Wrecked Third Gen Tacoma - Diminished Value check?

Kinda looked into this for my minor fender bender because now my truck will have an accident on the CARFAX....it is a difficult thing to prove even though we all know if a person is looking at two trucks one with an accident and one without, all other things equal, nobody is going to buy the truck that had the accident for the same money repaired perfectly or not.

 

dealers use aftermarket and used parts too. if the vehicle is a certain age or not of worth the insurance company is not going to approve oem replacements

 

that's not true lmao.... TD recommends our shop because we have one of the best cycle times and our q/c is higher than 90 percent of the shops in my city. better cycle times means more cars being fixed and more money for both parties. insurance companies aren't going to waste their time recommending shops that cant put out work in a orderly amount of time.

 

I got Liberty Mutual just for this reason! No matter what it will be on a carfax report. It will be worth 600 to 1000 less when you trade it in. Depends on the dealer. My Toyota dealer has its own body shop.

 

Bwahaha if that’s what you think homeboy
How much discount are you giving them back on parts and labor.
And then jumping to turn more cars at less dollars

 

All due respect sir, since you’re from the same Industry and all.. I can tell you are no longer in the industry, and when you were it was with an Insurance company.

You are absolutely correct, Insurance companys make more $ keeping happy customers. But then why do progressive and geico spend more in annual advertising than Budweiser or coke?
Because they need to replace customers they’ve lost from their notoriously bad claims practices.

What are these extensive certifications you speak of that DRP shops are required to have?I-car gold class? And their welding certificate?
As someone whose been icar platinum for almost 20 years, anyone will tell you icar is a total joke.
And the metrics... aftermarket and used parts usage percentages? Yup. Cycle time requirements, so that they can save more money on rental cars? Yup

The shops that get on Drp programs are the ones that will give the biggest discounts, and then they cut corners to make up for it.
Worked for the nations largert MSO, please tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Oem certifications and parts restrictions are the future of collision repair. And the only shops that can obtain them are dealership collision centers.
Why wouldnt you take your Toyota to a shop that was trained and certified by Toyota to fix it? Bc your Insurance company knows what’s better for you?!

Ask your friends and neighbors where they got their car fixed? Becauae they anything know about industry? Go to shops and inspect their work..because you’re auppoaed to know what you’re looking for?

C’mon man !

 

Industry has definitely changed a ton since I was a part of it, although I never worked on the insurance side. I still stay in regular contact with several of the local shops and I've noticed where the top talent has migrated through the years. Very few of the best guys are working in dealership shops.

It will definitely be interesting to see what happens in the future with the part restrictions and OEM certs, not to mention collision avoidance technology which I believe will ultimately make the industry less attractive to the private equity guys. This collision business was a really good place to park cash through the recession and in a lot of ways it's a shame to see what it did to the industry. You're correct in that consolidation and big money put profits ahead of the customers' best interest and made way for the dealership shops to make some interesting moves.

We could geek out on this stuff for days, but I stand by my point that the best work available in my city is not in the dealerships. The primo independent shops that weathered the last decade and even a couple of the consolidated ones still get my business.

 

This isn’t always true - knew a guy that took a pole for his wife by steering his side into it. It all depends on the driver, a human reaction governed by so many variables. I heard an interview with an engineer working for a self-driving car developer, he said perhaps the most difficult part of programming an autonomous car is programming it to make ethical decisions when faced with an unavoidable accident.

 

your insurance company must have rubbed you the wrong way to give such a salty opinion . you clearly have zero clue on what hoops body shops have to jump through just to get recommendations. never mind all the I-car shit and quality standards we have to pass.

 

All bullshit. The insurance estimate will be much lower and very incomplete. Also, do you realize that frames are repaired everyday and we use laser measuring systems?

 

you think your car is going to get fixed of a better quality because you take it to a dealership body shop? that's laughable considering my local Toyota dealer has done over 100 grand in paint and refinish redues this past month ( I know this because my friend is an apprentice at a Toyota bodyshop) you think techs at dealers are automatically better at their job? that's funny.

 

Did you not read any of that you just quoted?
I know Canada is a whole different animal with the government regulated insurance, but you really don’t know what your talking about.
Icar is garbage, having icar doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing.
The only hoops you have to go thru to get on a program is whoring yourself out cheaper than the next guy down the street.

And working for a Toyota certified collision center, being trained and certified by toyota and Lexus to fix their cars, I can absolutely tell you that taking your car to a dealer body shop is a better move than taking it to bondo Bob’s body shop that your insurance reccomends.
Regardless of how talented the techs at an Independent shop are, they don’t have a techstream, they can’t give it a health check, or reset the OCS. Do they have the Toyota SST to aim the wave radar? No

Plus, they are relegated to getting DRP work from insurance comapnies, where they are forced to cut corners to do things faster and cheaper, using uses parta etc.

 

you do realize almost any mechanical shop can buy Toyota tis for their obs scanners. you think every time a code needs to be reset or a scan check needs to be done after a collision the car gets sent to a dealer? lmao no. almost every program can be bought these days except for a few excepts like Porsche and audi who don't sell their programs.

 

Of course they can buy it, but none of them do. Nobody is buying multiple propriatry tools. They are using aftermarket equipment and crowd sourced information for fixes.
You wonder why mfgs like Porsche or Audi have parts restrictions and don’t allow their information to aftermarket scanners? Because they dont want their cars fixed by joe blow.

 

maybe its different in the states but ive fixed a few porches so im not sure what you mean by part restrictions because we have no issues ordering oem parts from them.

 

He is talking about the new data on OEM scanners. Like buying the 2018 software. I dont think he realizes that OEM scanners are not sold to collision repair shops...

 

I just got my smashed truck back from the auto body all state uses and my entire family have been using for forever and it looks beautiful drives just as I remember and I couldn’t be happier. Also, they used 95% OEM parts they only non oem for things that the toyotadealership didn’t have meaning the Toyota dealerships would have used aftermarket as well. Go with someone with good reviews and lifetime warranty

 

No matter what I would get 3 estimates. One from the Toyota dealership & two more from the best body shops in my area. Also my insurance company has body shops they recommend. My local insurance office have been in business almost there whole life's. A husband & wife team. And over the years they have learned who's the best shops in the area. They Would Not recommend someone that doesn't do Good Work!

 

Make sure you get OEM Parts. Dont let insurance down grade this.
My 04 Corolla had $12000 in damage when it was rear ended with only 20000 miles in 05.
With Ohio winters all the replacement parts rusted away badly while the rest of the car looked great when I let it go last year.

 

Except drivers door and side get hit more than passenger door or side. The drivers side is exposed to cross traffic first and exposed more to oncoming traffic and statistics show that drivers side receives more damage in accidents.