Sorry to hear that. Hope everything goes better from here on out. Are they really busy as to justifying the length of time it is taking them to complete the job?

 

Do you get a rental, or loaner?

 

no rental no loaner.

i guess they are busy but for $17k i would expect them to start on mine and finish it, not start working on it, then work on something new that comes in then come back to it!

 

I feel for you man. I work at a body shop and know how daunting a frame swap can be. 2.5 months is a tab bit longer than i would feel comfortable with. Have they given you any explanation of the time frame for the repairs? Are they waiting on back ordered parts? Be prepared for issues to pop up. When you have a vehicle that is sitting tore down for so long the technician has a higher tendancy to forget things. Thats why I always try to stay on top of these jobs. You want the technician to be able to work on the vehicle while it is still fresh in his mind.

I dont mean to scare you or anything. Just make sure you go over that vehicle with a fine tooth comb when you get it back.

 

Sorry to hear man......... just thought I would share a little something. I work next to a body shop and they have done like 3 F-150 frame swaps since I've been there (bout 2.5 yrs) They say that the F-150 frames can't be bent back so the insurance company does a frame swap. Thought I would share a picture as well cuz I was in there yesterday and they were swapping a frame of a 150 kinda awesome to take a look at it I believe it was an FX4 06 I think. This damage was just like yours..... bent the front of the frame and had to replace the whole thing!!

Pic is with the new Frame

 

Nice post man, thanks for sharing that! Neat to see that

 

trust me thats all in my head, i just havent wanted to call every few days and have them get annoyed, so i basically just check in every week to see if thats the lucky week


and yes for sure planning on problems and definitely going over with a comb

 

There is definitely a difference between taking it slow and steady and dragging your feet.

Have you had to call every time for an update?

When you do get an update from them do they just say "it may be done on so and so date" ?

To me, as a service advisor, on a job like this I would be calling you at least twice a week to give you an update on where the vehicle is at. Any issues we have run into. If we are waiting on any parts and what delays we are anticipating at that point in time.

On a job like this it is very crucial to keep the customer informed. At the very least it makes the customer feel more comfortable with the repairs. When you are kept in the dark about things it tends to make you think, "what is the shop hiding/not telling me?", "Did they damage somethign on my truck and now they are trying to fix it or cover it up?".

I would go up there and just ask to see the truck as it sits. If anything it will put you at ease knowing the truck is making progress in the repairs. Also gives you a good idea of how much work is involved.

I understand people get busy and there is only so much time in the day. But really, how hard is it to pick up the phone and give the customer a quick update. It at least shows the customer you care about their vehicle and helps put them at ease.

 

Do you know how much "surcharge" the Insurance company is going to charge you? (they will get their 17K out of you some how)

That's why "insurance" aint insurance. You pay and pay for years with no claims and they are happy to take your money year after year.

Then you need them, they open their wallet for the repair, then Surcharge you??????
For what?

Lets say you have been insured for 15 years now at 2k a year. You've given them 30k for nothing. You now need 17k, they will give it to you, but first deduct you "standard" deductable and now they charge you "more" cause of the accident, (bad driver) they will get their 17k back.
Let us know how you make out.
reamer

 

What exactly do you mean by "surcharge"? I know That if you have accidents/tickets on record that they can increase your premium when it comes time to renew. I have never heard of an insurance company requiring a customer to pay anything over the deductible for the repairs to the vehicle. Actually the insurance company can take a "betterment" on wearable parts such as tires. This where the insurance company wants the customer to pay for part of the cost of the tire because they are putting a new one on and the original was not new.

 

well i forgot about the 3 weeks wait time until they could work on it. just called today and he is test driving it for the next week to make sure everything works.

heres the timeline

1. Wrecked on 1/21/2011

2. Insurance company is notified on 1/24/2011

3. Date insurance company said they would repair.

4. 2/9/2011 per Bill's, they will start in 2-3 weeks.

5. New frame arrived 2/25/2011

6. Bill's said they would start repair on 3/4/2011

7. They were getting ready to move to new frame.

8. 3/14/2011 Switching frame now.

9. Frame going now. About 2 more weeks.

10. Bill's backlog of work from the beginning was stated to take about 8
weeks, if no problems were encountered.

 

I feel they could have moved along a tad bit quicker. Of course at the facility i work at one of the major things we are measured/graded on is cycle time. Cycle time is calculated by the amount of hours on the final estimate divided by the number of days the vehicle is in the shop. More specifically, the number of days in shop is derived from the day the customer gives you the key to the day you hand those keys back to the customer. I must be over 3.5 hours per day. Any job that is uner $2k has to be done in at least 3 days.

Now there are always things that are beyond the shops control. One of the major cycle time killers can be waiting for parts. Another one (which i still cant figure out what people are thinking) is when the customer just dosent come pick up the vehicle and will let it sit finished in my lot for mulitiple days. Never seems to fail. You get a customer that will call every day checking on the status of the vehicle and wanting to have a completion date set in stone. Then when you have the vehicle finished they take their sweet time coming to pick up. Sorry for the mini rant but that situation always confounds me.

I guess when it comes down to it i would rather have the shop take their time and really pay attention to detail. What i dont want is the body tech to let the vehicle sit while he gets all his gravy work done first. I want that vehicle fresh in his mind. Its bad when a tech forget to install a weather strip, or leaves a fog lamp unpluged. These items are easily fixable and wont cause too much of an issue as long as it is caught in the QC proccess and the customer doesnt have to end up pointing it out to the service advisor. That is very embarassing when a customer walks up to the car and says " wasnt there supposed to be a pinstripe on the fender?" or comes back the next day and says "I just got a ticket for my headlamp being out because it was not plugged in properly."

With a repair like this though, forgetting to do something or overlooking something can result it a major issue. There are just so many things that can become an issue if the tech is not paying attention or if he has not touched the truck in 2 weeks and now is not sure exactly what goes where or how this line/cable was routed through the vehicle.

In any case, anything that is damaged because of negligence by the shop would have to be taken care of on the shops dollar.

 

well got the truck back on Saturday and it looks pretty good, there is a paint flaw that ford messed up on but its not that noticeable, usually im picky about that but frankly dont care now. they replaced two wheels and a tire due to cosmetic looks and the weight must be out of balance because i got a horrible shimmy driving 100 miles home and then the TPMS sensor turned on.

other than that so far so good, here is a picture of the bent frame

 

Good to hear you got her back!

 

pics of truck?