2 days after buying my pristine (Lexus certified) 2020 RX 350 I was in a collision. His fault; my first accident in my 40 years of driving. Questions: does it matter if I don’t get my car repaired by Lexus and 2) with damage on the front fender and bumper, how do I determine what this does this do to the value of the car? Thanks.

 

Unfortunately the insurance will cover the repair cost but will not pay any money for the lost vehicle value. I am not sure if your State is different. Assuming the repair is done by a reputable shop with OEM new parts, still your car can not be sold for the same price like a car without an accident shown on CARFAX and Autocheck.

Expect someone to pay $5000 less for a car with an accident on Carfax but I personally would not consider buying it and move my search to something else if report shows an accident. In other words, the buyer pool becomes much smaller and is usually limited to very aggressive offers by used car dealers.

 

Do you have photos?

 

Doesn't matter where you get it fixed, as long as it's a trusted, quality shop. As agean posted, your car will be worth less. Hard to say by how much though.

 

Depending on where you live, some states have laws for diminished values of cars in accidents. In GA for example, there are specific formulas used to determine this lost value. You can always hire an appraiser to determine this value, you can even do this online. Google car diminished value. However, you have to file a diminished value claim with the insurance company of the party at fault. So many people don't know about this and insurance companies are not obligated to tell u.

I just had a scenario like that, after the repair took the car to Carmax, got a trade in value and subtracted it from the retail value of the car without and accident, this will give u an idea of value of the loss.

 

I've never had one of my car's autobody repairs reported on Carfax. Most repair places around here don't report to Carfax which makes makes CarFAX reports totally worthless for assessing a car's repair history. My last two Lexus repairs were done by a local body shop that does impeccable work but I did have to go to Lexus to have the front sensors recalibrated. Lexus dealer charged my insurance company $600 (4 hours book labor) for the calibration which only took the mechanic 45 minutes to do.

 

His insurance companies WILL pay for diminished value when its his fault. They will lowball you on this, however, so get a diminished value assessor to do the estimate (it will cost a coup[le hundred dollars).