Sooooo, my wife got rear ended today by a pick-up truck at a yield intersection. The guy implied that his brakes gave up and he was expecting a puddle of brake fluid on the ground which I thought was kind of strange... But she seems to be fine so that's what matters.

Now my wife implied that it was a hard hit but when I look at the damage I don't see a whole lot. Small dent and paint roughed up. So what to you guys think? Could there be more damage than meets the eye? it seems to have hit where the tow hook is which could be good or bad if it transferred forces through the frame.
Though I'm always concerned of paint match I'm certainly more concerned of damages that could devalue the car that I may not be seen on the surface...
I'm going to go under the car tomorrow but of course these things happens when it's really cold outside. I'll take a drive tomorrow and see if it feels alright.

By the way, do you guys think I should go to our MINI dealer and have the car inspected before all this insurance business get's kick into gears?



Of-course my wife took a picture of his license (the driver who's not the owner of the vehicle), phone number, and registration. But does not have insurance information. Thankfully I remembered that in PA you can renew your registration online and from having done so myself with the tittle and the license plate you can pretend to renew the title and then get the insurance information last provided which hopefully has not changed since his last registration.

 

Sorry to hear this. But your going to have to get under the car to see the real damage. The good thing is in the rear you can see things without taking everything apart. Might also want to get the alignment checked, as that will tell you the most info after visual inspection.

 

Didn't she also damage the front, which you repaired? LOL What we do for our wives.

It's really easy to remove the rear bumper cover. Only like 9-10 fasteners. There is a metal clip (4-6" long) in the center along the edge where the foam seal is. If I remember correctly you just pull on the the bumper after everything else is disconnected and it comes off.

Good time for a JCW rear bumper.

 

@ jkapinos: Yes I'm going to do this tomorrow. It's too dark now, even in my garage.

@ Cerenkov: Ha ha, yes indeed. But to be fair this time it wasn't her fault at all. I'm going to blame the weather and slippery condition which is really what I think happened. It doesn't take much to slip when its really cold. Of course if more people were keeping there distance it would help a bit.

I actually have taken the rear bumper out a few times as I installed a hitch receiver brace. I wasn't looking to do that again but I may have to do it on Sunday. Come to think of it I wonder if that's what provided additional structural reinforcement. hmmm. Of course we have a big snow storm coming... I'll have to work in my tiny garage which means the other car will have to seat in the storm for an hour or two... I tell you these things always happens at the worse time :p

 

Don't worry about not getting the insurance info from the other driver. Just turn over what info you have to your insurance company. They will sort it out. I hope your wife called the police and the other driver was cited. At least no one was hurt..

 

Have a look from underneath to see what you can. Do not take the bumper cover off. Let the body shop deal with that. If you take it off, and can't get it back on, then it will look like you tampered with it, and the insurance company may deny the claim.

 

Not only can the car have hidden damage, your wife might also have the same. It often takes days or weeks for things to show up after an accident, even a supposed minor one. Especially when rear ended you should be getting insurance involved, possibly police on scene if the other guy was drunk/stoned/texting, etc.

Been there and done all this more than once with wife who seems to have a hit me bumper sticker!

 

Here's something to consider...

If you made a police report in most states this will end up on CARFAX as an accident.

This will, even if there was NO damage, hurt your car's resale value.

You need to claim dimunition of value from the at fault party's insurance. If you are leasing the car I wouldn't worry, but if you own it, even if it's fixed perfectly, your car just lost $1,000 of value at a minimum.

People see a dirty CARFAX and they run. I just had a 2013 Justa on the lot, bad CARFAX, rear bumper skin replaced, right rear quarter painted (Repaint only, no body work) and getting $13,800 for the car was a chore.

 

Thank you all!

Quick update: I don't have a lot to report...
My wife seems to be doing just fine with no pain for the last 3 days so I don't think she's hurt.
I looked under the car and I had forgotten you can inspect quite a bit from the under side so I haven't taken the bumper off. I can see that the crush elements seems just fine. But that's all I could tell from just taking a look.

Now, as many of you mentioned, it would have been nice to get the police involved but unfortunately that did not happen. Further she didn't call me when it happened so all went unreported and I couldn't guide her as to what to do...

I called our insurance subsidiary and she recommended we wait just a day or two to see if they report it since he's at fault. This so for the time being we don't have to make a claim through our insurance. I've learned that often it is better that way so you don't get penalized when you are not at fault. It worked perfectly the last time I got rear ended. That said I had the lady sign a paper agreeing it was her fault. This time we don't have much so we'll have to see how it goes down.
This time no word yesterday since last Friday soooo I went ahead and made a claim directly through the vehicle owner insurance. Now waiting to be called back...

I'm still considering getting the car to our MINI dealer to be inspected but this may be at our own cost... I don't know. What do you guys think?

Also I've heard recently that sometime you can make a claim for the car depreciation. Does any body has information on that?

 

I wouldn't wait a day or two: be proactive. Also, there could be damage to the bumper support, which you can't see by looking under the car. You would have to remove the bumper cover to see it. Plastic covers hide damage pretty well, so get it taken care of. I know it's a PITA, but you'll be happy later.

 

there has to be damage underneath, the beams and supports are designed to absorb...get it checked at a body shop and contact his insurance, delaying is bad!

 

It's in progress guys, I have contacted his insurance and they have started the claim process. We're setting up an appointment.
Again waiting just a day or two is sometime better so to not involve your insurance IF you are 100% NOT at fault and you feel good there's no injury which really seems to be the case here . At least that's my experience that last time I was rear ended and it actually went very smoothly and I had no penalty on our insurance premium since they were not involved.

Anyway, his adjuster called us back today so we have the car looked at very soon.

That said I am still wondering if I should have it check by our MINI dealer in addition!?? I'm Progressive want to make sure they don't over spend... but I'm concerned of things not being fixed properly.

Unfortunately we have to leave out of the country for two weeks this Saturday so I don't know we have the time to make that happened before then...

 

Good news for us: The person who hit my wife's car agreed that he was 100% at fault. So that is going to make the process easier. We'll just take the car to our shop and get a quote for the repair as well as have them estimate properly the extend of possible unseen damage.

As I said before, this avoided involving our insurance which is better for our pocket as my wife was not at fault

 

Glad to hear get her fixed up.

 

TG,

If no police report was made I can't see this popping up on a CARFAX report and looking at the damage.. if it's just a surface scuff I'd say there's no loss of value.

Minor bumper scuffs and (high quality of course) paintwork on plastic bumpers has never bothered me when appraising a car or considering one for purchase. If there is no other hidden damage you have a $200 repair or so.

NOW! If the car was damaged substantially, if the accident was reported to the police and hit the CARFAX, if there was structural damage... Then you'd have a loss of value and a legit claim.

A Carfax accident report for that level of damage? Trade-In value drops from, say, $17K to $15500 or so. Vehicle towed accident report? $14,500-15K wholesale. Airbag deployment? $12K. Even if it just says accident but the vehicle suffered any structural damage to the unibody? $14K or so.

I'd say you got off lucky here, but for reference, if your car is hit, EVEN IF IT'S FIXED PERFECTLY, you will have lost value and you should seek compensation for it because you will suffer a financial loss.