bronson7

Wow this all sucks. You're doing the right thing by being patient and doing your homework, but I wouldn't get a lawyer involved yet. Certainly check out the scene and as someone previously posted, have a chat with other building owners in the area. The only acceptable outcome if it was me is full MV plus taxes and any extras. Best of luck.

Ccapx

I agree on the police report. Was the passenger injured? Was the building damaged? Lot's of questions.

Ccapx

I have the screen grab saved as a png image on my iPad.

robmypro

People are going to get amnesia on this pretty quickly, so best to iron out the details asap.

Archimedes

Absolutely has to be a police report filed as well as DMV report, but I wouldn't waste money on a lawyer just yet. You should make a claim against your insurance and let them handle everything. That's why we pay for collision insurance.

The building owner will likely want compensation, as very possibly will the passenger. Even if they go after the shop owner, they will enjoin you as a third party because of your insurance coverage.

STG

Yup. Best to get the story told to police the same day. Plenty of time has gone by already.

Jimmy-D

I would certainly go to the Local police and get them involved immediately. They should be ticketed for speeding, reckless driving ect.- Basically- they stole you car and crashed it

Nick

Not sure as to why there is a good deal of consternation over this. He will get paid either by his insurance company or the shop insurance. Probably best to try to get the shop insurance to pay under their liability policy (this is a bailment) as opposed to collision coverage under the OP coverage. The liability policy will be at market value while the collision, depending on his coverage, could be less and a possibility of increased rates in the future.
The building damage is covered under either policy.

Todd B

Too bad these cars don't have a valet mode like my F150. If the owner of the shop was driving, sounds like he doesn't deserve to be in business since he doesn't give a sh$t about his customers property. Good luck.

tonymission

This is sickening. Agreed on holding your cards and playing this how you are, but I think at some point the name of the shop has to come out after it's no longer beneficial to you. Knowing this, it'd be hard to let anyone else take their car there. Normally torn because I'm a business owner in home services and try not to make it tough on other local business owners, but this is just straight up negligence and arrogance! The fact that he turned off traction control for what I assume is no other reason than to roast the tires is beyond reckless. I don't even do that in my own car, much less one with an engine needing to be broke in.

One of those times you wish insurance wasn't even a factor and this dude himself would actually have to pay out of pocket just to really teach him a lesson. Although, I suppose he'll be paying in one way or another.

galt

As part of the compensation--you should try to get "loss of use". In other words, because they wrecked your car you have been deprived of using it--you should get money towards renting an equivalent car until they are able to pay you.

997ttNorCal

Attorney here. Depending on your state you are going to have a very difficult time obtaining diminution in value compensation from your insurance company on your own (especially given the nature of this car. $50k hit seems very realistic, maybe more if you paid way over MSRP). One strategy for a reasonable recovery is going to be a combination of your insurance repairing the RS plus cash compensation from the owner. Should that fail (not all small business owners have that kid of cheddar just sitting around), you will need to sue the owner to get a crack at his commercial insurance policy.

Good luck. If you don't already have an attorney that you work with, now is probably a good time to find one.

STG

^^^ seems like good advice. Insurance companies barely want to pay to fix a car, like they're going to pay extra voluntarily for diminished value. Yeah right. I think that's one hard thing to ever collect on as is.

Ccapx

997ttNorCal: Great advice. I did already start the process of attorney in back up. I'm going to fire up the insurance process now, but agree it may hit the wall. I also agree the shop owner is going to have to step up in the process either through insurance or out of pocket. I am going to know in 24-48 hours how bad the process is going to be, at that point I can pressure the owner to come out of pocket and replace the car, to the attorney's point above, my guess is they won't have the cash or claim not to have the cash.

Seth Thomas

Ouch! Very sorry to hear about your issues with the car and the shop. I do hope the shop and their insurance makes things whole on this with very little hassle.

As for the diminished value I would definitely say it is a $50k diminished as a minimum. The damage to the car isn't too bad but this will show up on insurance and a CarFax. This car will always have this history. With the car and the damage just in looking at the pictures you will have a $50K plus repair bill. Just in parts without getting into the fenders or lights if they are damaged you are looking at an easy $40K right there based on retail. Porsche wants $17K for the hood alone!

One thing you need to have checked on the car if they answer is to repair it and give back to you is the frame. Don't let whoever is going to repair just eyeball the frame and say it is okay. Recommend it goes on a frame machine to verify the frame is not tweaked. I don't remember the specifics of it but there are a lot of parts that are aluminum that are bonded to the steel main chassis. I believe some of these parts are the front strut towers. So make sure this impact did not tweak any of these type components and you won't be able to tell just from eyeballing it.