Actually, I don't think I would be. I've you hear it with the same frequency that I hear/heard it, then you've heard it a great deal of times.
I was going to wait until someone else responded, but frankly, I'm a bit annoyed at your suggestion that I'm lying about the whole thing, and that I'm trying to con the insurance company and the body shop into doing the repair. And, by the way, I wasn't aware you were in the vehicle that struck mine. You must have been, since you apparently know how fast she was traveling. Hint: you're wrong.
Now, then, let's examine this a bit more closely. Your contention is that, I, someone with body shop experience (although not as much as you have) and a fond love of motor vehicles, just "never noticed" the gap before. In the 3 years that I've owned it. Which, for the sake of argument, say I grant you, leaves a few other loose ends. Namely, being that Jose, who has been wrenching on cars for 40+ years, and is good enough to make about 6 figures doing it, doesn't know how to adjust a door. Quite simply, I find that hard to believe, given a few conditions. 1) I helped him. 2) He is quite talented; I've watched him cut Explorer's down the middle, back to mid front (just before driver cabin), remove that whole section, and replace it (body, no chassis). He's
good. This is routine work for him. 3) I am/was his boss, and was so at the time we fixed my door gap. Therefore, I find it highly unlikely that I "didn't notice" the gap until now, after the accident.
Now then, let's get back to my granting you the possibility that I just didn't notice it. Logically, it doesn't make sense for me to browbeat the insurance company and body shop into fixing it. To get them to do that, I have to call, hassle, call, hassle, blah blah and convince them that it is loss related. Which is a gigantic waste of my time. Were it not loss related, and simply the gap was off, wouldn't it make MORE sense for me to save my time and energy calling them, and just wait until I was back at the body shop and GET PAID TO HAVE IT FIXED? Yep, get paid to have it fixed. Sort of like when I had it fixed the first time. Just pull the car around back to the body shop and tell Jose to align those panels, while we're both on the clock. That's not even addressing that I'd not only be compromising my personal ethics, but also breaking Fraud laws. And for what, 15 minutes of someone else's time to fix a door gap? For $6 worth of the body shop's time?
I seriously dislike your accusation that I'm attempting to engage in Insurance Fraud over a simple matter of door gaps, and that I'm completely lying about having had Jose, at the shop whereby I'm employed, adjust it previously.
You state that there is "simply no way" the accident could have done it, yet fail to offer any other suggestion other than that I'm lying about it. For grins, I called the body shop I work/worked at, and asked the owner, who happens to be a good friend and hunting partner of mine. He offered the suggestion that possibility the bolts and sheet metal just worked slightly loose during the course of normal operation, from all the bumps and stresses, and that the energy transfer from the accident might have simply caused the shift I'm seeing. He said it's stupid, and probably shouldn't happen, but it does and he's seen it numerous times, even from hitting large bumps/potholes.
This suggestion I find quite a bit more plausible than your baseless assumption that I'm lying about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinP73
I think you'd be amazed at how many times in my 30+year career I've heard the phrase "It wasn't like that before the accident". There just any way that a glancing blow from a car doing under 30mph is going to cause damage that far forward. Plus there is NO exterior damage between the point of impact and the leading edge of the door. The energy that would have to be present to close that gap does not "submerge" at the point of impact and then suddenly "surface" at a point further dowm stream.
More likely he just had never been critical of the gap untill the accident drew his attention to it.
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