Lexus Bodyshop Work [Update]

NK93FRYEAMKJ More pics of the Lexus repair work arrived in my inbox.  

Supposedly the car will even be ready for pickup today.   Fingers crossed...

Lexus Bodywork Pics [Fix It!]

Time for an update on the work being performed to repair our Lexus LS430.  The shop promises the car will be available for pick-up early next week.  









The bodyshop:  Stuttgart Automotive in Englewood, CO

Car Crashes and Liberty Mutual Insurance

A few weeks ago, my wife was rear-ended while driving our 2001 Lexus LS430. This post initiates a series on the topic.

Here's a picture of the car the night of the accident:

As I write this, I feel a lot of anger and frustration, only a small portion of which is about the damaged car. My wife was injured in the crash. Cars are disposable. People are not.

The pain that she experienced and continues to experience is the worst part. She's going to several medical appointments each week and treatment is ongoing.

But this post isn't about whip lash or medical treatments. This is GearThoughts. Let's talk about cars, car repair, and the ongoing scam called automobile insurance.

The Lexus itself appears to have done an admirable job of crumpling on impact. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 35 mph. Most people exceed that speed by 5 to 10 mph.

The other driver was at fault and ticketed. At the scene, he told me that his brakes locked up and he couldn't stop. He said his tires were nearly bald which likely contributed.

The other driver may have been negligent driving around on bald tires, or he may have been going too fast, or he may have been distracted. Yet my anger isn't really directed at him either.

Liberty Mutual is the source of my ongoing frustration. They're our automobile insurance company and they've been handling the claim process.

Over the years, we've been pretty good customers. We have multiple vehicles and our house on the policy. I've never paid a premium late and prior to this experience, I've never filed a claim.

Unfortunately, Liberty Mutual hasn't been treating us nearly as well as we've treat them.

After experiencing delays and getting the run-around (details below), and despite complaining to supervisors, Liberty Mutual continues to be horribly unresponsive and uncooperative. Worse, when I asked about previous complaints regarding the same issue, the supervisor told me there was no record of any complaints in my file.

I've discovered that auto-insurance is really only as good as the claims process. Just because you pay for coverage doesn't mean you're going to have a good experience when it comes time to file a claim.

My mom taught me that you always get what you pay for. Except in this case, we've been paying a lot. Why are we receiving so very little? Something doesn't add up.

My experiences thus far dealing with Liberty Mutual:

• 4 days to get a rental car.
  
  
• 1 full week before Liberty Mutual sent an adjuster to evaluate the damage to my car. The excuse: Everyone was attending a meeting (seriously). Maybe they were counting their yet to vest stock options in the upcoming IPO.
  
  
• Several days, and repeated phone calls and emails to get a tow authorization. The excuse: My claims adjuster went on vacation (but the supervisor confirmed he was in the office for a full day and half after I sent email and left voice messages).
  
  
• Liberty Mutual's initial estimate was about $7,500. The body shop evaluated the car and the estimate is now about $10,000. It's been 4 days since the body shop called Liberty Mutual to have the additional work approved and, as far as I know, they're still waiting for a visit from the claims adjuster. As of the date of this post, Liberty Mutual has not yet visited the body shop to inspect the damage and approve the work.
  
  
• I told Liberty Mutual that I was concerned about the fact that when I sell or trade in the car, the CarFax will show it's been in an accident. My claims adjuster told me I could file a diminished value claim against the other driver's insurance (Geico), but not to be surprised when Geico offers very little. Translation: Too bad about your loss but it's your problem.
  
  
• Despite previous complaints about unresponsiveness, Liberty Mutual continues to perform poorly. As of this writing, they have yet to respond to my last inquiry and it's been +60 hours.
  
  
• The purpose of my last call was to go over the evidence I've gathered showing the vehicle should probably be considered a total loss including estimates of market and salvage value from dealers. I've sent Liberty Mutual email and I've left voice messages. I'm still waiting to hear back.

The saga continues...

Here's the damage to the car in the daylight:

Here's the car being towed away:

On a side note - Liberty Mutual appears to be going public. They've filed a registration for an IPO (S1) which highlights that their net income nearly tripled in 1Q10 to $306MM. Gee, I wonder how they managed to do that?

Lexus Brake Parts - Price Comparo

With the arrival of a red flashing exclamation point on the dashboard about a month ago, my 2001 LS430 began telling me it wanted new brake pads. Fine, time to order parts.

Oh, but if you're a gear head, you know it's not so easy. It's NEVER that easy.

I started with a little research on the brake system. Here's what I learned:

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WIN:

The Lexus calipers are supposedly super easy to slap new brake pad and the rotors are so thick, they almost never need replacement.

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LOSE:

The brake pad sensors are consumable items on the LS430. Once the pad wears down low enough, the sensor is activated and it's toast. Order a new sensor. Unlike the sensors on my old Mercedes, which were so cheap, brake pad manufacturers included them in the box for FREE, the Lexus sensors are expensive.

---

And now we get to the fun bit - time to shop online. I needed a set of front brake pads and a brake pad sensor (at least one. No, they're not sold in pairs). Since my cabin air filter needed replacement, I'll order one of those too.

Brake pads are fairly generic products and apparently nobody offers performance reviews on the after market. At least I couldn't find reviews online. So, I opted for Bendix pads.

First, a phone call to my local Lexus Dealer, Stevinson Lexus in Frederick, CO. They wanted almost $250, including tax. That didn't include the hour or so of schlepping out from Boulder to Frederick. The parts might come in a Lexus box, but you know they are made by an OEM supplier (like Bendix). $250 is a lot of clams.

Next, I went back to the forums for supplier recommendations. I found two different websites recommended: Iron Toad and My Lex Parts. When I check them out, both look like crappy dealer sites. My Lex Parts is part of another site called Lexus Parts World, whose offerings include sunglasses. Classy.

These guys both have the parts for just under $150, including shipping. Not bad, and hey... that's $100 saved.

One more stop, and then I'm done. I went to The Benz Bin a site which routinely had the best prices for Mercedes parts. As I had recently learned, they also seemed to have the best priced parts for my Toyotas too. They wanted 124.28, including shipping. Not bad. Another $25 saved.

Before I ordered, I thought I'd check out a few of the suppliers popping up in my Google search. I checked autopartswarehouse.com and carpartswholesale.com. These sites seem to offer the part for less, but when shipping is added to the total, I get the exact same $124.28. Odd, but the navigation on the sites are identical too. They're the same place with a different url and site wrapper.

Fine, I decide to go ahead with the The Benz Bin. Now here's where it gets weird. Their website won't process my order. I tried it in two different browsers and the site stalls when I submit my credit card information. So I hit the live customer service button.

On comes a representative. He asks me for the part #s and creates a custom order on autopartswarehouse.com. My hunch was right, these are the same websites. When the chat representative does it, the price drops to about $95, including shipping.

"Woot!" I thought, as I went ahead and ordered.

The chart above shows the radical difference in prices for essentially the same parts. A little shopping around saved nearly 60% from the dealer price, showing that once again, the dealer is usually the worst place to buy parts.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I get absolutely NOTHING from any of the sites mentioned in this web post. No free parts, no discount on shipping, not even a t-shirt. My local dealer will probably even hate me and take it out on my LS430 for publishing their price gouging.

I should also mention that when I ordered through The Benz Bin online representative, he redirected me to Auto Parts Warehouse website to complete the order. Despite the illusion of being different businesses, several of these competitors were the same corporation.

The Bumper Badger [Aftermarket]

If only Lexus thought of it first...


click for full size

Mark Levinson Amp Replacement

IMG_0323, originally uploaded by oparvez.

This is what a Mark Levinson amp looks like as installed in my 2001 Lexus LS430. Apparently these amps are prone to failure, which kills the stereo system entirely. The dealer wanted $2,000 to do the repair but offered to sell me the amp alone for about $800 (with exchange of my existing bad amp). After doing my research on part numbers, I bought an upgraded used amp (p/n ends with 01) from eBay for about $325. Described as remanufactured, I was hopeful it had already been through the dealer process but the amp that arrived was missing the remanufactured sticker. Bummer. But I decided to go ahead and install it. It took me a little over an hour to do the work. It now seems to work fine. Here's a link to the full photo set.

You can also find more information on how to diagnose and replace your ML amp here and here.

Like a Christmas Tree

Like a Christmas Tree, originally uploaded by oparvez.

Switching from an 4000 Quattro to an LS430 has been quite an experience.