said and done after repairing all the things behind the visable stuff

 

I know where you are coming from, I will be taking on some risk. I did look underneath and have pretty good view of the damage.

They also included ~$1200 in blind spot radar repairs but I have the module, it fell off and still attached to rear bumper end. The plugs look fine. Just need new sensor. See below for image of underside.

 

if you think youve got it, got for it. As for the BSM, it needs to be pretty much exactly where the truck wants it to be.. or it'll fail calibrating.. ask me how i know.. i send alot of trucks/cars back to body shops when they come in for calibration

 

Interesting point on the calibration challenges..Thats something I didn’t consider.

 

Posts #22 and #5 may be helpful replacing the bumper caps.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/16-tacoma-bumper-cap-removal.404082/page-2

 

Sounds about right, insurance is going to pay minimum amount to get the job started, not finish.
Can you finish it for less?
That’s where my mind goes, and since you are asking us, I am thinking not.

But
Not saying you can or can’t, you have to answer that to yourself.

 

If you are ok with mismatched body panels, go for it. Not all white body panels will match. I did this years ago with a car. Same paint code, but did not match.

 

Is it really worth the risk? You should get some sort of warranty or job satisfaction from the body shop. I leave stuff like that to the professionals. You might be able to get the body shop to do it for $0 out of pocket. Good luck

 

High clearance bumper and call it good

 

There are times where you just pay the man! This is one of them IMO.

 

Honestly I'd probably have the pros do it because seemingly with any kind of body work there always seems to be more damage that is done than what it looks like on the surface. What can look like an easy job can turn into something more difficult pretty fast.

I don't know your skills and confidence in tackling the job but that is just me and probably what I would do under the same circumstances.

 

A good excuse to replace with a steel bumper. That's what I did !

 

Very similar to mine although I don’t have bsm. I was quoted nearly that exact amount to fix it locally. I was told they’d have to replace the whole bedside and couldn’t only replace qyarter panel. I’m thinking of going with a steel bumper and I’ll throw on my stage 3 leaf for my rxts when I do so. No way I’d try this on my own but I’m not a good body repair man

 

Just thought of an additional item. While the body shop does the work they find an additional damaged part they call the adjuster and get extra $. If you do it and find an issue. It’s on you.

 

You might as well try it; a shop would replace the whole panel and not try to repair it. So, if you make the panel worse with your efforts, it will not affect the ultimate repair cost.

 

+1 once you make the cut for an HC bumper, the dent in front of the tail light should pop out easily. Order the HC bumper with treesaver tubes to reduce the likelihood of similar damage happening again. You get an upgrade and save some money.

 

I say you have insurance and since you are filing a claim then let the insurance take car of your truck. I got hit twice last year. I was driving my wife's Edge ST and a lady ran into the back of us at a red light. It looked like some cosmetic plastic damage to the Edge. That repair bill came to 12,800 something. Second time I got hit, at a red light from behind, I was in my Tacoma. The lady's car, a new Hyundai, was smashed. She was pissed, like she told the police, she called to the scene and got a ticket from "he stopped at the red light." Anyways the Tacoma was fine but I reported it to the AAA and had the same shop, that repaired the Edge, check the truck. Last time I was involved in an auto accident was back in 1990, when I was ran into, while stopped at a red light, by a drunk driver.

 

Does duct tape come in Gloss white?

 

If you have insurance on it let them do it .it will save you tons of money and time . From the sound of it u haven’t tackled a job like this before so potentially u could make this worse .