Ouchie!

Well, got my quote....$1,500 which actually is right where I thought it'd be (I have a $1,000 deductible for those who are curious). I went to two different shops.

Shop 1: The one the insurance company recommended / the insurance company (if I keep the claim) will guarantee all the work gave me the quote, $1,500

Shop 2: Fancy shop in town (works on high end cars like Lamborghini, and Porsche), I went there because I figured they'd be the best to match the paint color. Guy walks out, see my car, and says "sorry, Mazda uses special paint and we don't carry it, we won't work on Mazdas because it'd cost you thousands just for us to get the paint supplies.". So either that was B.S. and my "lowly" Mazda just wasn't something they wanted to work on, or it's true and it'd end up costing more. He actually referred me back to Shop 1 saying they'd be better for the repair. So in either case, that's what I have to go on. The other shops in town aren't nearly as highly rated, so I'll go with Shop 1.

Question now is, roll the dice on the insurance raising my rates (my insurance broker says that's a black box and who knows if they will or won't since it's such a low $ claim), or go out-of-pocket and risk them finding more damage once they pull it apart and I lose out on the coverage. Also, because I already opened a claim, I might be damned anyway in there system regardless. Arrrrrgggggg, I hate this stuff!!!

I'll probably go with the claim just so I've got the lifetime guarantee on the repairs and just in case they find out there's more damage than I know about, but oh boy, I'm not looking forward to my insurance renewal if I do that!
 
Yeah, that sounds like BS, this color has been out over 4 years and this high end shop can't match it? Oh, well. Try to look for a gold class ICAR rated shop. You really don't want the front end having mismatched paint, and it is a challenge for some shops. https://info.i-car.com/gold-class
I
 
I would probably put in a claim and have them help with the payment. Myself, I have a very high deductible which lowered my insurance, but I would be paying out a lot in the event I had car damage. I had two accidents in my 41 years of driving. The first one they said was my fault, and the other one was not my fault. One thing I learned from my first accident, if you are thinking of making a left hand turn at a light just as it turns yellow or red, don't do it. Wait until the light turns green and there is a gap in the on coming traffic. Cars behind you may get pissed, but so what, it is maybe two minutes longer.
 
Dermochelys said:
I'll probably go with the claim just so I've got the lifetime guarantee on the repairs and just in case they find out there's more damage than I know about, but oh boy, I'm not looking forward to my insurance renewal if I do that!
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That's what I would do knowing that it is a black box as your agent says. I wouldn't think one $1500 incident would hit you too hard if there were no other claims in their look-back period, 3 or 5 years.

There's a second black box--if your rates do go up you won't necessarily know the cause. After a year of climate disasters, property and casualty carriers that had written a lot of policies in stricken areas may raise your rates for that reason alone.

I believe it was mentioned above that if you see a large jump in your rate because of claims it won't do any good to shop other carriers. That's not necessarily true. Other carriers may not weigh one $1500 incident as heavily assuming there are no other claims in their look-back period. Further, different carriers have different underwriting cycles--some are in "sell more policies" mode at one particular time, others not so much. If you go get whacked, then it is your agent's job to shop your business around.
 
If it were me, with extensive automotive experience, I would buy the replacement parts myself, install them all, and then take it to a body shop for paint. Front OEM Mazda bumper cover is about $250 before shipping. Fog light bezel $14. Fender trim with all clips $77. That's looking them up on TascaParts.com. I bet you can get all the parts needed for well under $500 total. Paint will be a different story, though.
 
$1,000 deductible is too high, IMO. I checked my insurance with Geico and it's less than 7 dollar difference per 6 months for a $500 deductible instead of a $1000 collision deductible. A $100 collision deductible raises the 6 month premium $102, which is totally not worth it. $500 seems like the sweet spot. I have $100 deductible for comprehensive so it doesn't hurt too much if I need to replace the windshield.
 
PatrickGSR94 said:
If it were me, with extensive automotive experience, I would buy the replacement parts myself, install them all, and then take it to a body shop for paint. Front OEM Mazda bumper cover is about $250 before shipping. Fog light bezel $14. Fender trim with all clips $77. That's looking them up on TascaParts.com. I bet you can get all the parts needed for well under $500 total. Paint will be a different story, though.
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I wonder if paint might be cheaper if you take the raw bumper to them. The labor should be lower. Then add grills and mount at home.
 
well the labor of disassembly and reassembly should be gone, if you can do that yourself. But the paint work and prep of the body panels would still be the same.

However, for the best match the panel will need to be blended into the fenders, which would require the car to be there and for them to mount the bumper onto the car. They have to test various shades of color to find the closest match, scuff the clear coat on the fenders, and spray new clear onto the fenders in addition to the bumper.
 
Well just a quick update. I went to go pickup my car today, and had to have them keep it :( The paint work right at the very corner of the bumper cover where it comes to a point just above the front wheel was crinkly and rough (see yellow circle in post accident photo below). It looks like they didn't quite sand down the plastic mold lines or something on the new bumper cover. They said it wasn't a big deal, and I begged to differ because it's something I can't unsee and it just looked like it would eventually start to peel there. At the end of the day, they agreed to try and buff it out / get it fixed at no extra charge, so I asked them to try.

Anyway, hopefully I'll it back later this week or early next week. If anyone has a picture they can share of that sharp point so I know what it "should" look like I'd appreciate it (my photo is after damage after-all). Also, the bumper cover was slightly higher than the fender by a tiny fraction of an inch. I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be, if anyone has thoughts on that it'd be great, I though it should be perfectly flush, but perhaps that is a bridge too far on being too picky.

And sorry, I was so worked up over the rushed job I forgot to snap my own photo of how they were trying to leave the car with me : (

Edit: Oh, on the bright side, the paint color was a perfect match....so at least they got that right!
CX5 Highlight.jpg
 
They actually tried to give the car back to you with the bumper cover misaligned like that??
 
sm1ke said:
They actually tried to give the car back to you with the bumper cover misaligned like that??
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Yeah sorry, this was a photo I took right after the accident. I was just highlighting in the yellow circle the area that after the repair didn't look right to me with the rough paint.
 
Dermochelys said:
Yeah sorry, this was a photo I took right after the accident. I was just highlighting in the yellow circle the area that after the repair didn't look right to me with the rough paint.
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Whoops, my mistake 😅

This is from my CX-9, but should be pretty similar. I do have PPF on my bumper, but it's the original bumper and it has never been repainted.

Capture.JPG
 
sm1ke said:
They actually tried to give the car back to you with the bumper cover misaligned like that??
Click to expand...
I had a body shop do that once, not quite that bad, but panels weren't properly flush. I made them redo it and then wrote that shop off the list.
 
Well just heard back from the body shop. They said the bumper cover was an aftermarket cover (as authorized by the Insurance company), so to fix they they'd either have to go back with an OEM bumber, or take off the aftermarket one, sand down the mold line (which they should have already done) and repaint it....at extra cost to me! I'm trying to figure out if the Insurance will cover this issue....more later.
 
ughh dang man, should have specified OEM parts only, up front.

I think I would even take a used OEM bumper over a new aftermarket, if the used one was in decent shape, just because they're better quality to begin with.
 
Yeah I know, but because I ran it through insurance I get a lifetime guarantee on the work and they speced the aftermarket part. Insurance will cover the cost for them to fix the mold line...but....that means the cost showing up on my insurance claim jumps from $900 to $1600 for what the insurance is paying out on the claim. I'm not sure it's worth the ensuing rate hike I'll see, the goal was to keep the inurance payout as low as possible to keep any rate increase down. Again, because they have me over a barrel on this being "at fault" on me when I thought for sure it'd be a comprehensive claim based on how the accident happened.
 
All better!

Well, getting my car fixed was certainly unpleasant, but I learned some lessons that I thought I'd pass along.

1) Striking an object on the road is always considered an "at fault" on the driver who hit the object in California. If the object is flying through the air, or an animal is hit crossing the road, it falls under comprehensive coverage.

2) Request OEM parts whenever possible, but know your insurance may only pay for aftermarket parts.

I'm happy to have this behind me now.

0306221751.jpg
 
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