Whatsup guys as some of you know my 2003 CLK 500 has been in a front end accident end of december and ive had nothing but problems since, about 3 weeks ago my insurance company made a first payment of $7988.00 minus the $1000.00 deductible which made it $6988.00 , and then the supplement line was called in for an additional estimate of $1808.00 since there was more parts damaged that was visible at first. im gonna try to make it short and maybe somebody can help me. i bought all the parts myself to save money so the shop dosnt rip me off i bough them all genuine mercedes parts of course nothing aftermarket or generic and with the extra money i bought shocks an brakes and rotors and sway bars and brake lines. After my car was repaired and handed back to me i had drove it for about 24-48 hours in total because there was a lot of snow in NY and maybe alot of strain was put on the car but later on at night as i was driving of the highway the car seized and i quickly pulled over to check and it seemed the engine belt ripped of so i was like wtf?? i jsut got the car back, towed it to the shop and they said its the tensioner pully and it needs a new belt i said ok fine paid for it they fixed it and let the car run in park for ilke 2-3 hour to make sure its fine. I drove out of the shop and literally an hour later after driving at about 40-60 mph sometimes heavy and sometimes light i see smoke comes out of the hood and into the cabin from the vent i quickly pull over and take a look it seems like oil leaked out from some unknown location in the front of the engine not the top area and i freaked out ..

 

it was wierd because the oil spilled from the front and then it stopped but not enough where the cluster told me i have to fill up i would say maybe a total of 1 regular size cup of oil. so i drove about 10 mph to the shop its not to far away from me they say you have to leave the car here i said ok..i called up the insurance company got into a argument with them like wtf is going oni had my car twice back for a total of 2 days drove under 200 miles and my car is messing up ,, they send somebody down 3 days ago and the adjuster denied payment he said it seems like the shop might have not done a proper job in installing or realizing there was further damage..and after an argument he said basically like this.. (keep in mind my car is a finance i bought it 7 months ago i have about 13k left on it). The shop has to tear down the whole car again take everything off and then call us and we will see if there is damage to the engine in any way whether crack from impact or warped from overheating we will salvage the car basically they want to give me the difference of what would be left over from the value of my car so lets say my car is valued at 15k and they already paid 10k they basically want to take my car away and give me 5k for it and leave me stuck with a 13k finance because they are not willing to get me an engine..and also they said if its relted to the accident we will cover the tear down and labor and any other repair that needs to be done as long as its not gonna exceed actualy cash value of the car.. but if its not because of something the adjuster missed out but the shops fault that they failed to install something on the engine properly they will not pay for anything and the sshop will be left holding the bill and they want to charge me for it so they said to me you either sue the shop and not pay them because its not your fault. but wtf i told them how can you give me a third of what my car cost and just take it away. its not like they totaled it from the begining and wrote me a 15k check they paid for repairs that didnt do any good i also told them i put 3k out of pocket for a complete suspension and braking system and i ahve my rims
can they do that? i hope somebody here has experiece with insurance and can help me with this issue i driven the car less then 200 miles since it was repaired and im not gonna be stuck with a bill after all why do i pay insurance for ? help please somebody.. Thanks sorry for extremely long post guys

 

All I can say is "wow..." man just dont know what to telll you now with all the troubles since you got the car. Anyway, i'm not good on the insurance thingy so hopefully someone can chime in and help you on that. Just have 1 question thou. does the shop that fixed your car have they ever working on Mercedes before ?

Andy

 

Whatsup Andy, yea thats what i was saying WOW wtf why me and thats not to mention the tranny issue, the shop i took it to from time to time worked on benzes and bimmers like 645is s550s but not to often and this is like a local shop and nobody ever had a problem its a body shop and mechanic shop the only reason i brought it there is because i know the owners son and because i knew he would let me buy my own parts so i know im not getting ripped of because some of the insurance money i used for new brakes and shocks and stuff i knew if i just gave it to te shop to get the parts i would have nothing left over and they would make 2-3 grand on me but they only charged me 3 grand with labor for all the work including suspension and brake installation im like how can i go wrong... i was very satisfied with the job they did on the body i didn expect it to come out great but i dont know what happen maybe they failed to realize something cracked or moved out of place they tell me its a main engine seal and we need to take the whole front end to fix it..so i let them know very frank that i will not be paying a penny out of pocket for it.. also if the insurance company will give me lets say 2-3 gs not enough to total it and ill add 2-3 gs from my tax return ill get one of those complete engine and tranny straight from ebay and get it over withl with no problems maybe who knows get a clk55 engine swap or e55k engine swap but dont you dare have the nerve to tell me your gonna take my car away and give me 4-5k for it and enjoy a pretty much ready car no way in hell! ..

 

and i didnt get a chance to enjoy my new suspension setup it felt really tight and stiff and flat but if i had my car more then one day without it breaking down i would know what it feels like cant even enjoy what i thought wasnt possible financially wise a few months ago now its there and nothing to drive..it depresses me

 

but look at the bright side. you wont have this kind of problem anymore. wont the insurance company give you $$. for what its worth your car will give you less trouble.

 

Sorry you are having all these problems and the following will vary depending on your state and local law's.

1st I would be very carefully what you say to insurance company, I am not trying to sound like a bad guy here but legally you committed insurance fraud. I will explain why, when you file an insurance claim and pick a body shop and the body shop gives you or your insurance company an estimate for repairs you are not supposed to turn around keep that money and make different repairs, or buy parts from a different source so you can pocket the difference between what the insurance company paid and what the estimate came was. You admitted in this thread you premeditated it as you plan on doing that from day 1 which is why you picked the body shop you did. The fact everyone does insurance fraud, by getting the body shops to discount the job by their deductible etc you went far beyond that buying the parts yourself. I will explain why, lets assume the insurance finds out one of the parts the body shop used was faulty and that caused damaged to your engine, then insurance company position is going to be it is body shop fault and they are going to refuse to cover any more repairs, the body shop is going to refuse to cover the damage because you provided the parts. If you sue the body shop their defense in court is going to be you provided the parts so it is not their fault or responsibility to fix the damage caused by your parts. If the insurance company gets in the middle they are going to demand you return the difference for the parts between estimate you provided them and what you actual paid as an insurance claim is not meant to be a windfall for you either. If the insurance company find out you had shocks and brakes and rotors and sway bars and brake lines while the car was being fixed with insurance company funds, they could also claim your first estimate was padded to allow those items to be installed at no cost you.

Then as far rims, shocks, brakes and rotors and sway bars and brake lines being covered by your insurance company you do know when you take out insurance any options added to the car must be disclosed and coverage is normally provided by an extra rider policy which costs extra. If you do not pay extra premium for the items and your car is determined to be totaled you do not get paid for those items at all. In most states insurance are only required to guarantee the quality of the repairs from repair shops on their list of approved body shop and if the body shop you went to was on their list of approved body shop then you would be getting blue book for your car or insurance would pay to make the repairs which are needed. They would not be subtracting any money you paid so far for a repair that was demand unsatisfactory. unfortunately if you choose to goto a body shop that is not on the insurance company list, and insurance determines the repair was done wrong, they will not pay to make it good, if they determine the body shop made a mistake in the estimate and repair really ends up costing more than bluebook for the car the insurance will simply pay you the difference of what was already paid vs bluebook and now it because your problem to get that money back from the body shop.

But in your case because you choose to do some shady stuff, and either the body shop did not notice all the damage or caused damage to your car the problem is shifted away from the insurance company liability to the body shop or your own if any part you gave the body shop is found to have caused the problem.

That is why if you have insurance and do not want to take a gamble you always take your car to a body shop on your insurance company list, Maybe you try to work with body shop to eat the deductible but under no circumstance would most body shop install parts provided by a customers because if something goes wrong it becomes a pain to find out who was at fault and who is going to pay for the repairs.

I wish you best of luck but I have a felling you are going to take a huge loss and more than likely if you sue you are going to loose as the law will be against you and even if you parts are not found to have caused the problem their is a concept in the law, that once you do something wrong the courts will no longer help you at all, not sure you are going to be able to sue the body shop if needed and win because once the judge hear what you did more likely than not your case will be dismissed as you legally committed insurance fraud when took the insurance money and bought parts your selfs so you could use the left over money to buy shocks, brakes and rotors and sway bars and brake lines.

 

ok im not sure what your talking about but i spoke to the insurance company and told them to begin with i will be buying my parts they said no problem as llong as the shop doesnt mind, and second of all i bought all the parts required for body work, and some mechanical like radiator ac condenser and etc... the engine seal that is leaking around the crankshaft area has nothing to do with BODY parts that i bought for the car which was all original anyways and as far as me buying parts with the remaining money the insurance company couldnt care less beause i bought all necessary parts i got discounts thats my business they provided the check to me on my name so that means its my money whether i want to fix the car with it or not, thanks for your input im not sure whether you work for an insurance company or what..

 

No I work for the Ca AG office in the fraud prosecution department, and insurance company approach me all day with evidence of what they consider insurance fraud. It is my job to look over their evidence and decide if it is a clear cut case of fraud or not. That is why I stated very clearly depending on where you live your local and state laws will vary.

I am telling you honestly if an insurance company filed a complaint against you, you are boarding what is considered insurance fraud in CA. In Ca and many other states, their are 2 types of insurance settlements. Non-recourse full liability release which is a claim that is paid to you based on damages and you are free to do whatever you want those proceeds but exchange for this type of settlement the insurance requires you to a sign a release a full release and you have no recourse if anything goes wrong as once the insurance company gives you a check they are basically done with the claim. This type of settlement is normally given to people who cars are considered totaled.

Then their is a Assumption & Release settlement agreement which is basically when the insurance company and a body shop of your choice determine what repairs are needed, and if anything is missed in the original estimate then supplement addendum's can added as needed, in this type of insurance settlement, you legally do not have the right to change or tell the body shop how to do the repairs. In this type of settlement the insurance company pays you based on the amount your insurance company and body shop agree too. As the insurance company is accepting all liability till the repair is complete is why you are not allowed to make changes.

It sounds like you agreed to an Assumption & Release settlement, then you turned around and took the money decided to do whatever you wanted. Now here is where the fraud comes in if you did enter into an Assumption & Release settlement, you submitted an insurance claim based on 1 estimate then turned around bought parts and did other repairs. Their is a concept in the law called mitigating damages, which basically says you have an obligation to try to mitigate any and all damages on any civil claim. Which you did not do by going and buying parts from a 3rd party for less than original estimate you provided the insurance company. This is were fraud was committed. To make matters worse you admit you choose a certain body shop based on the fact you were able to do the above. So admit you planned to do it from the beginning.

The fact your claims adjuster might have a allowed you to do it, or look the over way is irrelevant, as I am sure the loss prevention department at your insurance company wont look the other way and if it ends up costing them any money ie if you choose to put your insurance company in the middle of body and your fight they could very well forward a complaint to your local AG offices for fraud so they can collect any and all attorney fee's that resulted by being put in the middle of your claim against body shop.

So basically you are between a rock and a hard place, if any of the parts you provided to body shop caused the problem, no way the insurance company is going to cover the claim and tell you that the body shop is 100% responsible for the repair, and body shop position going to be that you provided the parts so it was your fault, and because the insurance company is entertaining the idea that they might have to cover the repair, you did not get Non-recourse full liability settlement which means you had no right to submit 1 claim for more than the actual costs of the repair so you can get some freebies done at the insurance company expense.

Like I said I was giving you some friendly advice, but it is very obvious you think laws do not apply to you, and anyone trying to give you some friendly free advice must work for the insurance company which I do not, as I also sue insurance companies for doing the wrong thing also, but you clearly did the wrong thing and deserve the headache you are currently in and hopefully it will be discovered that the problem and damage to your car was caused by parts you provided so that insurance company and body shop will refuse to pay any additional repairs.

 

...

Andy

 

ok i think your a little confused i apprecaite you taking the time out to write such long posts really do but i havent commited anything.. because my estimate was approx 7k and i bought parts worth 5k and instead of giving 2k for labor i gave 1k and used the rest for parts.. i spoke to the insurance company and they said were not gonna come after you for 1k or 500 dollars if thats what was left over because i had a 1000 dollar deductible which i had to put out of pocket so just because i chose a shop who can do the job cheaper for me because i know them and i used money to buy other parts it shouldnt matter because if i would take it to a random shop they would do the same thing i did but all the parts at discounted prices worth 3-4k and charge full labor and pocket the remaining profit same thing i bought every single part needed for repair and brough it to the shop with invoices to prove every single part on the estimate was bought ..i dont know since when there was a law that states you have to spend every penny insurance company gives you to buy the most expensive parts because if i have a choice of buying for example a water pump from dealer for 600 dollars and i have an option of buying that same exact brand oem water pump for 300 i would obviuosly go the cheaper route so i dont think i have done anything wrong i got a discount in the shop for labor because what somebody else would charge
4-5k for that labor i got charged 2.5k so really the money left over was because i got a discount and bought other parts. and the insurance company is not filing a claim against me what they are saying is if we paid for this part to be fixed and it is not fixed then we are not paying again and they are saying that if and when everything is taken of the car we see that the shop failed to see the problem before they fixed the car then they will be liable to fix it for you but if its our fault we will cover it nobody is filing any complaints against me. from the begining the insruance company said we will fix your car and if anything arises we will come for a supplement 20 times if we have to to fix your car i said ok thats up to you if it was up to me i would like to have the car totalled so i dont have to deal with a repaired car. but for them to fix my car and then my engine to be broken and they say "well if the engine block is cracked or broken we wont be buying you another one will just total your car" how does it make sence i didnt ask them to fix my car it was their decision how can they say ok we will give you approx 4-5k for a 17k car and take it away for ourselves and turn around and flip it for three times more its the banks car not even mine they want me to be left with a 13k finance and give me a third of what the car cost its not right. but as far as suing nobody is being sued and nobody is suing and nobody has any complaints against anybody yet . they just suspect the shop messed up fixing the car and they dont want to pay for the shops mistakes . maybe youll get a better idea of things now that i made it a little clearer excuse the poor grammer

 

and of course nothing i bought malfunctioned because everything i bought was brand new original mercedes parts from a dealer i just got a discount on it. the problem is a leak on the engine that might be either from a cracked block from the accident or a crankshaft seal thats what it was minimized to. so nothing i bought has caused this problem or malfunction its been confirmed with the shop and insurance company who doesnt even care that i bought the parts and saved money.

 

Look, here is what it boils down too, the fact insurance adjuster looked the other way and allowed you to give him a higher estimate for one repair and do something else at this point is irrelevant and nothing can be done at this point anyways about that mistake even tho it now limits your recourse.

If you would have taken your car to any reputable body shop and they made a mistake, did not notice the engine was broken, did the repair incorrectly etc you would be in a better position if your insurance totals the car after the fact, as the body shop would return the money you spent on the repair. The Body shop would file a claim against their insurance company who would subrogate the damages between your insurance company and the body shop insurance company. This is the reason body shop carry insurance and why they need to make profit on the parts, especially when the parts costs 2-3x as much as the labor. Commercial insurance policies have much higher deductible normally in $5k + range. The problem is even if body shop files a claim against their insurance, they will only be able to collect $1k you paid the body shop in labor from their insurance which more than likely is less than deductible so they would get nothing by filing a claim but the body shop insurance company is not going to reimburse you for parts you bought from a 3rd party dealer. And more than likely the 3rd party dealer is not going to accept a return from you as the parts are used now.

Your insurance company operates under the law, so the insurance company is going to assume you did the correct thing, submit a real claim, which you contract the work to be done on, which if you had the work done by the body shop, and it was discovered that they made a mistake you or the insurance company would have legal recourse and standing in court to collect those funds back. Now here is the kicker, prepare yourself, currently the only recourse the insurance would have if it was discovered that the body shop missed damage which would have made the repair value more than total value is to sue them for the amount you actually paid them which is $1k. So their is a deficiency between the amount the insurance company paid you and what you paid the body shop. The insurance company has no standing in suing a 3rd parts supplier at all as they did not nothing wrong in selling you parts, and the parts were not bought by body shop for a repair they made so the body shop is not liable either. Do you understand that? Their is a claus in the law that you must mitigate all damages in a civil matter and an insurance claim is which means you are supposed to do the repair as cheaply and reasonably as possible and insurance is only required to pay that amount. Which is why when you sue an insurance or an individual for a car accident you are required to get 3 estimates if you have not made the repair or provide 2 estimate and proof of payment to make sure the repair you did was reasonable. You can not submit estimates which show a higher repair total than it actually costs as that is fraud and is exactly what you did with your insurance company. The fact adjuster choose to look the other because of the small amount does not mean the insurance company loss prevention department will if you or the body shop attempts to collect money which the adjuster or insurance companies should not be liable based on the fact your body shop overlook some key damage or because you bought parts you can not return now so even if the body shop returns to you what you paid for the repairs you would still be a deficiency of $6k for the parts you bought.

Do you understand now? See the mess you are in? Do you understand no way the body shop is going to pay you for parts you bought, no way insurance is going lay out more than total value either? If you would have paid your body shop for the parts and to do the repair and you had the same problem, it would be 100% the body shop problem and legally the body would be required to reimburse any and all money you paid them. That amount plus what the insurance company gives you now equals the total value and you would be out no money at all. Problem is how you choose to deal with it and unfortunately the outcome might not be what you like now.

 

it is a little difficult to explain because most repair estimates are spot on due to computer programs that adjusters use. It gives them a cost on parts and what labor will run. For you to be able to use that money and buy all your needed parts and still be able to buy a new suspension is a almost unheard of. Either the adjuster messed up, or the shop where the car was taken to jacked up the repair amount. Just remember this, your adjuster has a boss and he reports to them and they can negate what he told you. Typically, most insurance companies will write a check to the repair shop and the insured to ensure the repair is done.

When you bought your own parts, you kinda screwed the pooch. I see people do it all the time and buy parts and take it to a shop for installation. In situations like this, if the part fails the owner is up the creek as the shop will tell them they did not buy the part, thus they will not warranty the repair. It is true that shops make some money on parts, but when you can take your back to them under warranty, they will work with their supplier to rectify the problem.

As for your car, you could have bought gap insurance to cover your losses in case a situation like this ever came up. However, if your insurance company does investigate this situation, they may choose not to do anything regarding fraud. However, they may also consider you uninsurable and drop you from their ranks. This can have a long standing effect as others may not be willing to insure you or want you to pay a very high premium.

 

I'm with mcdohl and wpozzz.

 

My advice would be to talk to your adjuster to see if you can get your new parts off the car and take the 5k, or maybe ask if you can just buy the car back for a few thousand and have someone else fix the engine. I wouldn't push the insurance company though, otherwise you may end up in a world of ****.

 

ok i see thanks for steering me in the right direction, so basically if the insurance company says no the current repair plus the amount of about 9k to fix the car will be more then the actual cash value of the car and we can give you for example 4-5k and take the car away. can i deny it and say look keep your 4-5k and ill fix it on my own in order for them not to take away my car, im sure thats possible no?.. because basically what they told me was as long as the current repair including labor to take apart most of the front end and put it back together will not exceed actual cash value they wil pay for labor of taking it apart so basically if 5k would mean it exceeds actual cash value they would want to take the car but if its anything under 5k lets say 4.5k or 4k or even 2-3k they would pay for the repair and not take it away because it doesnt exceed the actual cash value am i understanding right because if i have the option of giving up my car for 5k and be stuck with the finance or deny that 5k and keep my car i can save up some money and buy a used engine on ebay for about 3-4k and keep my car it would only make more sence this way there is no complaints and insurance company doesnt pay anymore so they have nothing to complain about ..i hope im understanding this right. Thanks for your guys help i am now more aware of how the insurance law works and its also a big help thanks to you all that took the time to write up such long posts to educate me on how the law works i appreciate it.

 

Vmspionage, when you say talk to the adjuster to see if you can take the parts of and take the 5k are you talking about the suspension and brakes, or you mean all the parts that i bought to repair the car, and second why would i have to pay to buy the car back because they didnt take the car away they said that if the damage exceeds what we are willing to pay for it we will then give you 5k and take it away but can i not deny the 5k and say ok dont give me 5k and take away the car ill just keep the car damaged the way it is and not take anything from you.and then save up some money buy a used engine on ebay ?
Thanks

 

The law's vary by state, but for example in Ca, if the insurance company choose to declare your car totaled you have no say at all because if you read your policy at least in CA, the insurance company has the right to either declare your car totaled or repair it at their discretion. The only right you have is to dispute what that totaled value is via the terms set forth in your insurance policy. Also if you look at the bank loan documents more than likely if your car is declared totaled in an accident your loans become due in full because the collateral is no longer worth what it was once worth, as the insurance company by law is required to report the status of the car as being totaled to the legal owner which is the bank and to the DMV so that a salvage title will only be issued on that car if anyone in the future tries to register that car ever again.

Once you have a salvage title on your car you will no longer be able to get collision insurance coverage on that car which is a requirement of most car loans, even if the bank was willing to over look the salvage title.

You can keep trying to be sneaky and trying to figure what is the most you can get out of the insurance without them declaring your car totaled. I am warning you for the last time, you are getting closer and closer to what would be a clear and cut case of fraud. You submitted 1 estimate to your insurance on work you did not have done, now you are trying to figure out what estimate people think your body shop friend can submit to your insurance without them declaring your car totaled. Submitting a bogus estimate to your insurance company, no matter if you are submitting a claim for less than actual repairs it is still fraud.

 

Yea I was referring to the brakes and suspension. Just tell them you installed some new parts at the same time of the repair and would like to either be compensated for those or have the shop remove them and sell them on ebay. That's not going to work if you already told them you bought the parts with their money though. It's worth asking the buyback because if they'll give you 5k to total the car but sell it back to you for 2k you can put the extra cash towards the new motor or repairs, but you'll be left with a rebuilt title.

It's a bad situation no matter what you do. Sorry about your luck.

 

oh ok i got it thanks... ill see where this goes thanks again

 

Another option may be to work with the adjuster to not declare the car a total loss and see what kind of money they are talking about. You may get $xxxx to finish up repairs before they total the car. You have to work with this and come up with additional $$$ to complete the repair properly. The pro is you get your car back and it is not a Salvage title. The con is you pay more money out of pocket.

 

Thats true at this point i rather keep my car and not have it totalled all in all in my 8 months of having the car ive invested way to much money in the car to just give it up for a few thousand dollars im just a college student who saved up money to buy this car... i even paid a couple of hundred dollars out of my pocket to replace the belt and the tensioner and the labor to do it all just not to wait for insurance company 3-4 days to come and inspect the car i have only driven it for about 100 miles in total since i got it back and now this oil leak could either break me or put an end to it supposedly the shop said that its the seal where the crank pulley is and its bad and they said it is directly related to the accident since it is exactly where the damage is where the car was hit that part of the engine was hit i just hope the engine block isnt cracked or anything, i havent really done anything wrong everything was pretty much done with the permission of the insurance company i asked them can i provide the shop with my own parts because i can get it at a discounted rate and use the money you gave me for it they said sure its not a problem just as long as you buy everything on the estimate they didnt tell me oh if we gave you 7k and you buy parts worth 5k you have to give us back the remaining they said heres the money to fix your car and if other repairs arise have the shop call the supplement line to come and further inspect the car which i did and they came and inspected it and said heres more money for the parts that we couldnt see because the damaged parts where on the vechile and we had no way of seeing it until the shop took the damaged parts off. and after the car was put back together i had the issue with the belt which i paid for out of pocket and then i got the car back and literally an hour later the oil started dripping and i took it back to the shop they called insurance company they came and said we dont understand why you guys fixed the car and gave it to the customer and it broke down again and fixed it gave it back and it broke down again..they think the shop didn properly inspect the car and they said that in order for us to cover this damage you have to take off most of the front end so we can visually inspect and see whether the problem is something that we didnt pay for or is it something that you guys installed the wrong way or missed it when you where doing the repair..there is no blame being put on me for anything because me as a customer came to the shop paid them to do work and expected my car to be fixed..they also think that the shop maybe didn test drive the car properly after repairing because they claim the shop would have noticed the leak if they would have driven it for an hour or so under both light and heavy throttle..i just didnt appreciate being called a scammer or fraud because i had left over money to buy some stuff which the insurance company didnt care for i even asked the adjuster the second time he came if there was 500-1000 dollars left over and you guys declare the car total or make another supplement are you gonna expect that back from me they said dont worry were not gonna come after you for 500-1000 dollars becase there was 2k left over and out of that 2k i had to come up with 1k for the deductible so at the end of the day there is only 1000 dollars left over that i spend the money that i recieved wasnt enough to cover parts labor and aftermarket parts im sure you guys know how much it cost to install the whole suspension front and back the sway bar the complete braking system including the brake lines labor alone on my car was about 4000 dollars without the shocks/brakes. so theres no way that i spend the insurance money on aftermarket parts and didnt buy the necessary parts to do the repair and now im stuck with a problem thats how its turning out to sound to the person that is saying i commited some big crazy fraud i first ordered every single part on the estimate and i have all invoices to prove it and the insurance company said as long as you have those invoices if its the shops fault they cant say oh you didn buy the proper parts to fix the car, i just dont like being made out to be some crazy guy that commited some big fraud when all i did was spend about 1000 dollars for extra parts after everyting necessary parts where bought just because the shop gave me a break on labor costs cause they know me doesnt mean ive dont something so horrible and anyways i spend 300 dollars of my own money for parts when insurance was supposed to cover it. i just didn understand the insurance companies logic when they said if the engine is damaged will give you-4-5k and take your car away because the total amount of money given exceeds actualy cash value ..i did not ask them to repair the car to begin with instead of declaring it total that was their decisin and they told me we will come 20 times if we have to as long as its accident related . they just dont want to pay more money ..who does? so yea anyways im gonna wait and see after the car gets stripped in the coming day or two to see whos fault this is because it deff aint mine. Once again thanks for your help guys and taking the time out to read my post even though its not grammatically correct sorry. Thanks

 

Look do not understand why it is so hard for you to understand this concept. If you would have gone to a body shop who was not your friend, who provided the insurance company an estimate which they agreed to pay and you allowed the body shop to do all the work on the estimate you would not be in the same position. You get $8805 +$1000 (your deductible) from the body shop which the insurance and you already paid plus say another $4k from the insurance company for a total of $13805 for your car and private party blue book sale is $13465. CPO value is $16150. I understand you are upside down on your loan, and the fact you did not pay the extra $10 or so a month for gap insurance is either your own fault, or you agent fault.

Then I still do not understand how you can be so sure it is not your fault, you have never bought an item which was new in the box but defective? I sure have and I am sure many others have too, so the fact you bought brand new items is irrelevant and the fact one of those items might have been faulty is still possible and that could have caused the problem. Or the body shop could have missed some damage or installed some parts wrong but either way your problem all goes back to the fact you choose to try to pull a fast one on the insurance, you can keep saying the insurance adjuster said it was ok, but that is no different than a bar tender, or valet seeing you are drunk, giving you your keys to car and allowing you to drive home and police stopping you for DUI and arresting you, and then going in arresting the bar tender or valet as well for allowing you to drive home(I know crazy CA laws but it happens all the time in CA). Legally if you submit a claim for a to do X at a certain price, that does mean you are allowed to have A do Z and you provide parts and pocket the difference. I am sure if you were being sued in a small claims action and someone tried to pull that bs in court on you, you would be yelling bloody murder and saying that person committed fraud against you.

Then their is the million dollar question, maybe you think people on this board are stupid or something, but from your original post "i bough them all genuine mercedes parts of course nothing aftermarket or generic and with the extra money i bought shocks an brakes and rotors and sway bars and brake lines." then your story now changes to "i even asked the adjuster the second time he came if there was 500-1000 dollars left over and you guys declare the car total or make another supplement are you gonna expect that back from me" Then you go on to say "ecase there was 2k left over and out of that 2k i had to come up with 1k for the deductible so at the end of the day there is only 1000 dollars left over". I am sure their is a big difference between $500 and $2k you might not think so, and in your head you might try to justify your actions but sorry to be the one to keep telling you, and reminding you that you are in this mess because you choose to do the wrong thing, and continuing to try to make up excuses or rationalize what you did or try to connivence other what you did not was wrong. Maybe you should look were you currently are and try to find a solution for the problem that is not trying to perpetrate a fraud on either the bank or insurance company.

Do you understand what a deductible is? It is the part of the repair you have to pay and agree to pay when you get insurance, you can choose to pay more for insurance and get a lower deductible, so in fact their was $2k left over and not $500 to $1k like you told the insurance adjusted and $2k on $8800 is 24% over payment and trust me his supervisor is going to car if he is over paying his claims by almost 25%. Then

 

Great insight mcdohl. I totally understand where you are coming from, hopefully pacboy begins to understand.