On 1/8/2005, a driver returning from the Sierra snow (closed roads) decided that a traffic light that was red and my 04.5 350Z Roadster's brake lights were not enough of a sign to apply his brakes. My baby with a whopping 1671 miles on the odo was rear ended. My head also knows what the bar inside of the head rest feels like too. Not too nice. The guy rented the pickup that hit me so he gets to drop off the pickup and walk away from the mess while I get to argue with his and the rental car company's insurance companies as to which company is responsible. What a mess.

The rear bumper cover/impact brace, right turn signal light, right tail light and right rear quarter panel (curious "S" crinkle in front of the wheel well) need work. The first estimate I have from a place in Folsom, CA was $3400 for the work but that's with them trying to pull the quarter panel straight.

Are there any body shops in the Sacramento, CA area that other 350Z owners have used and found to do quality work on 350Zs?

Thanks.

 

Sorry to hear about the unfortunate accident. No matter how careful you are, you still can't help other people's stupidity. Godd luck and keep us updated.

 

contact zpylot and check out my thread https://my350z.com/forum/showthread....4&pagenumber=2 there are pics of his zr with rear end damage and his repair costs

edit
his pics are in the second page; my car is on the first

 

nl12, thanks I sent a PM to zpylot. I'm getting the one-time-use camera film developed and I'll have the CD with pictures of the car at the scene of the accident later today.

 

Sorry to hear about your accident. if youre willing to dirve to downtown San Francisco to the body shop I used to work out, Im sure they can try to work something out. Who is your insurance carrier or are you going through the claimants insurance? We know a lot of the adjusters for the major insurance companies so they might cut us a break and give you a new quarter panel but it really depends on how bad the damage is.

 

Makes me sad a roadster goes down. Does the top still work?

 

I'm trying to stay in the Sacramento area for the repair. The drive to SF is 150 miles (one way from my house).

My damage is not that bad but just knowing it's there is the worst part. The top still works just fine.

I'm trying to get clarification on which insurance company (not including mine) is taking responsibility. The driver did not purchase liability coverage on his rental pickup truck, but his insurance (State Farm) has some sort of marketing agreement with Enterprise Rent-A-Car if the driver resides in CA and the renter rents an Enterprise vehicle in CA and the rental period does not last for too long, some business unit within Enterprise called ELCO might be the liable insurance even though the driver did not purchase any additional coverage. When the State Farm rep called on Monday to inform me of this, his take on it was this was just the "best thing" in the world.

I reminded him it does nothing for the victim in this accident other than cloud the issue. He didn't seem to understand/agree. I already have a claim open with State Farm (the other driver's insurance) because everybody stated on the day of the accident that it would be his insurance. It's just one big bleeping mess.

The guy that hits me in the rental pickup truck, drops it off at the Enterprise office in South San Francisco (where the manager of the office if the driver's room mate). Then he gets to walk away from the damaged truck and I'm left stuck figuring out who's going to cover my car's damages. Not fun.

 

On 1/12/05, I dropped off my ZR at Cooks Collision of Carmichael. I just spoke with them today (1/25), my ZR should be ready for pickup on 1/27/05. It's been hard not having my ZR for the last couple of weeks. The rental 4x4 pickup just doesn't drive the same as my ZR

 

Rentals suck. I cant believe it took that long.

 

I can't believe it was done that fast. When my Z got rearended this summer it took from July 3 to Sept 5!

 

I guess it could be a lot worse for him.

 

A LOT worse. I had a Taurus, Corrolla and an Elantra before I got my Z back But I also got a $1500 check from the other guys insurance company for Diminished Value since he was uninsured. That was kinda nice.

 

That is good news. Let me know how you like their work.

My car is in great shape. I would recommend Cook's Collision of Carmichael to anybody in the Sacramento area.

 

Pickup up my ZR today. I arrived at 8:30 AM and didn't leave the body shop until 3:00 PM.

• Tonneau cover was now lower than trunk lid
• New scratches were present on my front bumper
• Overspray was on my convertible top
• The black pin stripes on the side of the tonneau cover were missing
• My trunk light bulb was missing (found it to be missing after leaving)
• Rear bumper support straps (near muffler) were not attached
• Rear bumper cover straps (now attached) have cracks in the paint after being stressed by installing them correctly
• Tech that worked on tonneau cover argued with me on "there is no gap/alighnment spec"
• Clearcoat put on toneau cover (blending) had ridges on the driver's side
• After adjusting the tonneau / trunk lid - trunk lid was shifted to the right

After the mess I went through in the last two weeks getting my wife's 04 T-Bird body shop work fixed as it should be, this was still easier (6.5 hours later).

At least my baby is back home.

 

This was a recommended shop? Looks like Cooks Collision cooked you!

They must have two shops because the Cooks in Dublin Ca. is one of the preferred autobody shops in the Eastbay.

Did they fix all the other problems you notated above?

 

The plan was to examine it and pick it up at 8:30 AM. After finding all of the initial problems the service writer started having the issues addressed on the spot.

I was not pleased with the fact that I had to spend 6.5 hours there while they resolved the issues but they seemed to believe they could get the issued resolved quickly.

Zpylot took his ZR to this very same Cooks Collision. He was quite happy with their work. This site is also a "State Farm" preferred site.

The thing that really "cooked" me was when the Tony (main person working on my ZR) started to argue with me regarding the trunk lid vs tonneau cover alignment issues. He claim was there is no "spec" with regard to clearance and height adjustments (based on his numerous years of working on Nissans). I told him he's wrong. The service manual for the 2004.5 ZR has these specs and the selling/servicing dealership that adjusted the tonneau cover after purchase also referenced this spec. I had the service writer call the service manager at my servicing dealership and he immediately faxed over the two pages from the 2004.5 service manual with these specs. Tony's attitude seemed to change after that. Then they spent 1.5 hours adjusting the height of the tonneau cover vs trunk lid.

I then noticed the trunk lid is sitting slightly off to the right now. Using a plastic straight edge, the service writer and I checked the alignment. It was definitely off. It took two more attempts (from Tony) to get the trunk lid back where it should be.

Tony's attitude is the thing that I hated the most. "I'm super experienced with Nissans and my word is the way it is". My 30 years working and rebuilding cars also tells me that Tony needs an attitude adjustment.

 

Forgive my ignorance but if he was uninsured, how did you get $1500 from his insurance company?

 

rdballer - You should go for a diminished value claim against his insurance company as well. Carfax will now have the info on your damage and you will not get as much in resale value as a result when you go to sell it.

 

I took my ZR back to Cooks Collision of Carmichael today. I found a few more things wrong with the car over the weekend. I faxed over a letter outlining the problems and stating I was returning with the car today to get them fixed.

The service rep (Michael) look totally pissed today. He was professional but you could see that he was steaming under the collar. The survey company called on Saturday after I just had completed my detailed review of my car. I answered all fo the questions honestly.

I found two clearcoat problems, a scratch on the hood, overspray on the exterior of the windows (showed up in the direct sun), a missing trunk compartment light and the cargo net snaps in the trunk were installed in the wrong places.

The clearcoat issues (especially the one on the trunk lid) concerned me the most. All it seemed to take to correct them was some 3M poslishing compound. It looked like the trunk lid problem was under the clearcoat but to my surprise it was only the clearcoat itself.

Today I was hearing a plastic-on-metal noise when going around corners. I locate the problem tonight. They left one of the plastic caps that cover the latch for the roof tonneau cover off and it was sliding around in the roof storage area under the pleather cover.

At least it's done!!!

 

Well my problems continue with this body repair.

The "noise around corners" ended up being something wrong in the unibody or a panel near the passenger side quarter panel that was repaired during the body shop work.

I also found that the 12mm nut used to secure the cross brace that runs behind the seats on the passenger side is stripped. I found that while looking for the source or my "pop/snap" noise.

I also found that the body shop did not replace the foam piece that goes under the lip of the taillight (under the trunk lid and under the taillight lip).

I spent about 30 hours trying to isolate and fix the "pop/snap" noise but I cannot get into the car deep enough to find and fix it.

I dropped the car off with the body shop on 3/1/05. This was not my first choice since I had so many problems with them in the past.

The body shop has Turner Nissan looking into the stripped stud/nut on the cross brace and they're also trying to locate the body/panel snap noise.

I found so many things that were not installed correctly or had broken parts while trying to locate the snap/pop noise.

1) One broken snap used to secure the rocker panel behind the passenger side door.

2) White plastic wire guide has its securing snap "tweaked" like someone was in there but forcefully removed it (under interior trim piece behind passenger side seat).

3) Stripped stud/nut on roadster specific cross brace behind the passenger seat.

4) Passenger outside door handle was incorrectly installed (small lip that holds rear of handle to the door was incorrectly installed over the door metal instead of under it). They removed this handle to blend the paint on the door.

5) Dove tail receiver (body side of unit) had its bolts extremely loose. I had to remove this to examine if the stripped nut/stud while simply spinning and if a wrench could be used to tighthen it up, nope).

6) The tech that went on the test drive to listen to the pop/snap noise, started to get all defensive about what they did and then he started to rip on the Z (again). I asked him if they removed the dove tail receiver and he said "Yes". He was claiming they did not go near anything in the car where the stripped stud/nut is located. I stated that if you removed the dove tail receiver, you HAD to open up the interior trim and remove the two nuts located just next to the stripped stud/nut. That's when he got "frustrated" with the converstaion and began to walk away. As he walked away he stated they only lifted the rubber piece on top of the dove tail receiver. I just don't get this guy...... Ask him a question he answers and then when I make a statement based on his response, he gets all huffy........he's not the best person to talk with the customer based on his lack of customer service skills