'85 TQC Repairs

["Mike Hopton" <mike@genesis-microchip.on.ca>]

     The story so far, I lost control of the car in heavy rain last Monday 
     night. My fault, no one else injured and my first accident in over 12 
     years. Anyway I managed to drive the car off the high way, just off the 
     highway the car started to cut out (no coolant, no power steering, no 
     alternator etc.). A tow truck driver spots me and suggests I follow him. So 
     I do. Turns out he works with/for a body shop that also rents cars, your 
     total accident coverage as it were... Pick up a rental car and drive home 
     (didn't sign the work release although they tried hard to get me to sign). 
     Please note - what I should have done was to get the car to the police 
     pound or take it directly to a body shop I trust. What ever you do DON'T 
     sign the work release, even if they claim they need you to do it so they 
     can remove some parts for the insurance adjuster.
     
     Anyway, the insurance adjuster asks the body shop to remove parts so they 
     can assess the damage. This happens and the insurance adjuster returns for 
     a second appraisal (with his boss) on Wednesday. By Thursday I'm getting 
     nervous, as I have very little faith in this body shop (Shawson Auto Body - 
     Toronto DON'T GO THERE!) has any inkling how to repair cars let alone 
     audi's. 
     
     I called the insurance company on Friday and asked what the next step is, 
     they respond with "You're the guy with the race car" a good positive start. 
     They reckon there is about 4K damage to the car and that it is repairable. 
     I call Shawson and tell them I want to get a second opinion. I can tell at 
     this stage Larry (Shawson employee of the month) is not happy about losing 
     the business, he said he would call back in half an hour with an estimate 
     of how much it was going to cost for the "work" he had done so far. Two 
     hours later I still hadn't heard from him.
     
     Frank Sprongl had looked at the car on Wednesday and described the damage 
     as just a dent, everything is relative! He had offered to tow the car back 
     to Four Star, so I took the afternoon off work and went over to Four Star. 
     By 1.00 I was at Shawson, so I asked Larry how much was I due him - 
     $640.00... what exactly was I paying for, well 6 hours labour at $40 (he 
     couldn't have spent more than 30 minutes working on the car), 5 days 
     storage at $30 and $100 administration fee; but that doesn't even add upto 
     640.00 dollars, "so what, call your insurance company". So I did and they 
     said they would cover everything if I pay the administration cost, so I 
     payed up and drove the car out of the shop. 
     
     According to my insurance company "it could have been worse" he could have 
     charged even more. What pissed me off about the whole thing was that if I 
     had signed the work release they would have kept the car and performed a 
     crappy repair job. Don't know how it works in other parts of the world but 
     be careful.
     
     Thanks for the info. on value of an '85 ur-q hopefully won't need to 
     convince the insurance company of its true worth - unless Frank finds a 
     surprise....
     
     Regards, Mike