I've always been provided a rental when it was the other's guy's fault. I'd raise hell if they didn't provide one

 

Any reaosn why not AAA?

 

I was provided a rental by GEICO during the time of the initial repairs which took about 5 days, but I'm pretty sure if I asked for one at this point, they'd give me a really really hard time considering they're trying to talk their way out of this repair.

I also have the same question as mistasleepi...why not AAA? I have AAA coverage as well...wondering what that has to do with anything though?

 

Oops that totally wasn't clear.. This advice is for the average Joe who's probably never had to send their car into a bodyshop before

I ment please do your research and locate the best local repair shop using information from forum and visit the shop to personally see their work and facility. (Look for shops with more accident cars rather then cars with a bunch of 'fixed' up aftermarket cars - they're a lot better at handling your insurance claims as well as restoring your car to the condition it was in before! Always do your research and take your car to the shop that you KNOW will do good work.

UNLESS YOU HAVE AAA, with AAA you can have trust and confidence to let the company handle all aspects of your claim including selecting the bodyshop for you. For AAA to contact/send cars to a bodyshop AAA does its own inspection and most importantly requires the bodyshop to warranty their work (for I believe 5 years). The inspection is done annually so in short AAA does the research so you do not have to. AAA generally seeks high end bodyshops who specialize in collision. While its nice to see bunch of body kitted cars / custom projects the big $$$ in bodyshops is in collision. So much money to the point if you live in a major city there are bodyshops who will refuse walk-ins and will only handle insurance jobs - in short they rather not deal with the aftermarket junk and customers and deal strictly with their insurance partners.


I'm not saying shops that specialize in fiberglassing / bodykits are bad (guess what we do ) Unless you're ordering a bodykit for repairs I'd take it t a shop that specialize in collision.


My references:
I work with a collision shop. Aside from walk-ins and forums all of our business are done through insurance so I'm very familiar with the insurance process and how little they can cover to how generous some other companies are.

All the big names Mercury, State Farm, All State, etc.. require us to warranty our work (we warranty for 3 years unlimited miles. AAA requires 5 the last time we were certified by AAA. We use to be a AAA certified shop but it does cost extra money for the equipment AAA demands, AAA fees, etc.. we dropped our Certification because we were already up to our necks with work.

However, out of all the years I've dealt with insurance AAA by far goes above and beyond to make everything right. Actually AAA has this business idea where if you get hit by someone with AAA coverage AAA simply comes in and takes care of both parties to the fullest they treat the other party involved just as if they were AAA clients and provides all AAA concierge services to them. In short if you had Geico and got hit by someone with AAA you're gona know just how much you're missing out after the experience.

so what I ment was if you have AAA trust in them and let them work you'll be happy with your car at the end of the day. Everyone else always double check and do your own research. And always remember: You pay for your insurance, they work for you -you're the boss SO USE THEM. You're entitled to take your car to the shop of your choice. You can choose if they insurance issues you OR the bodyshop the check.

 

hrmm that's some excellent info! I didn't know AAA got involved with accidents. So...if this bodyshop turns me away tomorrow...should I then contact AAA (I've been a member for about 7-8 years)? or should I contact Mercury? or both?

Thanks again for helping an insurance noob out

 

I'm pretty sure that he meant "if you use AAA" as your insurance carrier.

 

I think you're confused with all this advice, whom ever you're insured with should be handling all your issues....botton line! Don't deal with anyone else!
Gary

 

haha yea, this definitely was an overwhelming amount of information. It's a little too late for me to have my insurance handling all this, but I'll keep that in mind if anything ever comes up in the future.

Anyhow, I dropped my car off this morning and the Geico rep wouldn't so much as even look at me and never spoke a word to me. They had my paperwork ready to go and hooked me up with a rental vehicle without me asking for one...? Not sure what caused this turn of events...maybe he just got tired of dealing with me =)

They said that they'd pull off the bumper to see whether it was a defective part or not and I watched them pull my car into the garage this morning. Haven't heard from them since then and it's the end of the day now so I'm hoping that they came to the conclusion that an OEM part needed to be ordered/painted/installed. Just crossing my fingers at this point that this'll all be resolved without further action on my part.

 

How is your situation coming along now?

 

lol can't say anything happened in the 5 minutes between my last post and your post

 

Sounds good thus far, make sure it's perfect when you pick her up! No flaws or excuses and the paint should match perfectly....Good Luck!
Gary

 

A sincere thanks to you guys I wasn't sure how much of a fight I was going to put up initially but listening to what yall had to say changed my mind just a bit ;p

 

Yes sorry I ment if you had AAA insuring your vehicle.

Nope you can still give them a call and ask them for advice. Thats what they're for...

 

Day 3 passed and I still hadn't received any calls from the bodyshop so I just called them.

They put the Geico rep on the phone and he sounded surprisingly pleasant. He said they pulled off the bumper cover and couldn't find any reason why anything on the car was making it warp, so they attributed the defect to the bumper cover. They ordered a new OEM bumper from Nissan and it's being painted as I type this. It'll be installed tomorrow and my G will be ready to be picked up tomorrow afternoon with a brand spankin new non-warping OEM bumper woohoo! haha very excited about this victory =p

Just posting this in case anyone was wondering what ended up happening.

 

^ awesome sounds good. Very good to hear that everything worked out.

But lesson learned! Do your research and get it done once and get it done right =)