I was in an accident with my vehicle a pristine 2000 Toyota Camry. Not only in perfect condition it is detailed once a month and and mechanically well maintained. The vihicle was hit in the front passenger side damaging the front fender, passenger door, hood, etc... to the tune of about $7k according to original estimates. The insurance company provided assistance with offering their preferred repair vendors. We selected a vendor and had the vehicle towed in from the tow company lot to the auto body shop. 3 weeks later we were told the vehicle was ready. Upon inspecting the vehicle closely we vound the following problems:
1) Overspray on the driver front fender and door.
2) Passenger door won't open
3) Dents and scratches in other locations on the vehicle other than that caursed or assessed as a result of the accident.
4) Parts under hood, inside wheel well, and under the vehicle either not painted at all or painted the wrong color, or just primed.
5) Overspray of primary paint color onto other areas that were blacked out or not intended to be painted the primary color.
We contacted the insurance company and they told us to take the vehicle back to the body shop which we did the very next day (picked up at 3:00 day one and returned to body shop 11:00 AM day 2). After a lengthy discussion with the body shop owner they agreed to fix the vehicle w/respect to the items that were clearly their shoddy workmanship. Unfortunately, no one claims responsibility for the OTHER dents and scratches (rear bumper and trunk lid, car roof dented near edge of sun roof).
Given the quality (or lack thereof) of the auto body work we are now even more skeptical of the mechanical work that was done. Our position with the insurance company is this... they provided the name of the autobody vendor. They need to be our advocate with this vendor and make the car as it was (including the dents and scratches that were not part of the original accident but occured either in transport or during the auto body posession of the vehicle. Furthermore, we want Toyota to certify the mechanical work because we do not trust the auto body shop to have done any better work on the mechanical side than they didi initially on the cosmetic side of this repair.
My question: What rights do we have as consumers for accepting or rejecting this work? How do we force the insurance company to make the vehicle repair right both cosmetically and mechanically? Furthermore, can we force them to certify the mechanical work?
Please Advise,
Chris

