Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Cervy
I remember four years ago when my brother got t-boned in his old BMW in a parking lot by a huge Jeep. When they took it in to the dealership they originally said that it could be easily repaired as it seemed to just be the door that had been damaged, but just two days later they called back and said that the damage was more extensive than they predicted and the car was indeed totaled. Most of the time when mechanics do a first-time damage diagnosis they just eyeball it and rely on their assumptions which are almost always wrong. Never trust a mechanic's judgement when he uses phrases like "it looks like...", or "it seems to me...".
Not saying you should lose hope or anything but they probably haven't even removed the panels yet and looked at the frame.
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Same thing happened to me with my old car. Got rear ended at a light, completely plowed. From the outside everything looked pretty OK aside from the bumper cover being scuffed and having pieces of his headlight glass stuck in it. The only slight indicator was that my trunk lid no longer sat perfectly flush. The trunk lid popped open when I opened it later, like it was barely hanging onto the latch, and my trunk mat was floating in space being supported by my spare tire. The spare tire well had gotten punched in by the hit, and there's no way you'd know that from the outside. The adjuster thought the same way, as I just happened to bump into him when I went to the salvage yard it was brought to to get my plates back. He said "it really doesn't seem that bad. Not much damage". Popped open the trunk and lifted the mat for him to see, and got a "Oh...Well, that changes things. Yeah, we're probably going to total it." That cursory outside look definitely doesn't tell all just because the car doesn't have pieces hanging off it.