Ouch.

There was a member of CTSVowners that went through a DV claim on his V wagon a while ago. He used an advising service called Autoloss. It cost him $300 but he ended up getting $15k beyond repairs. I have pasted his response to a similar inquiry here-

"Here's my take: Autoloss and companies like them are pretty limited in how much they can get involved for various reasons. They advised me on my first V claim and I settled that for over $15,000 ABOVE AND BEYOND what the repairs cost) and Monica refused to take any more than the stated fee. She helped me know exactly where to apply pressure - for example, when the insurance company balked at my claim, she said, "you know - in Texas it is a felony for an insurance company employee to mis-represent your coverage." Once I repeated this for the adjuster handling my claim, ALL OF THE SUDDEN he was too eager to investigate further. Simple knowledge of the law and where I could squeeze the insurance company for force satisfaction was WELL WORTH the $300 fee. I don't consider it a scam at all, although they do form letter a lot of stuff. You have to use it for what it is - an advisory service. If you need real legal pressure, you do have to hire a lawyer and pay their cut...no way around that.

I think you guys will be hard pressed to get someone to handle the whole deal on your behalf - you'd need to give them power of attorney and god knows what else. For any decent sized claim, hire Autoloss to advise you and stay in close contact with them to ensure you know exactly where you can gain leverage by using the law. Another example - when the insurance adjuster and Autoloss could not agree on a number, Monica advised me that in Texas my policy likely gave me the right to require that both myself and the insurance company to hire an independent appraiser to estimate the loss in value, and that the policy provided the direction for those two parties to meet to discuss any differences. If they could not agree I could request 3rd party arbitration and their decision was final. But at least Monica told me exactly what my policy and Texas law entitled me to. Otherwise, the insurance company was pretty damn good at stalling you - they certainly aren't going to help you understand your own policy. So for me it was $300 well spent. I still had to do the legwork, but at least I knew what to demand. And I knew where I could exert pressure via the law and the terms of my policy.

Just realize there are no shortcuts. But some paths are easier than others..."

Wow, very sorry to see this. Honestly I'm surprised they're even fixing it, as I always heard if the roof was bent a car gets totalled out, and I'd think the same would be true for the bent floor and bent quarter panel.

I think $10k diminished value is being very conservative. I'd push for a lot more and lawyer up if need be, or better yet have it totaled out and get another HC. That car going to be a very tough sell down the road in my opinion, especially if that damage shows up on any history sort of history report - and that's assuming it drives straight, panels and gaps line up, paint matches, doesn't leak water, no rattles etc.

Even if you only get $10k diminished value, which is way low, plus over $17k repair cost so far, insurance co is already out $30k. Now If we say more appropriate 25% diminished value on msrp/replacement cost of $70k, that's almost $20k right there. Plus repairs already at another $20k is $40k total and not worth fixing. I'd tell my insurance co all this and say I don't want it, as there's way more latent damage than initially realized.

DEFINITELY DO IT. For this amount I think hiring a firm to assist as mentioned above is money well spent.

I was "tapped" in a Nissan 370Z I had some years ago. Literally barely scuffed the bumper cover, but I had it professionally repaired concerned there might be unseen or not so obvious damage. Bumper cover was repaired and repainted, total repair bill was $875.

The other person's insurance was responsible for the expenses and they started calling me to sign off on the repairs and were quite pushy. I quickly brought up diminished value as now this car would have a CarFax hit. As expected they balked claiming it was less than $1000 to repair blah blah and were having no part of diminished value. I was patient and refused to sign off. Third call the lady made to me I she said she was authorized $250 diminished value. I told her $1200 or forget it and I'd have an attorney take it from there. I had the $1200 check the following week.

Keep in mind this was on a repair that was about $875. When I traded the car 5 years later, it did show up on the CarFax and yes the retailers offered me less as a result so I was glad I had the $1200 cushion. Should have asked for more.

Damn, I have a 90 Bronco (full size), my parking brake works though...

Meet Juice...