I was in an accident last Wednesday (7/28) and had the car towed to a garage local to where the accident happened. I told them I wanted them to fix it, but that the insurance adjuster was going to come by and do his appraisal, and that they shouldn’t start fixing it till that happened. Friday afternoon the adjuster calls me and tells me the garage is charging $75/day for storage, plus towing, plus the repair costs. The adjuster tells me this is pretty unusual - cost for storage is usually more like $20/day, and most garages will waive storage if the repairs are being done there.
Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me all this till after 4:30 PM on Friday, and the garage was already closed and remained closed all weekend. This morning, I dropped by the garage on the way to work and they said they were still waiting for me to give them the go-ahead to do the repairs, and that I should send them the appraisal as a guide so they would know what the insurance company was covering. I told them that I needed them to fix it pronto, since the adjuster was pissed that they were charging so much for storage, and they said they’d call me with the estimate within an hour.
By the time I got to the office, I decided I wanted my car out of there, and called my regular garage and made arrangements for them to get the car towed to their location, do the mechanical repairs, and arrange for the body work. My insurance covers the second tow.
The pirate that has my car called me, really pissed off that I’m having the car taken out of there.
My mechanic called me and told me that the first garage is charging almost $900 for two tows and 6 days of storage.
Did you try to bargain with them on the storage using the repair?
All you can do is call the better business burea and any other creative protest you can think of.
Once your car is fixed put a sign in the window
$900 for towing and 6 days storage at {name of business} If it’s factual they can’t do anything. Spend some time off their property but close by with a similar sign.
It’s infuriating, I know. And it doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do.
Years ago some bonehead pulled a bonehead move and my car ended up being totalled. Well, maybe no totalled, but the repair cost would have far exceeded the value of the car. All I wanted to do was get the title out of my name. But the garage was holding it hostage for something like $40/day. I was poor and had to wait until payday. It ended up being something like $400 that I had to pay.
I’m curious: what paper(s), if any, did you sign with the tow-company and/or repair shop (are they different ‘companies’?)? IANAL by any means, but so often it gets down to “See right here, right above where you signed, sir (or ma’am)…”
No matter, that is a huge amount for next-to-nothing beyond getting a tow, imho. And then, if I am understanding it ~correctly, raping you for exercising an ‘option’ to have others do the ‘repair service’ (and who knows if they would bill you responsibly/legitimately seeing how this is going, 'eh?).
Hopefully, the insurance company will get the shit under control ASAP for you. Me, I’d also get as many pics as possible of the car sooner rather than later; ya never know if it’ll get damaged sitting there, or stuff taken off, and you be told “it was already there/missing from the accident”. Unlikely, but it has happened to me (receiver-hitch taken from back of Suburban and me told that it was never there…yeah, right, especially when I hauled a trailer of rafts earlier that day and had three persons saying they saw me place hitch back after dropping trailer, etc…) It’d be great if this $900-BS is the worst part of getting back on the road - cross my fingers for ya
And to think, just a few days ago you were asking “should I worry if my car is making a clunking noise?” I guess the answer is yes. If my car ever makes a clunking noise, I’m going to immediately remove the license plates, file off the VINs and flee on foot.
Why in the world did you tell them that you wanted them to fix it before negotiating a price? TWICE? And why did you allow them to tow it a second time, especially since you already knew that they were unscrupulous? You did know that he’d be ticked after pulling your business, right?
At the very least, you should have negotiated the price for the second tow beforehand, no matter who you used.
“My adjuster tells me that your towing and storage fees are more than three times the norm. That’s unfortunate because it would have been very convenient for me to use you for the repairs. To be honest, after seeing those charges, I don’t trust you to do the repairs for a fair price. That tow truck over there is going to move my vehicle to another garage.”
“My adjuster tells me that your towing and storage fees are more than three times the norm. This really concerns me, so I’ll be getting a second quote from my local mechanic before committing. While you’re at it, I’d also like you to take a long look at those towing and storage fees and see what you can do about them. I’d really like to use you since we’re already here, but let’s be clear: I’m not going to allow you to rip my eyeballs out for the sake of convenience.”
Don’t worry. Your adjuster will tell them that they’ll receive the usual and customary storage fee in your area, and they’ll say, “okay”, since they presumably didn’t have you or your insurer approve the excessive fee beforehand.
The insurance pays for the storage fee, right? So why not let them fight with the garage if they want to? It’s their business to negotiate prices with suppliers, and they’re much better at it than you.
Many states have statutory limits on what a tow/company or shop can charge for storage. Almost nobody, even the shops, knows the limits, though.
Get this: In Colorado at least, if the police think they need to preserve a crash vehicle as evidence they can place a “police hold” on the car. That means the car goes nowhere until they’ve completed their investigation and, in some cases, completed a criminal trial. Can take months, even years. You know where this is going… And no, they don’t have their own impound where they’ll keep it without charge, and no, they can’t/won’t compel the impound yard to waive or cap their storage fees.
About 5 years ago my wife’s car was totalled when some drugged out jitbag ran a stop sign and I t-boned him. We had AAA, and this local tower took our car.
As we were sorting things out with the insurance company, I called the tower and the owner was this little greasy droopy eyed fuck who acted like the the fact that my car was at his shop was all my fault, and barked at me all the storage and towing fees I was going to owe him. This little fuck was so uncooperative and bullying to me and my wife that it got to the point I went to his shop and raised my hands up in the air begging him to let me know what I needed to do to get my totalled car off his lot so it could be salvaged.
At the end of the day, turns out the Jitbag was uninsured, my wifes car was totalled, the Jitbag owes us $2500 still out of victims compensation, and the little greaseball scammed about $700 out of us, mostly in bogus storage fees.
The problem is with these mobbed up pieces of shit is that they put this clipboard full of forms in front of you right after you’ve been in an accident, you are so shaken and desperate you will sign anything, and then BAM, you suddenly owe hundreds of dollars in bullshit storage fees. This needs to be regulated by state government, because “storage fees” are a complete scam.
Whoa! This is why states have (at least my state has) a DMV. Call them. They will not be happy. They will call said garage. Garage does not like hearing from DMV. Garage will almost certainly adjust your bill if there is really an overcharge/gouging situation.
