Our client Kim took her vehicle to a Service King as Allstate said they would guarantee the work since it was one of their contracted and “approved” shops. She believed it was fixed correctly and she decided to trade it in now that it had a damage history.
The response she received was highly disappointing and very alarming. Two dealerships inspected the vehicle and told her that they would never take this vehicle in on trade due to its frame damage. Frame damage that Kim was not even aware of and was never explicitly told about. She came to Collision Consulting for an in depth forensic inspection.
We found remaining damage to the rear body panel and remaining damage to the frame rail ends that was never repaired. There was damage to the rear bumper impact bar however the shop chose to reuse it instead of replacing it likely to keep the severity rating of the accident down.
Shops choose to leave damage like this or reuse parts because of the competitive standards to remain in the “approved” or contracted network for the insurance company.
We wrote a repair estimate for all of the damage and documented what we found. Collision Consulting then helped Kim provide this all to Allstate, who then totaled the vehicle within a week and Kim was reimbursed for the pre loss value of her vehicle.