I was vandalized a few weeks ago, door keyed, top slashed, driver's seat slashed, shift knob stolen, center console pad and door insert slashed.

I had an estimate done at a Honda dealership and it was 7500 for repairs. My insurance company did not like this, and sent out a 3rd party adjuster who was able to do an estimate for 1500. For example, he found a shift knob for 32 dollars (I don't know how). The parts are all aftermarket (I don't think I can even get the car repaired for 1500) and labor looks a little shy of how long it'd take for a shop to replace this stuff.

I am taking a check and want to fix all of this myself, however, 1000 dollars (minus my 500 deductable) will not cover the cost to do this work even with MYSELF doing the labor.

I demanded OEM parts but they say they don't offer that on cars more than a year old.

What are my options? Will I get anywhere trying to talk to my insurance company at all?

 

Wow, who is your insurance company?

 

who the #### do you you have insurance with?

 

Yea, give us a name of this so-called insurance company.
Contact your state represenative and try to put some pressure on this flim-flam company.
The top alone is going to be $1500 and they expect you to pay the rest?
As soon as this is settled (your favor or not), drop em and go with a legitimate company.

 

Yea that's some shoddy insurance. Never heard of such a thing. And it sounds pretty personal dude, hope you can park your car somewhere safer after its all fixed.

Please post insurance company to let others know!

 

 

Did you have the 'seat lock' custom screw heads on your seats?

 

Damn Justin, sorry to hear. Where were you parked?

 

I can give you my experience. I have an '06 with 20k miles on it, top cut, seats/shiftknob/floor mats all stolen, seat belts and wiring harness' cut ...

My insurance is Allstate, they do not want to buy new seats ... I argued until I was blue in the face with no luck. They want to buy used seats and the rest of the parts new ...

I got a check from them and the check was cut to me and Honda Lease Trust. I owe 7k on the car, Honda will not sign the check over to me unless I go to a dealer and have a full inspection of the car and the dealer says "yes it has been fixed to OEM specs" ... in the meantime I ordered all the parts from Hardtop guy + a hardtop and a pair of Bride Stradias from Steve @ Evolution ... Basically I am ****ed because the seats will not be OEM.

After endless conversations with Honda and Allstate, I most probably will end up signing over the check to honda and have them credit it towards what I owe them and reimburse me the leftover.

Allstate sucks ... if your car is older than a year and has more than 12k miles they are entitled to replace the parts with used stuff ... Also Honda Lease Trust willl not sign the check over to me even though I own most of the car, but I guess for them is more a liability reason.

I am lucky enough that I could afford to pay out of my pocket, but I am out of a car since October and will not get it back together until February of next year when the seats come in.

As soon as this is over, I am switching to State Farm ... probably the same shit but I was treated much better by them in the past.

J

 

I am with Esurance.com insurance. Apparantly my policy only provides OEM parts if your car is less than one year old or if they are the only thing available. The console pad and door insert for example ended up being almost what they want to give me for the aftermarket top... LOL

After looking over the two different estimates, I found some other interesting information. The 2nd adjuster found some body shop in the middle of nowhere (Douglassville Ga, sorry to anyone who lives there!) called "Junior's upholstery and interior shop" or something to that effect, which is not only 30+ miles from where I live, but has extremely cheap labor rates and says they'll install a top for 985 including labor.

Here's more - I already mentioned that the shift knob is 32 dollars, I told the adjuster to please let me know where the hell I can find titanium shift knobs for 32 dollars because I want to buy them in mass bulk and sell them online and double my money. The total labor hours were 10.5 hours, that includes the top replacement, door painting, etc. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I spoke to the manager on duty who was very nice, and stated that there are HUGE differences in labor, and that I have the right to choose my body shop which is going to be a Honda dealership so either they are going to have to go with OEM parts if that's all that Honda will deal with, or aftermarket stuff would have to be ordered and they'll have to pay Honda's labor rate.

As for the seat lock question, the seat was actually knifed in several areas, not stolen. The only things stolen were the shift knob and possibly some CDs (I think I only had burned CDs though in the car because I had 200 real CDs stolen out of my car back in 2000). I have Bride's in the car now, so I am going to look into some sort of custom bolt to put each seat rail.

I was actually parked outside my house and it happened overnight when I was my fiancee's place. I came home the next morning in her car and found my car sitting there with a hole in the top. I have an idea who it might've been, but there's no way to prove it and I'd rather pretend that that person (piece of garbage) is dead anyway

I'll let you guys know what happens.