Got Hit Today :(

Impact like that could have easily bent the frame. Then the tow truck driver drops it like that, definitely get them to total it

 

The face of incompetence which will haunt your dreams.

 

You should go see your doctor.

 

My 2010 took a savage hit a couple years ago, I turned left in front of an old guy in a Buick, He slammed into the passenger door. It felt like I hit a curb but the side curtain airbag went off. I didn't know I'd been hit till I got out and saw the damage. The Highway Patrol arrived and the old guy started complaining of chest pain, I thought holy shit I've killed this guy. He must have been ok, never heard any more about him. The Tacoma was still drivable, I took it to the best body shop in the area. It cost my insurance company $19,000+ to repair. They replaced both doors on passenger side, The entire bed and liner, the whole exhaust system and the console, I guess it was cracked. The repair summery was about 12 pages.
The thing is once you wreck it, it shows I've been around bodywork and painting a lot, I can spot a car that's been wrecked. I've still got my truck I try not to look at it.

 

This is one of the only downsides to owning a Tacoma, having such good resale value means the truck has to be pretty much destroyed before an insurance company will total it.

 

Unless the frame is bent I bet it wont be totaled.

 

The "Best" body shops will turn out work where you'll have a very difficult time trying to see where the damage was.

 

Look at the gut on that guy!.... If that was a keg he had to winch on the truck, he'd treat it better, I'm sure.

 

You know, it occurred to me, if the truck isn't totaled, I'd be afraid it could catch on fire from the damage caused by the wreck.

 

Just got the news. So far it's at $5,166.07 in damage. Blue book on it is just over 19K so unless they find a bunch more damage it doesn't look like it'll be totaled. I've never had to deal with this before but can I request OEM parts? All the stuff they quoted in the estimate is aftermarket. There were OEM parts on the truck before their guy decided to run into me! My main concern is the frame and whether or not it's bent. They said they have to take all the damaged stuff off to see if there is any further damage.

 

Most reputable body shops will use OEM parts. My brother used to drive for a dealer service department for Honda and most of his day was delivering OEM parts to body shops.

 

It's a Toyota Certified Collision Center which is actually part of my local dealership. I had them take it there hoping that they'd use OEM stuff.

 

Last November, my'04 Dodge 2500 QC/LB/4wd/Hemi/Auto got slammed from behind hard enough to knock the rear axle up under the back seat. There was over $8,000 in damage in preliminary inspection. Insurance still wouldn't total it. They said it had to have at least 80% of book value as damage before they'd write it off. So the shop started working on it. They found MORE damage that the adjuster AND the shop missed on first inspection. Ended up with over $11,000 damage on a $11,000 truck. Still got it back. I did find out that in Kentucky, state insurance statute requires insurance provider to pay for ALL NEW parts if the vehicle is less than 3 years old. That didn't help me either. Got the truck back and sold it right away. I bought my Tacoma the day after the wreck.

 

Demand. It's the other party's insurance. They can't deny you. So even if that policy would not put OEM back on his, it should on yours.

I doubt the frame has any damage of significance from the truck drop. However, the ancillary bits need close examination, measurement and potential replacement.

The overall success of your repair will lie in the hands of the body shop. Make sure you have a great one. I've had much worse vehicle damage than that that came out great and went another 200k with no residual issues.

The driver may have made a mistake, get a reprimand/remedial training and continue working.

Or be a multiple offending knuckle dragging McDonalds reject that thinks he's gonna be on Big Rig reality TV someday, deserving to be fired. I would be sure to ask your agent handling this to report the situation to the contract management group of the enforcement organization that awards contracts to the tow company. Good ones are very interested in the quality of the work being done. If the owner feels he may lose a future bid opportunity because of 'failure to perform' you may well get a bit more attention in that area.

Good luck!

 

It wasn't strapped down. He towed illegally by DOT regs. They are liable

 

I'm not sure what your state laws are but in California, you absolutely have the right to insist on OEM parts. Many body shops will save money by putting in non-OEM parts which just allows them to make a larger profit on their work and you end up with something that is substandard. This was a big scam in CA for many years and a law was put into effect to protect against this. HOWEVER, you can plan "let's make a deal" with the body shop. If you are OK with some non-OEM parts you can get them to throw in some mods that you might have been thinking about by substituting the parts of equal or lesser value. For example, you might decide to put on an ARB front bumper instead of having them put on a Toyota OEM bumper at some outrageous price. (just an option for you)

If I were you, I would also find out if the accident and resultant damage will be reported to Carfax and show up in their reports. If there is anything that shows that the vehicle was in an accident, even if it was fixed by a certified Toyota show with OEM parts, it could easily reduce the future resale value. You can go after the other guys insurance company for the reduction in the future value of the vehicle as well. (they won't immediately roll over on this since determining your "loss" is difficult, but they do understand that you may have suffered some kind of loss)

Just some thoughts.

 

Years ago I had a Tacoma totaled in a head on. Other driver fault
- Get a copy of the police report. This will help confirm it was the other drivers fault.
- I did report it to my insurance company. They worked with the other drivers insurance. Truck was eventually totaled.
- My insurance paid me, then collected back from the other persons insurance. No rate hike
- The other insurance settled and paid (pain and suffering, incidentals, etc) not covered by my insurance.

In your case, document the mishandling by the tow truck driver.
report it to the tow company.

 

That's only $5,100 to fix? I got rear ended once at low speeds(yeah yeah) and just to fix the bumper was close to $1000.00.

 

I don't know what the tow guy did but the truck it was hanging off of wasn't the same truck that he picked it up from the accident scene with. I know the frame is scraped up from that but it didn't look dented. It did also rest on the drive shaft based on the new scrape marks on it. Im more worried about the front impact potential for frame damage. It hit damn hard and broke a lot of pretty solid pieces.

 

I thought the same thing. There are parts that I could clearly see were broken that aren't listed in the repair estimate so I'm guessing it'll pile up more than that. The Geico rep also told me that they were going to put a new tire on but the "betterment cost" would be $48 bucks because the tire has less than 30% tread left. I thought that was BS. Now I'm trying to decide if I should just get 4 new tires or have one new one and 3 with 50,000 miles on them.