Red light runner dinged me Wednesday evening. I have a place I'm happy to go to for repairing body damage, but wondering whether it's (only) a dealer job for inspecting for frame damage and other not-just-obviously-bent-or-broken.

Recommendations?

 

Have the body shop look at it first. They are masters of maxing out insurance claims.

 

Not looking to max anything out, just get a proper inspection to determine of there's any damage besides the visually obvious.

 

uhh...the insurance adjuster and bodyshop? I feel like they would know best. They do it for a living.

 

If a bodyshop cant inspect frame and suspension damage properly, thats not a bodyshop you want to be taking your car to. Afterall thats their specialty. You're better off getting an estimate from your bodyshop and one recommended by everyone here. I know theres 1 or 2 that people here prefer to take their car to. Having two estimates should also help when the insurance adjuster tries to cut corners/costs.

 

how bad is the damage and where did he/she hit you?
body shop can only legally give an estimate for what 'they see.' The real price comes when they start tearing it down..

 

+1. visual inspection doesnt do you good. i was a big time bicycle mechanic and had these all the time. customers would come in and said they crashed. everything looked solid. but underneath the paint, the carbon was cracked and would have been a nasty/fatal accident. same goes with cars or anything of the sort. you can have a hole in a bumper that looks like a hole, but in reality you could have a deffective crumple zone on uni body cars. bite the bullet, take it the shop, and have that peace of mind that you dont have a cracked cross bar, or bumper foam, etc. shops have all sorts of tools to determine the true damage incurred. GL with everything and ****ty u got hit!

 

A good body shop won't tell you what's up until they DO start tearing it down to see what is actually going on IMO.