Question

[aalvarez04]

Well as some of you might of heard, my car got hit pretty bad with the hail last night. My question is how do i make sure i get oem parts on my car when the body shop fixes it? Last time i had a wreck my insurance told me to go to Sterling and they used cheap parts, and you could tell. My headlight they replaced-the beam was horrible and the connector they used for it broke in a year. During that year it was very finnicky and the high beams only worked sometimes if the stars were aligned and if the chupacabra was near. I was looking for a replacement hood and all i found online were "steel hoods" isn't the oem aluminum?

[Nexus Flux]

Well you could always request that they use OEM parts and ask to see the invoices for them.

When I had my doggy incident, I told Progrressive to have the car fixed at the David McDavid colission center across the street form the dealer I bought the car at. They complied and the part prices on the invoice were very close to dealer prices. The only thing that was not new was the bumper cover. It wasn't my old one but it was repainted.

[Adam Payrot]

I would have fought that one Kamil, I got a new OEM bumper when mine went in.

My most recent repairs involved non-OEM parts. They already had them installed by the time I caught it. I called the body shop and told them that I didn't want anything that wasn't OEM put on the car, and then called my insurance company and told them the same. 5 minutes later, the body shop called to tell me that they were ordering the OEM parts and dropping the non-OEM stuff. The insurance company lost $500 trying to save $250 in parts, lol. What's even funnier, is that I could have bought those parts with the money they paid for them, and pocketed $300. I even told them the part #'s and phone # to call to get the parts for the cheaper price.

When you first get the estimate, check every part # and make sure it's a OEM part. I would have caught those parts a lot sooner and avoided a day's delay in repairs, not to mention worrying about whether insurance would go for it or not.

[black roadster]

I don't know the extent of your damage or policy of your Ins. carrier but they may only pay for PDR. It's a lot cheaper and in some ways better as you keep the original paint.

According to my PDR guy it depends on the size and amount of dents and the location. If PDR can fix it and it's cheaper than paint and body, I'd bet they only offer that option to you.

Take the car to Glenn. He'll tell you what to expect and give you an idea of cost so you can compare it to your insurance estimate.

If paint and body is required, I'd look into seeing where Mazda dealers send their body work. Since the dealer is using said body shop, they will be selling the body shop OEM panels.

[aalvarez04]

All right i'm subcribing to the thread so i can update it when i get word from the insurance.