Posted this over in the owners forum, but i thought I'd start a thread here to tell my long soap opera story. More info to follow... My baby returned to me late Wednesday afternoon. She's been gone for three months with minor rear bumper damage when I got hit on the way home from Cars & Coffee on June 2. What a soap opera for such a minor incident. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Sorry to hear about the injury. Hopefully the person had insurance. At least you were out driving and enjoying her. I love the plate too!
On my drive home from Cars and Coffee on June 2, my birthday by the way, I was stopped at a red light. It was a bright, sunny Saturday morning in Scottsdale and I'm in a bright yellow car. I was behind a truck, waiting on the light to change and I just happened to look in my rear view mirror when I saw she wasn't going to stop. It wasn't a major hit, I'm thinking 5 mph or less. I suspect she was texting on her cell phone. The initial damage looked pretty minor...a cracked rear diffuser and cracks in the bumper around the exhaust. Here's a picture: Image Unavailable, Please Login
...anyway, I dropped it off at the local Penske body shop. Penske owns the Scottsdale Ferrari dealership as well. Was a little slow in getting looked at and then initial repair estimate after a week or so was about $6,500. I was a little concerned because they said the bumper cap didn't need to be replaced, but only sanded and repainted. Other part of the story, the insurance..... For those of you that don't know, I have a new car on order that will be here in just a couple of more weeks. On the monday after the accident I went down to see Gary Simon, my sales guy to get info on how to handle this issue because I'm worried about the value of the car. This was the most important thing I did!!! Gary gave me the name of Lance Coren. Lance is awesome and I highly recommend him. Lance is an appraiser that is an expert on damaged Ferrari's and insurance companies. Lance recommended that I file three claims right away - 1) Repair 2) Loss of Use 3) Inherent Diminished Value. The lady that hit me had 21st Century, which I have now learned is owned by Farmers. Over the course of six weeks I was assigned six different insurance adjusters. Each wanted to own the file and work it, but clearly they were more junior guys. It kept escalating up the chain to more and more senior guys. At one point I pointed out that I had filed a claim for Loss of Use and they've had the car for quite a while. Lance advised that Loss of Use should be charged at $2250 a day. This got their attention finally and the senior insurance guy got assigned.
I'm putting Lance's name in my phone book now. It seems fair that the person (or person's insurance co.) responsible for the accident should pay for any loss in repaired car value. Thank you for the info.
Back to story number one, the repair... After about two weeks I got a call from the body shop. After they removed the bumper cap they saw that the aluminum bumper underneath had ben damaged. A dimple in the center. If you've seen under the bumper cap of a 458, the actual bumper is an aluminum cross member that is welded to the frame. It would need to be replaced, but now it must go to and authorized Ferrari frame shop because the part is tightly controlled by Ferrari and won't be sold to anyone else. The closest shop is in the Los Angeles area. Farmers was great and paid to put my baby in an enclosed trailer for shipment to the shop. Here's a couple of more pics of the exterior bumper and the underneath aluminum bumper: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Story one, the repair continued... Sterling Collision in Tustin, CA did the repair. Once they got the car, they looked it over and put together a very detailed estimate of every single thing that needed to be done. Ray Shahi, the shop owner had called me to reassure me that they could handle the work, but I drove out to visit the shop to see what kind off operation it was. Ray personally gave me a tour of the operation and I have to say it is first rate. I highly recommend their work. It was a huge facility and they had many, many cars they were working on...McLaren's, Lamborghini's, Bentley's, etc. Now the shocker...a new estimate - $44,000. Yikes!!! (The final bill ended up as $46,000) But they weren't repairing anything...everything would be replaced with new, straight from the Ferrari factory OEM parts. Every bracket, screw, washer was straight from the factory. About $30k for parts included a new bumper cap, bumper cross member, rear diffuser, a catalytic converter, and both mufflers. And they would only replace the aluminum bumper cross member after mounting the car on a frame jig to guarantee no issues. Here's a couple of pics: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
$46k for THAT? Wow. Everyone: Buy the back up camera. For $3500, can avoid backing into something that costs $46 grand to repair. That's an amazing story. Thanks for posting it! I'm so happy it's back.
Sorry to hear about all the trouble. I had a similar experience a few years back when I got rear ended in my 430, I was on a exotic car drive and was hit by a Aston Martin! He wanted to pay out of pocket at first, then when we got the repair estimate he changed his mind. Anyway, the way I look at it is it could have been a lot worse and in the end it is a car, fix it and keep driving
Great information. Thank you for posting. I am happy to hear that the damage was not simply repaired (band-aid). It seems fair to me that the parts should have been replaced (and not repaired). Did her insurance co. fight this? I would imagine they would have proposed some sandpaper, super glue, and a yellow can of Krylon. That was one expensive text.
Yow! I understand the new bumper cap, bumper cross member and rear diffuser, but why did this require a new catalytic converter and both mufflers? I guess they must have been damaged because their location in the bumper exposed them to being hit by the other driver's bumper? Anyway, glad you got it back and the other side paid for it all.
Story two, the insurance, continued.... This is where Lance was so valuable. He told me exactly what to do, what the insurance companies would do, and how to handle it. Diminished value is not a big deal, and usually not dealt with on a $20,000 Toyota (what hit me), but it's a huge deal on a $314,000 Ferrari 458. As I understand the process, if the repair is 10% of the retail price, then the Inherent Diminished Value (IDV) is 40%. HOLY FREAKIN' COW - 40%!!!!!!! There are puts and takes at that point, and some cars you want to avoid, and then there are cars like this that barely had an issue. But we're talking about a potential $125k loss. And the word gets out pretty quick, I guess, about a minor damaged Ferrari, because I started getting calls pretty quick about people wanting to buy it. I think the vultures started circling pretty quick because they could see an easy re-sell buck. I had the insurance guy meet me at the dealership to talk about what trade in value would be. The dealership was very helpful and then the insurance guy was ready to just write the check and get this off his desk. But I can't just stop here, I'll lose my A$$. Talked to Lance again. His recommendation was to file the repair on my insurance, and get the check from Farmers for Loss of Use and IDV. I was very nervous about doing this because I didn't want to worry about being cancelled or have a big rate increase. Lance assured me, and referred me to several lawyers, about how this wouldn't happen because it wasn't my fault. I went in to my agents office to discuss options and this is ultimately what I did. The car is repaired, I should be whole financially, and my new car should be here in another couple of weeks. I'm really struggling with how this car is going to be handled now, though. I can tell it's going to change hands a couple of times with people taking a $20k cut each time. I really wish a real car guy had a chance to buy it. I could potentially sell it myself but I have a couple of concerns. First, if I sell it, I lose the sales tax advantage of trading it in. Second, I'm not sure how to deal with unknown people wanting to buy this car. I think it's better to let the dealer worry about that...they're much better than me. But still, I see guys looking to buy 2010 model 458's, that could pick up a 2012 for the same price.
Additional info to think about: Loss of use at $2000/day for 85 days is $170,000 and IDV at 40% was about $125,000. The repair was $46,000. The lady had a policy max of $100k. She could potentially be sued for the entire amount. I upped my coverage because of this. I heard the insurance discussions about recovering from her if she had any assets and I believe there was an investigation to see. But based on what she was driving, and the part of town she lived in, I don't think they pursued anything. Up your coverage to at least $200k...it only costs about five bucks to do that!
David: I appreciate the sales tax advantage but run the numbers on what the differential might be based upon what Penske is going to give you because you may be able to sell it yourself and run it through them. That is what I did when I bought my 430. A guy in Airpark handled the sell side and it went well for everyone.
Actually I was very impressed with the insurance company - 21st Century and Farmers. Everyone wanted to help and run with it, especially for the repair, it was just above their pay grade for the IDV and Loss of Use. Once I got to the right person, they were ready to settle pretty quickly. There were several weeks of delays waiting on parts from Italy.
David that is an amazing story and thank you for sharing it with us. One thing I am not clear on is whether the insurance company actually paid out to you the loss of use plus the IDV plus the repair. By my calculations that is more than the value of the car and they would have just written it off. Am I missing something here?
The issue of writing it off did come up, but this was one of the problems of going through eight different adjusters. By the time it got to the right guy, the repair was already underway. One of the things I was worried about if that happened was the sales tax consequence. If they would have given me the whole $300k, I would have lost $30k in sales tax when my new car arrived.
I had an SL65 rear ended. 5k damage. 10K diminished value. I got 1500. I don't know how you protect yourself from that. Sue an insurance company? Good luck with that.
It might be different from state to state, but in Arizona and California, you'll get IDV. Lance is an expert in this field. The insurance companies know him and many hire him. Once I told them I was working with him, they were done.
Very interesting story. Something that confused me is the $200k coverage increase you claim is about $5. I think you may be mistaken. Here in PA, for example, the basic liability that is required by law (for all drivers to have) is usually referenced as 15/30/5 which means the insurance that you are buying will pay up to $15k per person for injuries subject to a maximum of $30k per incident AND up to $5k in property damage, for the property of others. That last part is the important part. As an example, say I was the one who hit your 458. My insurance company would only pay your insurance company $5k for the damage to your property. If you alleged you were injured, my insurance company would only pay for up to $15k of your claims related to your injury (i.e., pain and suffering). If I was found to be at fault, your insurance company -- after finding out from MY insurance company that I only had $5k in property damage coverage -- would probably use an in house attorney to call me and threaten to sue me for the remaining money you claim you are owed for the repair. In PA, the next 'steps' of coverage are (I think): 50/100/25, 100/300/50, 250/500/100. There may be more as well -- I never had coverage greater than 100/300/50. In any event, i guess what I'm saying is, you can see that $200k in property damage is not even provided in those next 3 steps of coverage here in PA, and the cost to keep going up each step is definitely more than $5 for me, and I'm 41 with a reasonable record. So, are you sure you bought an extra $200k of property damage (for damage to the propery of others, not your own vehicle) for about $5? If so, who is your provider?