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I was talking to Andrew and he determined this would be a good spot to post the nightmare I have gone through with my insurance company. Below you will see the headache that has become of an accident I had in my lowered car.
Insurance Information:
Provider: Mercury Insurance
Adjuster: Jennifer Chow
Contact Phone Number: 661-810-4979
Mercury Preferred Shop: City Autobody
Address: 2150 Agate Court, Simi Valley, CA 93065
Phone: (805) 581-1671
Contact: Karl Norheim
Supplemental Shop: Johnny's Auto Clinic
Address: 717 West Capitol Drive. San Pedro, CA 90731
Phone: 310-521-0330
Contact: John J. DeGirolamo - Owner
Forensic Specialist
Owner/Operator: Paul Petty
Address: 909 E Yorba Linda Blvd 172, Placentia, CA 92820
Phone: (714) 290-2810
MINI Dealership – South Bay MINI
Address: 18800 Hawthorne Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90504
Phone: 877-846-2119
Contact: Alex – Service Writer
Cell: 310-667-0449
Frame Shop
Prestige Too
Address: 530 Alaska Avenue, Torrance, CA 90503
Phone: (310) 787-8852
On March 17, 2012, I was involved in an accident in my 2007 MINI Cooper S in Simi Valley, CA. I was coming home from a friends around 9am on a rainy Saturday morning when I came around a blind sharp curve and the hill side next to the road had washed out. I did my best to avoid the rock slide, but to my best efforts still hit various rocks and debris. This most notably damaged the driver side axle and the car was unable to be driven. At this point I called my insurance company (Mercury Insurance) and filed a claim, they dispatched a tow truck and we agreed to take my car to a shop close to the scene of the accident since it was a preferred shop for Mercury. I should have pushed harder for it to go to the dealership for all repairs, but the representative pushed their preferred shop, I figured this would speed up the claim and repair.
During my vehicles time at City Autobody I worked with Karl to restore my car back to its original state prior to the accident. Once City got an axle under the car, they shortly broke another axle. The axle was slipping out of the slip yoke at full left handed lock. Karl contacted me about this saying that it was due to my vehicles ride height. My car is lowered on KW V1 coilovers, I told Karl he should try to raise them up if he believed that was the issue. City goes ahead and spins up the coilovers to their highest setting and puts a new NON-OEM axle under the car. Believing they had resolved the issue they released my car to me. In the time City had my vehicle they did NOT place my car on a frame alignment rack, nor did they take it to the dealership to be looked at as requested by my Insurance company. They also noted they were not able to properly align my vehicle.
Next day during my lunch hour I made a U-turn and the axle again came out of the slip yoke and was damaged. I called City Autobody in Simi Valley which is roughly 60 miles from my house and explained what had just happened. They asked me to have it towed to them, but upon hearing the distance of they tow they asked if I had a local shop I preferred to use. I said yes and had the car towed to Johnny's Auto Clinic. City agreed to help with this as they have a warranty on all their work stating the repairs are warrantied for the life of the vehicle.
Johnny's Auto wrote up an estimate for a new OEM axle, alignment and a new differential seal as it was also damaged. Mercury approves this work to be done so that Johnny's could further troubleshoot this issue to try to find the root cause of my axle loss. Johnny's gets the car back together with a new fresh axle and makes it all of 50 ft of the rack before the axle again fails. At this point my insurance is upset by this and no longer wants Johnny's to look at it. I try calling City to ask them what they wish to do as well, they told me they would no longer be helping me or working with me that I needed to contact my insurance. Mercury now requires me to have the vehicle taken to a MINI dealership before anything else can be taken care of. I now go through the pain of having it towed over to Long Beach MINI so they can look at it. We were also trying to get Long Beach MINI to warranty the part that had failed as it only made it 50ft before failure. Long Beach MINI ends up denying service for the vehicle due to my engine modifications being to extensive (I have full bolt-ons and tune – nothing crazy at all). So Mercury now sends Paul Petty an “automotive investigator” out to my vehicle at Long Beach MINI as they agreed to let him come look at the vehicle while it was still there.
Paul Petty decides that it is my KW Suspension that is causing my axles to fail. At this point my insurance notifies me that they will be no longer able to cover anymore damages being they are directly linked to my coilovers not the original accident. I argued with them that there is no way my suspension is causing such failures if they vehicle was fine prior to the accident and I had had coilovers on my vehicles for many months at this point and had over 20k miles without a single problem on them. They continue to stick to their guns on this stating the only way they would look at changing their mind is if I put the vehicle on stock suspension and had the dealer look at it and state their was a problem still that was not related to my axle.
Well left with a broken axle and few options I had Johnny's Auto tow my car back to their shop and begin work swapping out my KW suspension for stock suspension and replacing the axle with another new OEM axle costing me another $1700 out of pocket. At this point I have without a vehicle for over 7 weeks now. Upon receiving my vehicle back to me I take it to South bay MINI to have them look at it and try to diagnosis my car so that I can in fact prove that it was not my KW suspension that had caused this failure.
South Bay agrees to do the diagnosis for me, once they looked at the vehicle they determined that further investigation needed to be done at a frame shop. My vehicle was sublet-ted out to Prestige Too for the frame alignment and measurements. Once Prestige takes the measurements they determine that my sub frame had shifted up most likely causing my axles failures. At this point I contact my insurance as I felt I had done everything in my power to prove them wrong and had successfully done so. My insurance again sends Paul Petty out to look at my vehicle at the frame shop to determine what they next plan of action would be. At this time Paul admits to the frame shop that the first go round he had been very close minded and found it easy to blame my suspension.
Mercury contacts me yesterday to let me know they would not be covering the repairs to the sub frame that are needed another ~$400 nor would they cover the diagnosis ~419 and that I would need to take care of this out of pocket. Their stand is that there is no way to prove the sub frame damage occurred during the original accident, even though my car was fine prior to this accident. I argued up and down and she used excuses like when various shops swapped my struts for coils that they had tampered with my sub frame causing it to be off. And if I could prove anything further they would again look at covering me, my reply was that I had done everything asked and proved them wrong and still I was being blamed and left out to dry.
I argued multiple points on the phone with regarding the sub frame such as the fact swapping suspension requires no tampering or adjustments on the sub frame. I have had multiple professionals from Johnny's and Prestige state there is no way my coilovers were destroying my axles and that there is no way the sub frame shifted by itself. Again Jennifer Chow blamed my suspension and ride height, she then proceeded to blame the other shops who had worked on my car. And I repeatedly stated to her that had her original shop done this correctly the first time we wouldn’t be where we are at today.
I do not see how this is at all right, I pay for insurance so that when I am in an accident I know I will be taken care of, not turned away and left to fend for myself. If Mercury didn’t want to cover the vehicle due to modifications – which I was very upfront about when I had the policy written for this reason – they should have not repaired it in the first place and turned me away then. Had City Auto properly repaired this vehicle the first go around and had put the car on an alignment rack the car would have been fixed properly and I would not be where I am today. I feel I am being taken advantage of by my insurance. I am currently seeking legal counsel against Mercury in hopes I can sue them and re-coop some of my losses. I also wanted to share my experience to let others know what I have gone through and the unjust actions my insurance has taken against me.
Insurance Information:
Provider: Mercury Insurance
Adjuster: Jennifer Chow
Contact Phone Number: 661-810-4979
Mercury Preferred Shop: City Autobody
Address: 2150 Agate Court, Simi Valley, CA 93065
Phone: (805) 581-1671
Contact: Karl Norheim
Supplemental Shop: Johnny's Auto Clinic
Address: 717 West Capitol Drive. San Pedro, CA 90731
Phone: 310-521-0330
Contact: John J. DeGirolamo - Owner
Forensic Specialist
Owner/Operator: Paul Petty
Address: 909 E Yorba Linda Blvd 172, Placentia, CA 92820
Phone: (714) 290-2810
MINI Dealership – South Bay MINI
Address: 18800 Hawthorne Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90504
Phone: 877-846-2119
Contact: Alex – Service Writer
Cell: 310-667-0449
Frame Shop
Prestige Too
Address: 530 Alaska Avenue, Torrance, CA 90503
Phone: (310) 787-8852
On March 17, 2012, I was involved in an accident in my 2007 MINI Cooper S in Simi Valley, CA. I was coming home from a friends around 9am on a rainy Saturday morning when I came around a blind sharp curve and the hill side next to the road had washed out. I did my best to avoid the rock slide, but to my best efforts still hit various rocks and debris. This most notably damaged the driver side axle and the car was unable to be driven. At this point I called my insurance company (Mercury Insurance) and filed a claim, they dispatched a tow truck and we agreed to take my car to a shop close to the scene of the accident since it was a preferred shop for Mercury. I should have pushed harder for it to go to the dealership for all repairs, but the representative pushed their preferred shop, I figured this would speed up the claim and repair.
During my vehicles time at City Autobody I worked with Karl to restore my car back to its original state prior to the accident. Once City got an axle under the car, they shortly broke another axle. The axle was slipping out of the slip yoke at full left handed lock. Karl contacted me about this saying that it was due to my vehicles ride height. My car is lowered on KW V1 coilovers, I told Karl he should try to raise them up if he believed that was the issue. City goes ahead and spins up the coilovers to their highest setting and puts a new NON-OEM axle under the car. Believing they had resolved the issue they released my car to me. In the time City had my vehicle they did NOT place my car on a frame alignment rack, nor did they take it to the dealership to be looked at as requested by my Insurance company. They also noted they were not able to properly align my vehicle.
Next day during my lunch hour I made a U-turn and the axle again came out of the slip yoke and was damaged. I called City Autobody in Simi Valley which is roughly 60 miles from my house and explained what had just happened. They asked me to have it towed to them, but upon hearing the distance of they tow they asked if I had a local shop I preferred to use. I said yes and had the car towed to Johnny's Auto Clinic. City agreed to help with this as they have a warranty on all their work stating the repairs are warrantied for the life of the vehicle.
Johnny's Auto wrote up an estimate for a new OEM axle, alignment and a new differential seal as it was also damaged. Mercury approves this work to be done so that Johnny's could further troubleshoot this issue to try to find the root cause of my axle loss. Johnny's gets the car back together with a new fresh axle and makes it all of 50 ft of the rack before the axle again fails. At this point my insurance is upset by this and no longer wants Johnny's to look at it. I try calling City to ask them what they wish to do as well, they told me they would no longer be helping me or working with me that I needed to contact my insurance. Mercury now requires me to have the vehicle taken to a MINI dealership before anything else can be taken care of. I now go through the pain of having it towed over to Long Beach MINI so they can look at it. We were also trying to get Long Beach MINI to warranty the part that had failed as it only made it 50ft before failure. Long Beach MINI ends up denying service for the vehicle due to my engine modifications being to extensive (I have full bolt-ons and tune – nothing crazy at all). So Mercury now sends Paul Petty an “automotive investigator” out to my vehicle at Long Beach MINI as they agreed to let him come look at the vehicle while it was still there.
Paul Petty decides that it is my KW Suspension that is causing my axles to fail. At this point my insurance notifies me that they will be no longer able to cover anymore damages being they are directly linked to my coilovers not the original accident. I argued with them that there is no way my suspension is causing such failures if they vehicle was fine prior to the accident and I had had coilovers on my vehicles for many months at this point and had over 20k miles without a single problem on them. They continue to stick to their guns on this stating the only way they would look at changing their mind is if I put the vehicle on stock suspension and had the dealer look at it and state their was a problem still that was not related to my axle.
Well left with a broken axle and few options I had Johnny's Auto tow my car back to their shop and begin work swapping out my KW suspension for stock suspension and replacing the axle with another new OEM axle costing me another $1700 out of pocket. At this point I have without a vehicle for over 7 weeks now. Upon receiving my vehicle back to me I take it to South bay MINI to have them look at it and try to diagnosis my car so that I can in fact prove that it was not my KW suspension that had caused this failure.
South Bay agrees to do the diagnosis for me, once they looked at the vehicle they determined that further investigation needed to be done at a frame shop. My vehicle was sublet-ted out to Prestige Too for the frame alignment and measurements. Once Prestige takes the measurements they determine that my sub frame had shifted up most likely causing my axles failures. At this point I contact my insurance as I felt I had done everything in my power to prove them wrong and had successfully done so. My insurance again sends Paul Petty out to look at my vehicle at the frame shop to determine what they next plan of action would be. At this time Paul admits to the frame shop that the first go round he had been very close minded and found it easy to blame my suspension.
Mercury contacts me yesterday to let me know they would not be covering the repairs to the sub frame that are needed another ~$400 nor would they cover the diagnosis ~419 and that I would need to take care of this out of pocket. Their stand is that there is no way to prove the sub frame damage occurred during the original accident, even though my car was fine prior to this accident. I argued up and down and she used excuses like when various shops swapped my struts for coils that they had tampered with my sub frame causing it to be off. And if I could prove anything further they would again look at covering me, my reply was that I had done everything asked and proved them wrong and still I was being blamed and left out to dry.
I argued multiple points on the phone with regarding the sub frame such as the fact swapping suspension requires no tampering or adjustments on the sub frame. I have had multiple professionals from Johnny's and Prestige state there is no way my coilovers were destroying my axles and that there is no way the sub frame shifted by itself. Again Jennifer Chow blamed my suspension and ride height, she then proceeded to blame the other shops who had worked on my car. And I repeatedly stated to her that had her original shop done this correctly the first time we wouldn’t be where we are at today.
I do not see how this is at all right, I pay for insurance so that when I am in an accident I know I will be taken care of, not turned away and left to fend for myself. If Mercury didn’t want to cover the vehicle due to modifications – which I was very upfront about when I had the policy written for this reason – they should have not repaired it in the first place and turned me away then. Had City Auto properly repaired this vehicle the first go around and had put the car on an alignment rack the car would have been fixed properly and I would not be where I am today. I feel I am being taken advantage of by my insurance. I am currently seeking legal counsel against Mercury in hopes I can sue them and re-coop some of my losses. I also wanted to share my experience to let others know what I have gone through and the unjust actions my insurance has taken against me.
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