Can you leave the datalogger in the car while it's being worked on? *NM*

Visited the car today. Tech reports no mechanical damage.

Body shop owner was in yesterday or earlier today and inspected the car. The rear bumper cover has the customary spider cracks in the paint and clear paint evidence/sign of impact. The paint has lines like the folds of an accordion bellow running across the bumper parallel long axis of the bumper cover.

I do not know if the bumper cover can be repaired (prepped and repainted) or has to be replaced. My guess is the body shop would prefer to replace it with a new one. After a severe impact the bumper cover is not a good paint platform. Also, there has been no "teardown" (the bumper cover has not been removed) as yet so there may be structural damage to the bumper cover or to the hardware under/behind the bumper cover that is not visible from the outside.

By way of an example, here is a pic of this area with the bumper cover removed that shows the damage sustained by the car when it was hit from behind in a similar accident back in Feb of 2009:



Anyhow, I finally got in touch with the other driver's insurance. No liability has been accepted yet. I do not think there'll be any real problem. The insurance adjuster has not been able to get in touch with the other driver to get his version. She now knows where the car is, the name/location of the body shop I'm going to use -- the same one the dealership corporation uses for not only its Porsche dealer but for its Audi, Land Rover, Infiniti, Jaguar, Honda, and Subaru dealerships.

Your original post mentioned that you thought there might be uneven gaps in some body panels. That would be a major issue.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2014 04:59PM by SteveJ (2010 987 base, manual trans). (view changes)

The other driver's insurance company adjuster called and told me the other driver's insurance company has assumed liability for the collision and the adjuster asked that the repair shop send her an estimate. I called the insurance company adjuster back asking where/how this estimate should be sent and the claims adjuster said she had sent (faxed I guess) the info on how to submit the estimate to the body shop I gave her.

I am exploring leaving the car at the dealer and having the car repaired by removing the rear bumper cover and either having it repainted or replaced with a factory new cover that also would require painting. Some time ago I spotted (and in fact snapped pics) of a Turbo similar to mine in the service bay that had been rear-ended and when I talked to the tech he told me the owner insisted the car be left at the dealer and the repairs other than the actual painting/finishing of the replacement body panels (just the rear bumper cover) be done at the dealer so I know this is not something unheard of.

Next, it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies that I hear second hand the body shop believes it has to paint/touch up the adjacent panels to "match" the color.

My info is -- based on the repairs done in Feb. 2009 (new factory front and rear bumper covers) -- that lapis blue is an easy color to match. The body shop owner -- who did the repairs from the incident in Feb of 2009 -- told me that after years there might be a slight difference between the bumper covers and the rest of the body -- partially due to the difference in cover and body materials (plastic vs. metal) but it would not really be noticeable.

So far it has not been noticeable at all for I have not had one person spot the bumper covers are not original so even if I do not trust my eyes that no one else has made that observation tells me the body panels/bumper covers match color/tint just fine.

OTOH, I have had a couple of sharp eyed persons -- with no prompting on my part -- spot the Turbo has had body/paint work from the fact the replacement panels (front bumper cover, front trunk lid, and passenger side fender) were painted by the body shop and adjacent panels were partially resprayed to make the arctic silver paint match. The tell tale is the repainted panels do not have the factory orange peel finish...

Also, I do not relish the thought of the car being shuttled -- read driven -- back and forth from the body shop in Pleasanton and the dealership in Livermore. After having my GTO mistreated several times while in the hands of the GM or Pontiac dealer while I trust the Porsche dealer to not mistreat the car I'm concerned about the body shop letting just anyone drive the car. Generally this shuttling of cars is a task delegated to the least senior and probably the least responsible person in the shop as the other persons in the shop, there time, is too valuable to have them sitting in a car for some time shuttling it the car back and forth.

My concern is if the clutch should be abused and begins to slip or the engine is abused (money shifted?) and blows up it will assumed the failure occurred due to age and miles and not because of any mistreatment. I could end up with a car fixed but undrivable due to a slipping clutch or worse.

I guess I could deliver the car to the body shop and then when it was finished bring it back to the dealer for final inspection. We'll see...

God I hate dealing with accidents! A pox, make that two poxes, on the dumb-assed drivers that cause them!

unless it has to come out so the Porsche diagnostics computer can be connected. The device does not offer a pass through feature.

Sometimes the device is disconnected. Usually right after I get an alert that comes from it being kicked by someone unfamiliar with the device hitting it with his foot getting in or out of the car.

at the dealer spoke highly of him so I do not fear turning the car over to someone else to drive back and forth as much as I did.

The dealer said the body shop has the computer system and hardware to check the car's vital/critical dimensions even dimensions like the exhaust system position and will check to ensure the exhaust system has not been knocked asunder.

I will I guess turn the car over to the body shop tomorrow. The body shop then can view/inspect the car at its shop in surroundings/lights that are familiar to the shop estimator and he can better determine the extent of the damage and deliver an estimate to the other driver's insurance company.

Oh I have been told the adjacent body panels will *not* require any paint work that the bumper cover will match with the other panels without this adjacent panel painting.

Since, unfortunately, i have some experience here, a new cover can be had for (it varies a lot) $600 - retail > $1000. Likely still needs paint. If there is not damage except to the paint, i'd repair. I'm no concours guy, but i do think that really good paint can look terrific, even if it has to be "matched" imperfectly.

OTOH, its the other insurance company's problem, not yours. I still hate wasting money though.

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

One wonders what the insuracne value would be.

will be worth about $2,400. Of course I don't know the options etc of your car, but Sheesh.

You could hit a pothole and total the car.

Had the damage been more extensive that would be a possibility. One reason why I didn't want to turn it over to my insurance is I feared my insurance company would just claim a total loss, give me a few bucks and that's that.

1. remove the bumper yourself.
2. Sand the offending section yourself.
3. Clean with mineral spirits after using a scotch-brite
4. take it in for painting.

Oh, i forgot. Did you mention that the 11gs seems to have damaged your cats?

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2014 05:11PM by grant. (view changes)

A co-worker had an accident in his 2013 Cayman S recently. Was hit from the right side and pushed into another car. Unfortunately it wasn't totalled... the repairs are going to be $$$ and the other guy's insurance should cover it. I advised him to file a Diminished Value claim when the repair is done... he should get back $$$...

so the car would have some value to diminish.

Were the car new I'd explore DV claim. 'course, my position has always been to stress concentrating on getting the car restored to its pre--collision condition as close as humanly possible. Any DV claim comes after the car has been repaired.

But given the car's age and miles and the extremely light damage, I'm not concerned about DV.

Some of this may be a repeat but I do not have time to read my other posts.

Other driver's insurance company accepted liability.

The car has been inspected and the damage is limited to the paint of the rear bumper cover. This good news, the lack of damage beyond the bumper cover paint, comes from I guess the other car contacting the bumper cover at its optimum location so the thing was just pushed in and the bumper shock absorbers did their job. (In the previous accident, the impacting vehicle, a Toyota pickup/SUV of some kind (RAV 4?) struck the bumper up high and scuffed the thing, cracked it, and pushed the spoiler a bit and even struck and broke a rear tail light.)

The bumper cover was removed and will be prepped and painted at the body shop. The car remains at the dealership.