Got in a little fender bender over the holidays. I slid into the back of a CRV and bent his spare tire cover down a bit and scuffed the paint, seemed to be more damage on my dad's van than on his CRV.

We decided to settle it ourselves, so he got a quote from Honda today and said around $1200 to fix it. That seems ridiculously high considering those spare tire covers painted from Honda are about $800 brand new.

With that said would an independant body shop be a better route to go? Were both in mississauga so something around that area would prolly be best.

 

If its gong through insurance then it will likely be expensive either way. With that said if your paying out of pocket then an indpendant shop would be the way to go.

 

I am paying out of pocket, so of course I want the cheapest, but not a crappy job for his sake

 

but if the guy wants to be a D*** he might say i want OEM honda parts and i want a honda tech to install them

people these days take advantage of everything

but good luck on your decision

 

ya, but if you were hit and you weren't at fault, wouldn't you want your car restored to just the way it was??.....if I had a newish car and someone hit me I would want it exactly the way it was before the accident......

 

that is true but i probibly would go through insurance cause thats a lot of money to dish out at once

 

well its less...

if i go throug insurance the deductable will be less but my rates will go up anyways so overtime i will end up paying more... plus his rates will go up since it happend in a parking lot on ice, so they most likely will settle 50/50 so im trying to do both of us a favour

 

true true i see where your coming from

 

I'd get 2 quotes for places of your choice, and 2 qoutes from places of his choice. as long as they're all within reason (couple $100) then let him choose - cuz you'll save hella more by avoiding insurance involvement. good luck with the fix.

actually, if it's all the same sht... try to direct the business to parkway honda, cuz they're an affiliate? maybe get your discount??

 

Remember,

you're not just paying to have his car fixed, you're also paying to keep this quiet.

regardless of if you think he's ripping you off or not, you just want a way out of the situation. sometimes that takes a little hush money.

If it only the spare tire cover, why not go and buy one yourself and give it to him?

 

i had to pay $550 for a scratch you couldn't notice without looking really close.

The guy had a brand new paint job and i let my foot of the brake and bumped into him at a red light.

i am used to automatic, had just left the impound lot and picked up a friend from the police station. i wasn't supposed to be driving that car either.

so I had to pay him instead of offering $200 or let him take it up with insurance and adding to go **** himself.



f you give the guy a cheque, make sure to write FULL PAYMENT so that he can't go to insurance after and try and get more.

 

yeah they're nuts. on some things like mechanicals, they're double what it would be at most shops.