I Got T-boned Today

[Higher_Ground]

Well I'm about 10 months on from getting mine back. I'm just going to "forget" that it ever happened from my own perspective. I know I'll never get a good trade value, but if I keep it long enough the difference will be minimal. So far so good (knock on wood!).

Don't hesitate to call the JEEP CARES people if you have trouble getting parts shipped in a reasonable time. Good luck!

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[steveorama]

Speaking from past experience, the repair shop has to get approval from the insurance company who sometimes balks on some items. I think they like to use repair shops that aren't as detailed when they can. You will be the final inspector and it's worth it to stand your ground and push them to fix or replace everything that's damaged as much as possible. I didn't do that with my wife's Mustang and we had to deal with a misaligned transmission for years until we finally got rid of it.
Lesson Learned.

I guess that does makes sense as the shop is in their network. As frustrating as it is to be sharing a car with my wife right now, I fully intend to make sure everything is right before I sign off.

 

[steveorama]

Well I'm about 10 months on from getting mine back. I'm just going to "forget" that it ever happened from my own perspective. I know I'll never get a good trade value, but if I keep it long enough the difference will be minimal. So far so good (knock on wood!).

Don't hesitate to call the JEEP CARES people if you have trouble getting parts shipped in a reasonable time. Good luck!

My last Jeep I had for just shy of 10 years, so the plan was to keep it a while. Hopefully like you, that does lessen the impact of the value.

The good news is the parts haven't seem to have been an issue. So far it's been all MOPAR OEM parts and the turn around time has been decent. The biggest hang up was getting a mechanic involved to evaluate and quote the drivetrain and suspension work for the body shop. When that mechanic was priced too high for the insurance, they had to get another quote.

 

[Aleph]

Hey, the B pillar in the event of a side impact is something that has been worrying me about the pre-2024 JT. How bad did you hit your head? Did your skin break?

 

[steveorama]

Hey, the B pillar in the event of a side impact is something that has been worrying me about the pre-2024 JT. How bad did you hit your head? Did your skin break?

It felt like I hit my head pretty good, ended up with just a goose egg above my temple and a sore neck though. It was a low hit and the suspension took a lot of the impact. Had it been a truck I’m suspecting it would of been more severe.

 

[Viper501]

To my knowledge I can't, although I had uninsured/underinsured coverage for injury apparently I didn't for property. It's on me I thought I had it, but I guess I didn't check a box when we switched insurance about 2 years ago. I've always carried it before which is the most frustrating part. So without the uninsured property coverage my insurance is running it under my collision coverage.

In my state you would still have a diminished value claim. Essentially, and seriously simplified, your carrier steps into the shoes of the at-fault driver. Therefore your carrier would, at least in my state, be responsible for any and all losses you experienced including personal injury, property damages, diminished value, lost wages, etc. I strongly suggest spending a couple dollars talking to a lawyer licensed in your state. In fact, depending on the law and how stupid your carrier wants to be you could have a bad-faith claim against them. At least in my state.

 

[steveorama]

In my state you would still have a diminished value claim. Essentially, and seriously simplified, your carrier steps into the shoes of the at-fault driver. Therefore your carrier would, at least in my state, be responsible for any and all losses you experienced including personal injury, property damages, diminished value, lost wages, etc. I strongly suggest spending a couple dollars talking to a lawyer licensed in your state. In fact, depending on the law and how stupid your carrier wants to be you could have a bad-faith claim against them. At least in my state.

So your state doesn't require you to carry uninsured/underinsured motorist for that coverage? I'm guessing you're not in Texas.

 

[Viper501]

I understood you to say there was UM/UIM coverage from one of the comments. If not then you’d have to wonder whether the carrier made a meaningful offer of UM / UIM. But even so your property damage should be a part of your own coverage at least until the limit is exhausted. Again I suggest talking to a lawyer licensed where you live.

 

[steveorama]

Wow, It's been a month since my last update and sadly I still do not yet have my Jeep back for those following along. My experience with this shop's quality of service continues to surprise me as it goes from "it can't get any worst" to "wait, hold my beer". Warning long winded rant incoming!

I knew when they reported back that there was frame damage, it was going to involve some work and time, but the last month has been a continuation of unrealistic timelines (set by them) and another handful of excuses and no solutions. What was previously excuses made for the issues they had with the mechanic shop delays, has become excuses for their own shortcomings.

At the time I was told there was frame damage (9/13), I was also told by my service advisor it would most likely be a couple weeks to complete. Following along with that timeline I received a text message that my Jeep would be ready "NLT Friday" on 9/19 from him. As I hadn't heard anything yet that following Tuesday 9/26, I reached out and was told that the other car that was on the frame machine previously took longer than they had expected, but they were now working on mine. They unfortunately however had just ran into an issue where they were missing the measurements/specs for the Gladiator since it was a newer model and was missing from their database. This would require a software update for their machine. The good news was a rep was heading down that day from out of town to update and they expected it to be done by the end of week!

Of course, no surprise, I did not receive any news by the following week so Tuesday 10/3, I called and asked for an update. By luck would have it, their technician working on my Jeep had just had a baby that day! After providing my congratulations to be extended, I asked when could I expect him to be back and have my vehicle finished. Not surprisingly I was told the usual song and dance of "Friday". After hearing this and alarm bells going off, I asked to speak to the manager. After waiting on hold for 15 minutes I was told he was in an important meeting and could I leave a message. "Please have him call me ASAP" was my response.

Since I had set a precedent of calling for updates on Tuesday, I did just that on 10/10. Neither my service advisor nor the manager were available to take my call. I left messages for both to please contact me with an update. Late that afternoon my advisor contacted me back and apologized profusely for all of the delays, but he personally wanted me to know that they would be complete "tomorrow" and he would let me know when it was ready. "Tomorrow" came and ended, so I decided to reach directly out to their corporate number that evening. I spoke with a rep and explained everything I was going through and they also apologized profusely (if there's one thing this company excels at, it's apologizing) and said I would be contacted by the Regional Manager by EOD tomorrow.

The next morning the general manager of the shop contacted me. I guess my call to corporate provided some motivation! He let me know they had experienced a lot of delays and poor correspondence on keeping me up to date was squarely on them. Lot's of apologies were provided and unfortunately their frame machine was missing the measurements/specs for the Gladiator and needed a software update. A rep was going to come down from Dallas tomorrow........ Yup, I'm not repeating myself, that's the same line being told almost 2 weeks later now by someone else. After letting him finish his "update", I made sure he understood how ridiculous I felt these explanations were and that they were the ones providing me these timelines that they continued to not be able to meet. The GM also was unaware of the status of the other things that still needed to be completed like the grille repaint from the hood misalignment rubbing the edge, and the running boards being swapped to the correct sides, but he would make sure those were also completed.

I waited until the end of the day, as I still had not heard back from the RM, and contacted the corporate number again. They were surprised the RM had not yet contacted me and said they were going to escalate the claim to someone higher in the company as they also couldn't get a reply back from the RM to their messages and calls. Since it was becoming abundantly clear no one from the collision shop/corporate was interested in providing me a real time table to fix my Jeep. I reached out to my insurance company the next day 10/13, to see if I could speak to someone about the service I was receiving at one of their "in-network" shops. Since this was a Friday I was told I should have someone reach out to me Monday to hear my concerns and see what can be done to remedy the situation including looking at alternative shops.

.....

That leads us to today. This morning I was contacted by a rep from my insurance company who heard me out and my concerns. He was also pretty skeptical of the "baby" and twice "software update" excuses. He said he's worked in the industry for a long time and was trained on the frame machine the shop has and said yes, they most likely did need an update for a later model vehicle, but most likely most techs don't have the proper training. He also said reviewing the work that had been completed, that he questioned if they replaced all the necessary parts needed and that there may not actually be the frame damage they are stating as their measurements they reported also were inconsistent of what he would of expected. He was going to do some research and find a Jeep specialist shop in the area and make a recommendation to have it transferred there for them to review and make any additional repairs.

Just now the RM from the body shop, joined by the insurance rep, called me via conference. The RM said he would now personally be handling my repair going forward and that they were going to sub to a local Jeep shop to finish the repairs if that was OK with me. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me so I agreed. As all previous, he was very apologetic, but danced around my questions including "if this project was out of their capabilities, why didn't they do this originally instead of dragging this out for so long"? His answer was they didn't know until now. Fingers crossed this resolves the issue and my Jeep will actually get repaired back to it was and finished this year.

 

[steveorama]

FWIW, they just loaded this estimate up to my claim dashboard. Looks like the shop was planning on just replacing the entire frame as the next step. LOL maybe this is why my insurance was so willing to move it to another shop.

$21k worth of damage when including replacing the frame!

 

[Hootbro]

Not excusing it, but in my experience, most body shops have a dysfunction in keeping to any resemblance of a scheduled commitment timeframe. There is point though that when you push them far enough, they are going to do shitty work to just get your vehicle off their books and out of the shop.

They can teach a Master Class on customer delaying tactics and lying.

 

[steveorama]

Not excusing it, but in my experience, most body shops have a dysfunction in keeping to any resemblance of a scheduled commitment timeframe. There is point though that when you push them far enough, they are going to do shitty work to just get your vehicle off their books and out of the shop.

They can teach a Master Class on customer delaying tactics and lying.

My dad always said similar about repair shops, "Once they get you on the rack, they slow down". It's certainly one of my biggest peeves when someone says they're going to do something and then they don't. Since it appears to be institutional with this company, and after two months of this, I'm happy to be moving on to the Jeep shop and hopefully have a better experience and results.

I was careful to never push them though, but instead just ask questions. They easily could of answered honestly, but instead chose to make up answers which just continued to compound. If they felt a need to push the vehicle out the door it was entirely their own doing. As someone who spent years in management and dealing with customers I'm probably more forgiving than most when uncontrollable events happen and even those that were controllable. I just needed them to provide solutions not excuses. I only escalated the issue up the chain when it became apparent that was all they were able to provide. Even as tolerant as I am, we all reach a threshold of how much BS we're willing to endure. What broke the camels back for me was I had to return my rental over a month ago and have been playing tag team with my wife on the use of her car.

 

[steveorama]

I'm not sure why, but apparently no one actually wants to work on my Gladiator. Yesterday afternoon the local Jeep shop notified my insurance they were declining to work on my Jeep after they looked at it. They cited they were just too busy. After getting the news I decided to call over myself and see if they could give me a candid response, and they said with their initial look there was a lot of future diagnosis that they didn't have time for. Additionally with some work all ready being done they were concerned in getting in a potential finger pointing situation if future problems popped up. They also agreed there was most likely some frame damage that was out of their capabilities.

So now the collision center has picked up my Jeep this morning and brought it back to their shop. Talking with the RM, he claims "his best frame guy is on it". They previously said there was some diamond twist happening and that was what was leading to them previously recommending to replace the frame. Not sure where this goes next, but the insurance says basically they have to get some proper frame measurements off the Car-o-liner frame machine to make a determination next. Supposedly where the frame damage is present is where the engine sits, and apparently that is what is their problem as Jeep doesn't have proper measurements for that area of the frame for them to reference.

I'm not sure why they can't just get the measurements off another Gladiator, but what do I know, I'm not a frame repair expert.

 

[steveorama]

Just received a call from my insurance rep. They received the measurements they needed and have agreed with the shop that the best course of action is to replace the frame. I'm a bit amazed at this point they're not totaling it, but apparently with the work already done and the cost of the frame and the additional labor with that, it's still a better option than totaling it out. Perhaps if the frame damage was found sooner that's what they would of done.

So now we wait for the shop to get a replacement frame. They're currently saying the nearest one is located in TN and they need to have it shipped down and due to it's size, that may take some time. No word on how long they anticipate the frame swap to take either once it arrives, maybe there is at least some light at the end of the tunnel now? Let's see how this all pans out, but I can't help but think what I could have had done with the $23k check and found a shop to replace the frame and then upgrade all of the damage parts plus.

 

[steveorama]

After speaking with the shop's GM just now, he's reporting back that their other location (apparently they're doing the work at another one of their locations. I had no idea, but as long as it's getting done, it doesn't effect me) is in the middle of swapping everything over and he's expecting it to be completed in the middle to end of next week from what he's been told. Since I've heard this song and dance before from them, I'll believe it when I see it, but at least they have the frame and are working on it. Fingers crossed that everything swaps over successfully and I don't have any issues down the road when I eventually do get it back. Hopefully my next update will be good news, next week makes it 3 months since the accident.

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