A Dodge Caravan driver across the street backed out of her driveway and right into the front corner of my kid's Jetta. She had parked on the street in front of our house as she was moving cars around. $5K damage to the van and $1500 to Jetta was the result of her warp 9 back up. This was mid Jan. Then... kid takes car in for 15K service check at VW last Monday. Everything OK - car is perfect. On the way home at 5:00pm andit starts overheating - then puking coolant in driveway. WTF did VW do??!! On the hook to VW next day. Get a call 4 hours later the next day. "Was this car in an accident"? Yup. "Oh OK, that makes sense. 'Your car wasn't repaired correctly'. There is damage to the upper rad in two places. The pressure changes and outside temp changes over the following weeks finally made it split."

Phone insurance. 'Oh now, Sir - you must have had a stone go through the rad'. No we didn't. Refuse it to go back to body shop it was repaired at even though he insisted. Force them to send someone to see it. He shows up with bumper on car (idiot) three days later and says he can't see anything. VW had to take it off the hoist and park it - they can't leave it exposed in the back to rain. Had he shown up even the next day it would have still been on the hoist. Oh but no, he was too busy...

Now of course there is no external damage to car - everyone can see this except him. He sees ONE small scratch - gotcha! It's small road rash under the car on splitter, probibly from when she drove through snow on night to get into our driveway.

VW say that the rad damage is behind the headlight on the left side 24" off the ground. Road rash is minor and in center. Insurance company saws she hit a curb! I. FOLLOWED .HER. HOME from the dealer - she hit nothing. Insurance company forces us to have VW take apart car @ 2 hours labour just to prove it was her fault or they won't even consider the claim.

VW take it apart. Nope VW say - couldn't have happened any way but when the van bumper went through her headlight, puncturing the bumper and driving the headlight mount into the front edge of the rad. VW further found the quarter panel that was taken off and wasn't remounted correctly with missing clips and two bolts missing and has to be readjusted.

Phone insurance company telling them what they found. Insurance company says their expert has to see it. Same bulls3t again. He shows up three days later on a SATURDAY when the car is back outside. Fixates on scratch under a bumper and still says no - she hit something. This despite the fact that the car was serviced the day it leaked and the check out sheet from VW says everything was fine. This despite the fact that the tow truck driver and I looked under the car when it was on the hook and there was NO external damage to the car and the coolant was leaking out somewhere high up in the center of all these plastic parts behind the headlight and dribbling onto the left front tire. Right where the original impact was and all those parts were changed...

So now we are declined coverage of the damage and have to pay the $1200 (plus a week rental car cost) to get the car back from VW (they are saving all the parts and giving us a letter stating that the insurance adjuster is basically smoking crack) and we now have to fill out a form to go into mediation to get our money back. They dicked us around for days and days - the car sat for a week until VW was going to start charging us storage fees and yet - no word from one of the largest companies in the world who like to say your in good hands. 20 years of insurance - spouse accident free, me one deer car write off, one 12kph over ticket in 09. House insurance, multiple cars and motorcycles. Doesn't freaking matter. Support your local kick back body shop with billy bob workers using jobber parts instead of OE parts who can't do a proper inspection (time = $ Fu$k it!) instead of listening to factory trained technicians and what they are telling everyone and your own common sense.

Due to our inexperience with crashing cars and the repair industry, we let ourselves get talked into these yahoo body shops. NEVER AGAIN - DEALER ONLY!

At least they can't have these goofs gang up on us had we let them tow it to to the shop that blew the repair - because you know they would have told us anything and we wouldn't have had a leg to stand on. At least going into the hearing we have the damaged parts and VW's statement which I hope it is recognized as independent and expert as opposed to Billy Bob and the company trained 'expert'. My spouse asked the insurance company rep if this 'expert' is a licensed mechanic. 'Um, no... but he's trained by us'. Then he's less qualified then the VW factory trained A licensed mechanics that worked on the car she replies? The rep seemed 'hurt' by her tone.

Thanks for reading my rant and off topic at that. It all started with those Dodge Caravan words in that other thread...

I look forward to the day we get Public Insurance. I have no idea why it isn't being discussed during this election.

Thanks for the steam blowing off mode here.