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Insurance company did not fix car right

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bfraser

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida
I was in an accident last Oct. the insurance company took car of fixing my car with a special package they have. I paid my deductable and got my car back several weeks later. I recently took my car in for service at dealership and they told me my Axel is bad in the area of accident causeing transmission to leak fluids, i took car back to insurance company and they kept it to check aligment to make sure car was not in another accident. they gave me a rental car. The next day they called me and told me that the axel must have been missed during the accident and that they are going to fix it, but I have to pay for rental car? i cant go without my car for 2 more weeks because they did not fix my car right, what can i do
 


justalayman

Senior Member
well, you don't have a lot of choices here. You either do without your car or it doesn't get fixed. If you have rental coverage, your insurance should pay for a rental. If you don't, if they refuse to pay the rental, there really is nothing you can do.
 

ecmst12

Senior Member
You probably only have 30 days of rental car coverage on the policy. If you've used up the 30 days, you have to pay for the rest. It takes (roughly) the same amount of time to fix the car whether it's all at once or in 2 separate instances, so you probably still would have exceeded your 30 days even if the shop had caught this problem originally. Are you sure it will take 2 weeks?
 

bfraser

Junior Member
I dont have rental car coverage with them, I went almost a month without car when i had the accident. I was thinking since maybe they messed up that they should pay for car this time. because i really cant go with out my car right now, i need to get to work and tkae my kid to school. Im not trying to get a large sum of money or anything i just dont feel as if i should pay for rental. if they had fixed it right the first time, it may have taken longer in shop but i would have been okay with that, it was my fault, now this instance is not my fault, they failed to fix it right and now my car has to be in shop again (i dont know how long). I guess im just lucky their faulty work did not lead to a serious accident liek axel coming off at high speed or something
 

justalayman

Senior Member
=bfraser;2647994]I dont have rental car coverage with them, I went almost a month without car when i had the accident.
then they have no duty to pay for a rental

I was thinking since maybe they messed up that they should pay for car this time.
they did not "mess up". A repair was overlooked for whatever reason. If it was found at the time, it would have been repaired and it would have taken the additional time then to make the repair. This is simply a deferred time loss.

because i really cant go with out my car right now, i need to get to work and tkae my kid to school. Im not trying to get a large sum of money or anything i just dont feel as if i should pay for rental.
well, what you feel they should pay and what they are legally required to pay are obviously two different things.

if they had fixed it right the first time, it may have taken longer in shop but i would have been okay with that,
I do not see how the deferred time loss becomes their fault and their liability.

I would suggest you do not wait for the repair. If you do and it causes additional damages, the insurance company is not going to be liable for them. If something falls off and causes an accident, they are not going to be liable for that either as you are aware of the problem and it is now your choice what to do about it.
 

bfraser

Junior Member
no, i was unaware of the bad axel until i took my car in for service at dealership, then immediately took it to insurance company, whom said they would garantee all repairs for life of car when they first fixed it., So they kept the car at that time, which is now, and they are fixing it like it should have been fixed originaly. when i dropped off car they gave me a rental car at that time and only said i would have to pay for rental car if they found my car was in another accident, not related to the original accident. which when they checked the aligment is was dead on with the specs after they fixed it first time. So they gave me rental car already and they are already fixing car, but told me i now have to pay for rental car, even though they said i would only have to pay for it if they found that axel damage was from something other than original accident.
 
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justalayman

Senior Member
then remind them of their statement. Legally, there really is nothing you can do. This is simply a matter of them keeping their word. It is now a matter of customer relations.
 

ecmst12

Senior Member
Oh good point. I was just thrown off when he said they paid for the rental before even though he doesn't have rental coverage.
 

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