It amazes me the number of shoddily repaired vehicles that roam our city streets each day. Here’s just a sample of bad repairs that make it onto the streets. The problem is other body shops will normally not want to re-inspect someone else’s work. Sort of a code of the body shops I guess. This is the type of things to look out for. This type of bad repairs can increase your diminished value. Most appraisers at car dealerships will look for signs of previous damage. That’s their job, to make the dealership money, not help you unload your car. This type of damage can easily be detected.
This vehicle was said to be fully repaired by the Body Shop, only for our appraiser, Ken Nix, to find a huge amount of additional structural damage that was not repaired by the shop. Also they used major suspension parts they purchased at a wrecking yard because they claimed the could not get an OEM part. This type of part is called a Like Kind Quality part and may show up on the final bill as LKQ. This normally means the part came from a Junk Yard, off another wrecked vehicle and there is no way to know if it is structurally sound, so it has not been repaired to pre-loss condition. This vehicle now has repair related diminished value. This is actually more common than what you would think.
Even if you’ve already had your vehicle repaired, if you feel it wasn’t repaired correctly, please call me and if you’ll bring it to me, I’ll look at it for free to make sure the repairs were done correctly.