Right there, that's what I said only you clarified it better. It just blows my mind that someone who has a normal class C drivers license can go and purchase a 6,000 lb truck with the same class license??? SUV owners should absolutely be required to have a separate class drivers license. But unfortunately class A is for anything under 26,000 lbs so SUV owners don't have to worry about it.

Driving a full size 5,000 lb - 6,000 lb SUV is NOT the same thing as driving a 3,000 lb car. It requires time to learn the braking, handling and acceleration on an SUV and very few SUV owners take the time to learn them. Even a professional car driver would have difficulty correcting an SUV about to rollover, but then you put these soccer moms behind the wheel who have zero driving skill and you can forget about getting control of the vehicle. Newer SUV's are coming out with anti-roll stability control systems that are helping, but they don't take the place of a skilled, responsible driver which few SUV owners are.

Let's talk about SUV's in accidents with passenger cars. More often than not, SUVs cause more damage to other vehicles when they are in accidents. Even if you are a safe and careful SUV driver (rare), SUVs have historically fared much better than their counterparts in accidents. This is not to say that a driver in an SUV is safer necessarily, but they feel safer. And this feeling of safety is exactly the reason why many drivers still choose to drive the behemoths. It is estimated that about 12% of all vehicles on US roads are SUVs.

SUV's in my opinion represent everything that is bad about America, the self-centered attitude, lack of compassion for anyone else, a perceived ordained right to suck up as much natural resources as they want, and a complete lack of care for the damage they do, both to the environment and to others (in this case, other drivers). Yes, in America we are free to drive whatever we want, but that doesn't make it right. Thankfully Europe hasn't been "Americanized" with the kinds of cars they drive, which is why I occasionally get a wild hair to move to Europe. Not just because of their cars, but the European lifestyle in general which appeals to me.

This is a topic I'm passionate about as one can see. I would never go as far as to vandalize an SUV because I hate them, but in a twisted way I am looking forward to $5 a gallon gas again and watching those idiots practically crying at the pump like they did before.

 

lol sorry for opening the can o worms with the obama thing.

It's funny the original question was what body shops in the bay area we could reccomend him.

but back to SUV's. I stand by what I said. As the guy from VT said perfectly, SUV drivers are the first to complain about gas prices. It's not about crackers or snotty elites. It's plain economics. If anything blame the car companies. Gas guzzling SUV's like the Ford Explorer or Jeep Grand Cherokee have such poor gas mileage but at the same time have really cheap base models with MSRP's in the low 20 thousands. Essentially you have people who can't really afford to drive these things continue to buy them because of deceptively low interest rates or leases. And then the when gas prices go up and the suburban housewife who at the time thought her $200 lease for her Ford Explorer XLT was a bargain, she ends up paying $70 a week, plus her lease payment, and add to that utility bills and a house mortgage...all of a sudden the Ford Explorer isn't cheap anymore.

 

lol in england people hate SUV drivers with a passion. They smear dog feces on the windscreens of Range Rovers and other "chealsea tractors".

....I watch a lot of top gear. sorry for the English lingo it's rather infectious. I even call my hood and trunk the bonnet and the boot.

 

contradiction. If they are safer historically, then SUV drivers are safer.

Lived in France for four years. Europeans love big SUVs too. It's just they aren't affordable due to the artificially high price of gas. It was about $7.00 a gallon when I lived there (90's) and it's over $10/gallon now. The SUVs tend to run in the high end there with Range Rovers, Porches, BMWs and Mercedes. It's a question of economy. Chrysler was the biggest US import with the Jeep line.

Here where fuel was ridiculously cheap, it really didn't matter what size vehicle you drove, outside of today and a short period in the 80's.

There's a lot that appeals to me about European lifestyles, but cars aren't one of them. I owned a Jetta and a Citroen BX while I was there. The Jetta was a carbureted cheap version that never saw this side of the Atlantic. The Citroen was an abomination of automotive engineering. We only see the best European cars here.

 

Actually, that's cause you lived in France with the French In my time in Germany, no one I knew had an SUV and they all made fun of the American-style oversized cars, and in Denmark, people got things like RAV-4s, but that's cause it was easy to get them in the "worker" style (only two seats in the front, and a metal grate behind the seats. These were seen as utility vehicles and were given a significant tax break).

BACK ON TO MY PAIN though Insurance already has me hooked up with a body shop, and they're well reviewed. They're the only one in the area that doesn't seem shady, they're Yelp positive, and they have pictures of the repair process on their website, and this car's repair caught my eye:

Mercedes 211 E Class | Pan American Collision Center

 

Yep, because its far easier for the ego to put his head in the sand ignoring the rest of the world warnings and blame the current administration for the past decades of build up that leaded to this situation.

And yea, Peak Oil and Green House effect is just a giant scam by the oil industries. LoL!!!!

Ho, and 9-11 war deficit is also Obama fault. Or is it really ?

 

And all the big Germans came to France scaring the locals with their big Mercedes and BMWs. The scariest car the French made was the XM and it's more like a compact spaceship.

I take that back, Renault made a mini-van (probably still do); the Espace. It was way cool. Thing had glass bumpers.

It was interesting to watch the Europeans that came to Miami for a year. A lot of them bought cars to take back. Mustangs and such. And these were sucky early 90s Mustangs.

 

Germans have an obsession with Mustangs. Trying to explain to them that late-60's Mercury Cougars are that much better, but cheaper, ends up confusing them.

Of course, the car of choice in Germany with the late 20-something group seems to be the Jetta sportwagon TDIs. And I didn't see a single Integra over there (One of the most populous of the sport coupes over here from like 03-07 )

And I don't like Renault. They have the worst rears of any car on the planet.

 

Update if anyone cares:

Her insurance claimed 100% responsibility, thus I wont be paying a deductible for my insurance to repair the car
The final total= $6K (5941 to be precise)
They have to cut out and replace the panel
I have to get cash back to get the clear bra replaced (I had some protectors installed on the trunk gate, underneath the handles, etc)

And if I want

My lawyer has offered to help me 100% free of charge to pursue diminished value claims against her insurance

 

Expensive repair but at least it shouldn't affect the car's performance.

The hit to its value will be significant. Here's an article.

That article mentions Georgia and Kansas specifically as having laws favoring consumers. May be other states do also, but even if you don't live in one it's still negotiable.

I think Carfax has made this more an issue than anything else. When I was using their service there were constant pop-ups advising the loss of value for damage repaired cars. It was in the thousands.

Here's another article.

I think it's worth pursuing the claim.

Edit: it's become a business here...

edit edit: better article

 

My pain continues.

The other person's insurance accepted fault, so I had taken my car to one of the more wel. Reviewed body shops in the bay. And the screwed it up

The quarter panel they installed was out of alignment with the tailgate, te bumper and quarter panel were out of alignment, the fender was only hammered into place and the seam wasn't folded in, they painted over a bumpstop sticker on the door, they didn't replace all the damaged parts, the door didn't line up right, and some of the paint flaked off when I touched it with my finger. WTF

so I take it back in to complain. They fix the mirror which they missed, and rolled the fender and sealed the seam properly, but now the fender is bulged out, the mirror element is warped so I'm getting double vision out of it, and to hide the quarter panel, they (get this) loosened up the hatch and rotated it, so now none of the seams in the lift gate line up with the body! I guess the gap between te quarter panel and tailgate is better on the damaged side, but now it's out alignment with everything else.



The pain on this just doesn't end what a freaking disaster. I'm done with dealing with this body shop, so I've brought my insurance back into this.

Bonus points: when I told the brought the guy out to complain about the double vision in the drivers side mirror, and showed it to him in comparison to the other mirror, he looked at me with a straight face and said "Well, objects may be closer than they appear". At that moment I was done with them.

 

that sucks man. Where did you go? I hope it wasn't one I reccomended. If it was I'm truely sorry. I just got my car fixed with a similar accident. Funny you should mention they kinda messed up my car too, albeit a little less annoying than your problems.

They forgot to install the rocker panel back and they broke my struts for the hatch, so they had to replace that, but then they decided to buy aftermarket struts from a company I never heard of and think I wouldnt notice so I have to take my car back in. And just like you, the panel isn't quite aligned ( there's a bigger gap between the panel and the door where I had the panel replaced compared to the other side). Oh and the whole tailight assembly moves when I push in the corner with my pinky.

 

Yes this is not the place to show your inability to comunicate with civial lauguage. Try to exspress yourself without putting others down eventually as you mature (as I did) this will sound (look) ridiculous!
Not trying to upset you here, just trying to help.

 

Sorry.
OK a good bodyshop can cut the 1/4 pannel out and replace with a new one and the white should be an easier color to match. There is nothing a good bodyman can't fix on a car!

 

So, body shop has agreed to do some additional repairs if I'm still unhappy with the job, even as far as removing and installing a fresh quarter panel. That sounds incredibly outrageous as the only option to fix this issue, so I want to know if I'm being completely ass-end retarded in demanding this kind of perfection from a repair:





Go for a new panel, or just take the car as is?

 

Wow that sucks glade u r ok and I drove a truck a long time b4 my fit and I agree 99% of people with a truck shouldent drive but then agin very few people even with small Cara u feel shouldent drive it's crazzy on the roads lol

 

NO your not, & it's not the bodyshop as much as the insurance co. getting $$ every month from the customer and then doing the repair to save as much of that $ as possible, ya know?

 

Well, they were able to correct the lines out a little bit. I can still see where the repairs were done, but others wont see them unless I point them out. It's down to about .5mm off, which is close enough, and considering the likelyhood of my car getting smacked around again, that's not so bad. The paint was also nigh perfect, so I didn't want to risk having that redone.

NOW, though, I've gotta sue that SUV driver