Need advice on insurance claim (they won't write off my wifes vehicle)

[forced_eg]

Hey guys, posting this because its been a very frustrating week for myself dealing with an insurance claim with wawanesa insurance and a body shop here in calgary.

Here is a quick summary of events
Tuesday Aug 4th - Big rain/hail storm. My wifes 2011 Mercedes benz c250 was parked in front of our home, also parked in front of our home is the rainwater drain. Leaves/hail/branches blocked it up and the rain rose higher than the centercaps (i will try to post a picture here soon)

Wednesday Aug 5th - Come home from work on yet another rainy afternoon and my stole my parking spot in the garage in the back. The passenger side floor was soaking wet, passenger seat wiring harness wet and water in the seat rails.

Thursday Aug 6th - Wife calls insurance to start a claim. I was hesitant to because they may just dry/detail and we now have a vehicle with a flood claim on its car fax deeming our car worthless. Agent gave us the option of 3 shops to pick.

Friday Aug 7th - She takes the car to one of the shops, the guy there starts poking around for hail/dents. He comes inside and says "i don't really see anything but a dent in the back" she tells him its the water inside. He also explains to her what we all know which is flood damaged cars can have problems in the future, he said it can shut off while driving and can rust, and the electrical is now affected. So my wife leaves and gets a call 3 hours later from the shop. He says the car is a total loss and to come get her stuff. On the way there the Insurance agent calls and confirms the same thing and instructs her to park it at home (because he's probably assuming she's driving it) She goes to shop and the guy there told her not to take the car, saying it can shut off on deer foot and they will tow it away. All good

Saturday Aug 8th - Chasing summer
Sunday Aug 9th - Hangover

Monday Aug 10th - Cant get rental, guess were not the only ones

Tuesday Aug 11th - Cant get rental

Wednesday Aug 12th - I call Agent to see the rental situation and to see if we can get a payout so we don't have to wait for a rental and go put it down on a new car. He states that his adjuster had a look and it may be repairable. So I lost some sleep because what credentials does the inurance adjuster have on inspecting vehicles, they just want to save the insurance a buck

Today Aug 13th - Wife calls collision centre to see whats happening. Lady says its getting towed in from impact, they inspected it and aside from a small stain on the carpet there is no water damage (foggy windows, mood, odor), there is however some hail damage. I call the insurance agent asking whats going on and he says his adjuster went to the vehicle and seen no signs of water damage. I call repair shop ask if the carpet will be replace and the lady tells me no, they will most likely shampoo the carpet "evac the water" and return it to her.

Now Im a licensed tech. Its probably not much damage at all but what grinds my gears is the story changed at the body shop where the first deemed it a total loss after 3 hours with the vehicle, told my wife to grab all her belongings because she will never see her vehicle again, and now it just needs a shampoo and drying. Secondly, the insurance adjuster says the car is repairable almost a week after the initial incident. what if the car was sitting on the impact auction lot with a window open? that will dry it up real fast. The body shop says any mechanical/interior inspections will be done at integra tire. The car was bought and serviced at Lone Star, I put in a request for the inspections to be done there.

I don't mind if they don't write off the car, Its payed off and nice to drive. But I want all repairs to be done properly, meaning i want the carpet pulled from the vehicle and the body/wiring inspected and repaired properly.

Help me, What do i do? Is there any governing body i can go to or ask? Any legal help? Media may be overkill? I'm not signing any body shop requests at the moment. And i don't want to mention the body shops name at the moment.

Thanks for all input

[jdmXSI]

Not sure if this will help but its a shot. Sorry to hear you're getting herded around.

http://www.finance.alberta.ca/publications/insurance/info_consumer_complaints.html

[Jeeper1986]

didn't the shop or adjuster guythe first time around sign papers stating its a goner?

[BAB Inc]

shitty deal, All I can recommend is keep attacking them. I wouldnt keep the car regardless of what they found.

[Zhao Kan]

The question is how far did the water actually get up. If you’re talking just a wet floor sure, whatever, that’s fixable. If you’re talking about it reaching up to wear wiring and modules are, which doesn’t need to get that high, I’d be expecting that to be a total loss no question.

That’s really the only question I have when looking at a flood car, is how high did the water go. It also does take a long time to dry a car out, and ya the 30 degree weather we have had sure helped, but when I look at a badly flooded car it’s almost always still wet inside after a week.

Depending what got wet, just because it drives fine now doesn’t mean that it’s going to be fine 5 years from now. A major issue with flood damaged cars is it causes corrosion on the electrical systems and it’s only a matter of time before you have car that is a nightmare… but like I said, and like what insurance is thinking, the question is how high did the water get?

A completely soaked carpet/underlay I would want replaced too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is still moisture under that carpet even if the top of it feels dry. Nothing is really too important under that carpet, but further up you do start getting into sensors, harnesses, and modules. Some of the electrical that sits lowest is air bag related. You have an air bag sensor in each door that sits with the wiring plugged into it at the bottom of it, and these sensors sit roughly parallel to the bottom of the speaker on the door trim panel. Did it get that high? Did it get higher? You have modules in that area you don’t want to expose to water. I forget on the w204 c classes but you might even have

So how high did the water get? You’re the one that saw it first, so that’s a question for them to ask and you to answer. The bodyshop saw it second, and unless the guy there looking at it is in-experienced, he probably had a pretty good idea what he’s looking at. I know how I operate and I’m pretty careful not to say something is definitely a write off unless I know for certain. The other thing is, they could always start taking stuff apart to find evidence of how high it went too. There isn’t too much low down in a c class as its all plastic and metal for the most part down there, but there are stickers behind trim panels that sit low, at least on the doors, and those may show evidence of being soaked.

[forced_eg]

http://i58.tinypic.com/2m7bz4l.jpg

[Rocket1k78]

Damn that looks scary. Good luck

[Hallowed_point]

Good luck Ravi. You're the last person who should get fucked over I'd hope with car stuff. You've always treated me right @ MM :thumbsup:

[Rocket1k78]

Originally posted by Hallowed_point
Good luck Ravi. You're the last person who should get fucked over I'd hope with car stuff. You've always treated me right @ MM :thumbsup:

Never knew op was Ravi over at minute muffler. He definitely doesn't deserve this shit. He's the only mechanic that i would never question on work needed. Hope it does get resolved properly.

[CanmoreOrLess]

All the confusion so far is exactly why having this on your car report will be a massive negative. Water is a scary "what if". If they are not writing the car off, I'd just get the thing shampooed and trade it in on another vehicle.

I'd never buy a car with water damage as an insurance claim. And a MB... electronics can't be cheap or dependable going forward. Who would buy?

Your wife wants a different vehicle, different needs.

Maybe call TouchStone and see what think is a better way to handle it all. They'd have plenty of experience in these matters.

[RickDaTuner]

The law for flood damage vehicle is that water cannot reach the lower portion of the forward firewall foot rest panel in the passenger compartment.

The law used to state; that if water levels reached the lower portion of the centre console trim, or reached the lower portion of the bottom of the seat cushion, then the car would be considered a total loss.

Any shop attempting to pass off a water damaged Vehicle as ok, is subject to the loss of their AMVIC license, and a possible $500,000.00 fine per infraction.
I remember receiving an email for this a year ago right after the floods

Get in contact with AMVIC, and show them that picture. They will send out an agent to come verify the water damage, and more then likely send the car to get crushed...
It would have been more credible had you snapped photos of the rear license plate, and the water level with the door open...

Sorry to hear for your struggles.

[Zhao Kan]

Wow, did you show Wawanesa that picture?

I just did some measurements based off reference points in that picture on a w204 c class here, and that puts the water up to just below the leather on the seat at the time of that picture. For all we know the water was even higher before or after you took that picture. It definitely was well over the door sills.

That means your airbag sensors have likely been soaked, the carpet is about 2inches thick on those C class, so with how much water was in that thing, it is still going to wet if you pull the carpet back. I would not want that carpet to remain in my car. There is also a lot of wiring at the floor level on those things that got soaked, and you also have modules that are probably wet. The airbag module for one in the center console (pretty sure that’s where it is on those, I forget for sure), plus modules in the foot well, and the motors in the seats (although you have a c250 so maybe that’s a non issue). We’re seeing these things have corrosion problems already with the wiring on newer Mercedes that are not flooded and are in a dry Alberta climate, so add in all that water and that thing is going to be absolutely garbage (probably not within the 2 year limit insurance is going to tell you if you have any problems with it just let them know. It’s going to be outside of the 2 year limit to make a claim when that thing starts being your worst nightmare).

I, like the shop you took it to, would have expected that thing to be written off. I’m surprised they are fixing it, but even more surprised they’re treating it as a no damage found claim.

As posted above, amvic might be a good start; that picture is pretty damning. I’d talk to insurance again first to save some hassles; try to talk to someone different. Find the Alberta law also, I’m busy now and Alberta’s exact laws are time consuming to find, but here is the Ontario one that came up with a google search:

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s mandatory branding program specifically addresses the issue of flood-damaged vehicles. According to the ministry the brand of ‘irreparable’ will be applied to any vehicle that has been immersed in liquid to the bottom of its dashboard or higher, or, to any vehicle if any major part of its electrical system has been, or appears to have been, immersed in liquid. Further, all imported branded vehicles previously identified with ‘fire or flood’ damage will be branded as irreparable. Vehicles branded as ‘irreparable’:
 cannot be made roadworthy and can never be driven on the road in Ontario
 can only be used for parts or scrap
 have been written-off as a total loss

It may not have come up to the dash, but it sure submerged a lot of crap. And i'll add this; we had a ML at our shop about 6 months ago that insurance wrote off that the water didn't even come up close to where the water did on urs. One difference is the ML had the battery in the floor, but still everything else is pretty similar.

Here is what you’re looking at behind the carpet and trim on that thing.

http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/v97/vivsaki/DSC00688.jpg

[Masked Bandit]

Holy Baby Jesus! I don't mean to add to your worry but that picture is haunting. I wouldn't want the car back in my possession either.

Have you been able to chat with A) the guy from the body-shop and B) the adjuster to see just what the difference in opinion was? I don't see how the guy at the body-shop would have an sort of reason to say the car was done when in fact it wasn't. A write-off means he doesn't get any work out of the deal. I would push back and get your broker involved.

[CanmoreOrLess]

One wonders how many other vehicles are out there where the owners are not as knowledgeable as Ravi, they just did whatever the insurance company dictated.

Zhao Kan, you are really presenting a strong case here.