Hi everyone,

I am really broken and don't know what to do. Let me tell you my short sad story. Recently I bought a pretty new Q60 coupe 2014 and just glance what happened in the first rainy day in San Fransisco Bay area. It was slippery and I hit the curb. Fortunately nobody hurts, only my car and my soul. I've been in a couple of body shops, the cost of repair is about 5-10K depending on a shop, but of course it is closer to 10K as driver's airbag deployed. I am new to the country and I made a stupid decision to do not make a full coverage of my car, therefore all expenses will be out of pocket. Could you please give your thoughts about my next steps. Maybe you know some decent body shops which you can recommend. I am even thinking about buying a salvage G37 coupe from Texas with water damage for 3-4K and use all the parts from that car, except airbag. Sounds crazy for me, but again as I am new to the country I don't know what options will be the best. I also made a file with all the parts I need and made an estimation. Appreciate your help!

 

Given that I see allot of salvaged cars with worse damage than your damage being sold (after being fixed) for less than your quoted price, I wouldn't trip. I think someone here will give you a nice quote. But the damage doesn't even look 10k bad on the exterior.

 

Your story reminds me of a Sargent back when I was in the US Army
He re-upped for four more years and received a $20k signup bonus
He bought a brand new car while on leave and neglected to take out full insurance, had an accident, totaled a brand new vehicle and was left with four more years in the US Army with no car. All us privates had a good laugh.
Not funny in your case but perhaps you can trade it in for another vehicle?
That present vehicle will always have that accident history and you may never recover no matter how much $$$ you sink into it.

Good luck and I hope you learned an important insurance lesson.

Telcoman

 

Welcome to the site, sorry you have such a sad first posting
If you have a place to store the vehicle I'd look for another real cheap vehicle just to get around until you can come up w/ funds to part it back together. Your idea of a salvage vehicle for parts is a decent option if you can find something that doesn't need to be shipped in, and if it's the same color that would save a lot of cash.


I assume you live in the SF bay area so I imagine you're budget is pretty tight. Always hard to say what a repair will actually cost just going by photos. If you can get around without a car for a while using friends for rides that will give you time to compare costs for that repair and possibly look for salvage parts. If the damage is mainly cosmetic you could always get a new bumper, hood, fender and just run it "ugly" for a while until you can get the money for a paint job. It does look like a heavy impact so you would have to get a solid quote for all the parts to be replaced, and that airbag install adds quite a bit to the cost.

This is something you don't want to rush and just accept the first estimate.

Best of luck with this and you might want to post in this folder asking for help locating a good shop and possibly a source for a salvage yard.
Brad
https://www.myg37.com/forums/northern-california-322/

 

Dang, sorry to see that man. Hard to say what all is damaged underneath but if its just cosmetic and you're thrifty, I'd say you're looking at $2k in parts and another $1k in paint work, more or less. Good luck.

 

You're lucky that the G37/Q60 was produced for several years with very few changes. Parts are affordable and common. Take a peek a Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market You may even find parts in color.

 

Hi guys,

thank you for all of you responses. I visited a couple of decent body shops and I do not understand how exactly everything works in the US. Everyone said that they gonna buy only brand new parts and made an incredibly giant estimation. For example for only one headlight they gonna spend $1,500. So it looks like I can't buy all parts by myself and then give them all to mechanic. Probably, because I do not know the area well I couldn't find the right shop for me, of course bearing in mind that everything is going to be out of my pocket. I am thinking about selling it as it is. What do you think for how much I can sell it? The full list of parts which should be replaced I attached to my first post. I would be very grateful if you can give me some real advice what to do and maybe suggest some body shops you are familiar with in the Bay Area. Thanks again and Happy Thanksgiving! PS: I can attach more photos to give you broad understanding of damage. The good news is that title is still clean as I didn't hit anybody. Mileage is 32K. I am the second owner and bought it 1 month ago. The previous owner was a person around 50-55 years old, so car was really like a brand new...before I hit it. Sad.

 

well since the car is newish there are not too many in the junk yards yet. so parts are harder to come by except brand new. i am sure there are aftermarket bumper and cosmetic parts available but the fitment on them is not too good so it would take more labor hours to get it to fit right and look good.
it looks like it would take a lot to fix. you need a new bumper, grill, fog light, head light, fender, hood. even you passenger fender is out of alignment. not sure if the tabs are all broken off on the passenger headlight. core support, dont know what condition your radiator is in. the driver side front suspension might need some work. not sure about the rim or tire also. how does you driver side door look? that might need some work if the fender pushed into it any significant amount

man good luck. like everyone said try to get a beater car or go car less for a while. so you can save up some money. just be careful next time, summer tires dont grip as well in the wet conditions

 

There is a nissan/infiniti salvage yard 2hr east of you in rancho cordova. You can find them on sacramento craigslist.
Hope this helps some.

 

Luckily a lot of the main parts from older coupes will fit yours, the headlights can be found on ebay for $250 to 300 as an example.

 

replace all the cosmetic parts yourself like front bumper, your hood, quarter panels, headlights all from salvage yard and then take it to body shop for estimate to fix engine parts that might be damaged and paint. Done.

 

This could be good info to know. Do you happen to know the name of the company/yard? I tried looking on Craigslist (the Sacramento one specifically, too), Yelp, etc. but naturally, there's tons of various companies so not sure which one you're referring to.

OP, shoot man, that actually made me :/
I wish I knew a good body shop to recommend to you in the Bay Area.
Mechanics, yes - Body Shops, I'm not as familiar with.
Body work is always over-the-top $$$ though, I applaud you for thinking outside of the box to beat that market. I know people who have owned body shops in the past, but they're not in the business anymore - I do however know that they have all told me that the parts themselves are just generally ridiculously priced for what they are, so the shops may not all be trying to rip you off on $$, it's just that the parts for body work really do tend to be expensive even for them to purchase (I've seen their buy sheets before). This isn't of course at all to say that there aren't shops out there that try to markup the hell out of body parts too (rather than just the labor - you know, the thing they actually do), and these can very likely be the ones you get astronomical quotes from.

 

I assume that you paid for your car cash(?) Otherwise a lender would likely require it to be insured. Have you thought about looking at getting a collateral loan? Granted it may be a challenge with your car being damaged but it might be worth exploring.