(Pictures Included) Am I getting ripped off by the dealership for a repair?
 

So I tried drifting in an empty street like a dumbass, and ran into a curb (I know I'm stupid, do your worst).

The front-passenger side rim hit the concrete and a chunk was taken off by the hit, which made it immediately obvious it shouldn't be driven. I drove it about a quarter of a mile to a better spot to wait for a tow truck, although I felt something scrape slightly at where the impact was.

The local Subaru dealership took the car in, and they tell me that the front lower control arm is probably bent but will have to do a diagnosis ($100) if you don't repair at the dealership) before giving a final estimate. Then they do the diagnosis and tell me that the front LCA is definitely bent, can't tell if the tie rods are bent but should replace them anyways, and quotes me for a $700 repair job to make the car safe to drive with a spare tire. They also assured that the steering rack was fine.

However, he calls me a day later saying that the damage was even worse as the "wheel was pushed in by about an inch" and wasn't really clear about what exactly needed to be replaced, but the "frame needs to be pulled out and aligned".

Then he immediately tells me to contact the insurance and was very persistent for me to do that, even after telling him that I need to see a detailed estimate first because my deductible is set high. Then he proceeds to suggest I lower the deductible before making a claim, which I'm pretty sure is fraud.

Anyways, I'm a bit suspicious about what's happening and thinking that he's gonna try to overcharge me for parts and repair. You can see the pictures of the damage below that were taken by the dealership. I am wondering if any experts here can take a look and explain what is going on, any help is truly appreciated.

http://i.imgur.com/LefaJ51.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TLHetno.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vvBLVDT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BYIysvj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lrwfEfR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mnWX24w.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HIV1S1q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EGhHWGM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hxKQh6r.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UNYs26S.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XJ9Bygi.jpg

Yeah..... Well, you don't really need to let them do the work. You might want to just eat that $100 and have it either towed home or to another shop. The dealership isn't the only place where you can repair your car.

If your going to pay out of pocket then is best to find the lowest price. As far as insurance, any repair shop loves insurance claims. Just as you suspect they make more money from that, then when people pay out of pocket.

I would call other shops, tell them how much the dealer quoted you and see if they can get it lower.

$100 pre diagnosis to the actual diagnosis? Head for zee hills!!

call another dealer or a mechanic that knows these cars.

The initial diagnosis sounded feasible and likely but I lost all faith in the rest as soon as you said the frame was bent. Suppose it is possible but if you hit hard enough to do that then the rest of the damage should have be major and easy for them to spot in the first place.
I would kiss that rather exuberant inspection fee goodbye and haul it someplace else. Even if they are right the fact they didn't catch all that damage in the first place woul make me wonder about their skills.

Well, @chezzy79 it's too bad you banged up your car ......:(

Although, you took some good pictures, it's hard to determine the extent of the damage.

What is your deductible .. ??

I have a feeling the repair cost is going to be much more than you might think.

To give you a reference point, I slammed my wife's Saturn into a curb at about 10mph on a subdivision street. She actually drove it for a couple of days before I took it into get it ..... aligned. Yea, right.......:bonk:

By the time the shop (where I know the fellows) finished with it, it took:

RF LCA

RF wheel (rim)

RF wheel bearing

RF strut

RR wheel bearing

Alignment

I doesn't seem to take much sideways slamming, to mess up modern day cars ...... :sigh:


humfrz

The real issue is you drove the Saturn and still called yourself a man afterwards.

Welp, it was my wife's Saturn and obviously, I didn't do too good a job driving it ....... :cry:

Now, I don't have to be worried about that "man" thing, by driving a Saturn anymore, ..... cause ...... she won't let me drive it anymore ....... :sigh:


humfrz

https://media.giphy.com/media/2CcKiHPDsJqVi/giphy.gif

shots fired.

Common thing to do is probably have a few different mechanic look at it and tab the most common issues each of them mention to narrow down broken parts. After you're more convinced buy the replacement part and either DIY or take part to the shop or mechanic, and have them install. Finally go do an alignment.. this is if you pay out of pocket.

If you're going the insurance route.. let them handle it.

Not going to be cheap either way but, maybe one way s cheaper than the other

A lot of dealers will charge you a diagnostics fee that is applied to any labor work performed. It's just how they weed out bogus customer inquiries.

-alex

Not only that.


I once wanted to lower my deductible, not because the car was damaged, I just thought I'd prefer it lower. They said fine, but we must have a look at the car to see if there is no damage.

Get it away from the dealership as fast as you can and take it to the best auto body repair place in your area. the sad part about all this is that our cars are not particularly robust do to try to keep them lightweight. When I wrecked my first BRZ I didn't think it was that bad. Until I went line-by-line with my favorite repair guy. became very evident these cars do not like to be bent. Good luck

The front lower control arms have three connections.
The ball joint on the bottom of the wheel upright.
The vertical bolt at the front of the engine bay directly to the chassis.
The horizontal bolt at the rear of the engine bay on the front subframe.

I think what they were trying to tell you, is that the subframe has shifted. This happens on other cars that have subframe designs like these cars do after hitting curbs.

Considering how badly bent that control arm is, a shifted subframe is not unreasonable. Only way to tell for sure is to take some measurements of the subframe with reference to parts of the chassis on both sides of the car.

Go out again and drift the other side?

Do you have tools at home? Not that hard of a DIY job. Then take it to be checked on a rig

The $100 fee is because a real person had to do real work to diagnose the problem. Would YOU work for free? Why should the diagnosis be free?

I'd eat the $100 and take it to a place that specializes in suspension work (not a chain, do some research on good independent shops in your area) and get a second opinion and get the work done there. That $100 is not wasted, it's a baseline.

You won't get out of this cheap. The cheaper you try to get out of this the more expensive it'll get. Welcome to the game.

Thank you for the all the inputs, my deductible is stupid high at $2,500 but luckily I had coverage for custom parts too, so if the total repair cost is over $1,500 I will contact the insurance and have them repair the bumper, front lip, wheel, and possibly tire as well. But I will definitely need to take it to a different shop first with a frame puller and alignment machine.

Id be reluctant to report an incident like that to insurance. Single vehicle at fault accident will be a huge red flag on your account. How is your driving record otherwise?

2500 dollar deductible!?!?!? Jfc, why even have insurance? Lol.

That looks like a decent amount of damage, probably to the subframe. I don't think they're trying to screw you, they probably took it apart and realized how bad it truly was. Happens all the time with insurance estimates, easy to happen in this situation.

Hit curb avoiding deer......................or sasquatch.........whichever you have in WA.

Not sure what type of health care insurance you have, but the wonderful morons in Congress that voted in the 'Affordable Health Care Act' (better known as Obamacare) have screwed the American public WAY worse than a $2500 deductible.

Unless you are rich and can afford their top of the line premium which lowers your deductible, then you have to choose what your income can afford. One of the cheaper plans (without a government subsidy, which is what the poor people get, gov't help) then here is what one of the plans is: $122.25 a month ($1,467 a year) with...........you'll love this.........an $8,500 deductible. Yeah, $8,500 deductible. If you don't take the Obamacare and don't have other private coverage, you can be fined $695 a year (and up) for not having it. Now, if you ask me, I rather have to pay the f'ing penalty than $122.25 and month and have an $8,500 deductible, which unless you have some type of really bad accident, you're basically paying the government to insure poor people. Uh huh, yeah you are.

Why the American public isn't beating down every Congressman's door who voted for this piece of crap plan is a damn shame...............

So, if you think a $2,500 deductible is outrageous, just think about all the Americans taking it in the backdoor for Obamacare.

This is craziness, pay $100 then take it someplace else only to have it diagnosed again? Man I can only imagine how many times you've been duped.

Hello insurance, I was drifting and I wrecked yes will you cover me?
Probably laugh you off the phone and if you show up in person, kick you out the office. If you do choose to lie to them they will most likely catch the lie as they will investigate the damage, want to know where it happend, how it happend

BTW you have your deductible set way to high. If you have to set it that high to afford the insurance, you can't afford the car.Stupid krap like this is one of the reasons insurance is so high anyway and you have to pay a large deductible to afford it

As an insurance adjuster, I would suggest you file a claim anyways. At least you'll get a free estimate from one of your insurance carrier's shop. That would be a good idea. Without reading your policy, and if its not an intentional act in commission of a crime the claim will most likely be covered. Don't quote me on that but any decent insurance policy would not exclude your claim unless you intentionally decided to hit the curb on purpose and file a claim.

That is health insurance.... not car insurance. Obamacare is generally hated, but that is another topic. I had no idea people even had deductibles higher than 1,000 regularly until I bought an 86 and 2,000 seems almost normal on this board.

Guess the kids have to keep their premiums down somehow lol. Trashing these cars help nobody though.

I live in another country and not a mechanic, so not sure how good this advice is, but my 2c would be:

• You were drifting/attempting to. Forget insurance if it's just a few parts that need fixing. If the subframe is damaged then insurance may be a good idea, however I expect they will f**k you over with increased premiums.
• Go to another car shop, dealerships tend to be more expensive.
• If you are paying for the repairs out of your own pocket, look at aftermarket LCA's, bushings etc if you can afford it. Great time to upgrade!

If you are strapped for cash, try find a wrecker with a damaged BRZ/FRS and get them to take the front LCA arms off. You don't need brand new replacements provided the donor car has an undamaged front half. Maybe even flood/water damaged would be OK? This would get you all the bushings as well so cost could be minimal.

If you have the tools and are confident/have a friend who can help, replacing the front arms yourself wouldn't be impossible either.

Fixing the subframe would be best left to professionals.

Health care is a bit different... there's co-pays for more typical health issues (doctors visits for example) that are much lower. The "deductible" for health care is better viewed as a "out-of-pocket maximum" and is considered for the entire year of coverage, so in a year you won't spend more than your "deductible." Whereas with car insurance, deductibles are charged every time you file a claim, there's no yearly maximum. Plus, single surgeries can easily cost more than what our cars are worth brand new lol.

2,500 is pretty nuts for car insurance though o_o wtf. For that price, I agree, avoid insurance claim, eat the $100 and just go to a specialty shop if you're worried about the dealership prices.

And I thought my insurance deductible was too high at $500......but $2500?!:eyebulge: I would get better insurance. I have been contemplating going to no deductible.

so youll put a car on a lift do a complete diagnosis of damage for free only to lose the job? its $100 diag if he doesnt have the repairs performed there i see nothing wrong with this.

I see an issue to pay $100 to pay for a pre-diagnosis before the actual diagnosis. How much will the actual diagnoses cost? Legitimate shops only need to do 1 diagnosis. $100 is steep, $25 is fine but 2 diagnosis fee's are just stupid.

did you read the post? it is a $100 diagnostic fee IF he pulls the car from the shop to be repaired elsewhere, the only people who have any issue with this have never run a shop.

What is the issue?

First, most DEALER shops will tell you it is 1 hour labor time to even look at the car. And by letting them look at it you are agreeing to that.

Second, all shops will drop that "diagnosis fee" if you allow them to fix the car.

Third, why is it wrong for them to charge for their tech and lift time?

If you have bent suspension parts and need time to check if the car is true, it is not unreasonable to expect to pay 1 hour in diagnosis.

When a car is in a wreck is it unreasonable to have a tear down?

Well my misunderstanding then, sounded like $100 fee before the actual estimate. My bad

Only if you pull it out of the shop

$100 is pricey but fair.

I'd just do an insurance claim... raise my premium a tad probably but my DD would be DD again.

If the frame isn't as bad as they say it is and its only the lca and maybe the tie rods I'm sure you can get them (oem) from here or even craigslist for dirt cheap or maybe even free. So theres that, the only thing i highly recommend is to get it out of the dealer ASAP. I have a crack in my bumper and they are charging me 1200$ to get a new one so they just want money.

thats a pretty standard price for a new bumper replacement, dealerships arent some crazy ripoff like people try to make them out to be.

I assume OP wasn't driving at high speed which leads me to this: I hit a curb doing a 180 at around 50 mph, snapped a ray's wheel(those things are solid trust me), bent lca, suspension, etc. basically for around 5k dmg(in cdn) and I can guarantee you my frame didn't budge, hell it didn't even come close to it as the other parts gave way... what I am getting at is I think the dealer is trying to pull the wool over your eyes on this one.

Biiiiiiitch!!! :) my old 2001 Saturn SL2 was the shit (last in house design from Saturn), anything after that then yes I agree :)

Now this I could believe but the actual frame no fucking way, but as you stated subframe isn't the hardest thing to bend