Well, Much has happened since the last time I posted on my build.... Nothing good..
It all begins on 9/3/16 when I was headed down the 91E near Buena Park and experienced some Final Destination type crap.
Traffic was moderate and many cars that were around one another. We were all moving roughly 65mph and in front of me is an older model Pickup Truck that had scrap metal, junk and three rolled rugs on top of that scrap/junk. I don't know whether or not the rugs were even tied down, but if they were they were tied down with dental floss.
The trunk in front of me hits a nice big bump on the freeway, where the road has tried to be fixed but makes it worse, and I see one of the rugs jump off this guys truck bed and take flight.
Now... bring traffic into play. There is no where around me for me to move. There is a car behind me of course and the quickest reactionary look in each mirror/out each window showed me that I have no where to go in regards to avoiding this flying object.
Sure enough... cracked my Z square in the face.
After it made direct impact with my front bumper, movement took it under the car and was forced to run it over in which made my Z catch a tad bit of air and then had to control the car meticulously enough to where we wouldn't over pursue a drift, spin out, or in general smash into another vehicle within 5-10 ft of either side of my car.
I pulled off to the side of the freeway;
The Front bumper was spiderweb cracked almost everywhere. One Huge break on each side of the front bumper. Chunk broken out of the front. Passenger side break went half way through the bumper if not more. RS1 Passenger Fender brackets were broken. Both Side Skirts and side splitters were spiderwebbed and broken. My carbon fiber front lip was broken and two and dragged under the car until I pulled off to the side of the freeway
Pretty much everything except the back bumper was spiderweb cracked and had major paint damage.
After all this I always am asked the now infamous questions, "did you get his plates"
Well, I figured that controlling my car was the better thing to focus on in the moment, that way I don't cause any other damage to my car or others. My friend riding passenger tried to get a picture before it was too late and he tried grabbing his phone as I controlled the sporadic vehicle. Sadly, with how traffic is in California, as soon as you slow down enough for other vehicles to get in front of you, they will bounce right over into your lane.
By the time my friends camera was ready, 3 vehicles had moved into the lane that I almost just lost control of my car. Needless to say we didn't get the photo.
The kit lasted 1 day under two months old. 7/4/16-9/3/16
When I got back to my place, I hit Lohit up and got all new parts on order to be able to get the Z back into the same shape it was before the accident.
I got all the parts ordered and paid out another nice chunk of money. Lohit is still the man!
From 9/16/16 onward to only a couple days ago, was one entire Sh|t show with my insurance company...
Throughout this entire claim I did not mention that I am a licensed insurance professional myself and know all the same rules and regulations set by the Department of Insurance of CA that they have to abide by too regardless of company. I work for State Farm and am insured by USAA.
You'd think USAA would be a bit better towards customers in general if they are going to preach they are the US and Military's insurance company, that it should be represented not just spoken.
Working in the business I know what good customer service is and bad customer service is. I'm not one to vocal about issues like this randomly like this because it isn't accomplishing anything except me venting a bit.
But this customer service that I received from their claims department was pathetic to say the least. There was only one person the entire time that possibly helped the claim move forward in a positive manner and that was when I had escalated the claim 4 or 5 tiers up from a normal Claim Adjuster. That person was the Claims Specialty Standards Superintendent Manager (CSSSM).
After many hours of back and forth on semantics of policy language, coverage and definitions, the CSSSM decided that it would be best if he went out and saw the damage to the car to make any supplemental payments to the original "repair costs" payment.
Once my car had been inspected by the CSSSM he approved one more payment but still was only 2/3 of the estimate that was handed to them.
I decided to just leave it at that and be happy with what I got out of it. The entire reason behind why my insurance company gave me so many issues was that it was aftermarket parts.
I know though that having the previous paid invoices and having both body shop and vendor in business to verify, Aftermarket parts are covered.
NO INSURANCE COMPANY WILL WANT TO PAY OUT ON AFTERMARKET PARTS THOUGH NO MATTER WHAT.
You can have a policy in a state with a literal coverage for Aftermarket parts and still have every issue imaginable to try and get a payment.
After all is said and done with my insurance company, parts were finally removed from my Z on 10/18/16...
Because of the insurance company running me around and giving me BS excuses, while telling me one thing on the phone and telling my shop another thing, My Z LITERALLY SAT AT THE SHOP GATHERING DUST FOR OVER A MONTH.
Normally that wouldn't be a big issue, but 3 days after taking my car into the shop, I was T-boned in my VW Passat on 9/19/16 and then that one went into the shop as well.
As of 10/21/16, I got the VW Passat back first rather than my Z. My Z is not estimated to be ready until this first week of November.
Gotta love it right?
