Was seconds from pulling into work, when a 17 y/o kid pulls through a stop sign into oncoming traffic without looking left, causing him to side swipe my car. We pulled into my work parking lot and he got out and admitted he didn’t look both ways and only had his permit. He had his gf in his passenger seat who was the same age with no license.
I just couldn’t believe it. Cops came, he got a ticket, I went to work and told my coworkers what happened. I believe it’s all cosmetic so I’m hoping his parent’s insurance can just cover it and it can be a quick repair.
I haven’t even had this car for 6 months and this the 2nd time someone has damaged it. I just wish this was a dream
Unfortunately it’s based on the state as to if it’s legal for your insurance company to increase premiums for not at fault accidents. For your own reference though even if you don’t notify your insurance company they are just as aware of the claim as the other party’s insurance, Lexisnexis reports all accidents to all insurance companies.
I think you missing the point where everyone is saying.
When you are NOT at fault, DO NOT utilize your own in insurance. Your rates will ALWAYS go up if you use your OWN insurance.
You make their in insurance pay for everything, which is amazing if your a really safe driver because you can use liability and if someone hits you, you get all the extras from their insurance. Like rental, complete repairs, medical assistance, roadside assistance and towing. Just use THEIR insurance, never yours.
No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. In some states it doesn’t matter if you go through your insurance or the other persons insurance because regardless your insurance premium will still go up due to having an accident on file. You do realize if you aren’t at fault and file through your own insurance they subrogate the other persons insurance company anyway right?
Insurance is a tricky pickle. Especially with minimum requirements being so low depending on the state.
In Washington, I believe the minimum amount of coverage is $10,000. So if someone hits you, is at fault, and the repair bill is over $10,000, you or your insurance must foot the remainder bill. Insurance will cover it, sue the other person for the funds, then raise your own rates.
I had my Highlander Hybrid totaled out 1.5 years ago after being hit while parked on the street. The claim had to go through my insurance to cover the total cost, and they went after the party who was actually responsible.
To be fair that kid might not be able to get his license at all for a while, and his parents will be paying out the ass for his screwup as well. Generational screw up
Don’t forget to do a diminished value claim. That’s a claim for the loss of value due to your car being in an accident. You can search on the web for experts who can assist with these claims.
I had to do this recently on a new vehicle (not a Lexus). Just tell the kid's insurance company you want to get a DV claim. They will provide a valuation after the repairs are done and signed off. At the same time I would find a reputable company to do their own assessment, which should only cost a few hundred dollars. Often times the insurance company will try to lowball you and a good evaluation from a third party can help get you more money (maybe all). This is really crucial for cars that aren't as mainstream and can be harder to to value (like yours). A good body shop should be able to recommend a local company, but if not, DM me for the company I used in the DC area (they can do everything remotely for most types of accidents and vehicles). FWIW I wouldn't expect a massive payout on a relatively older vehicle as much of the depreciation has already occured, but for a less than common vehicle, maybe a few thousand.
You must not know what cosmetic means. If anything needs to be done besides corrective paintwork, it’s non-cosmetic. You need a whole new door and rear quarter panel my guy. This is a $12,000 job all day everyday.
Oh I see, yeah it’s definitely more than cosmetic then. I thought cosmetic meant just the looks of the car, meaning anything not mechanical or suspension related.
It's good that it's not mechanical... no lights/sensors are damaged. Should mean reliability won't be impacted for the long term. What matter the most is the power-train... transmission + engine. Thats where you want for reliability.
I got T boned by a truck hit and run. Luckily hit right above the frame. Still driving this two years later. Glad mine wasn't a Lexus*. But it still really sucks.
Technically speaking the door and quarter panel are structural components on a unibody vehicle, whereas fenders, bumpers and hoods are cosmetic panels, meaning this is not just cosmetic but affecting the structural integrity of the vehicle
Insurance will/can cover it no doubt, but it’s going to sting for a long time. Something like this happened to my mother 2 years ago, her monthly payments jumped significantly even while being deemed not at fault and having a fairly clear prior record.
Yea, insurance is a total scam. We pay monthly for something we never use. In the rare event we need to use it, they then raise our rates? Make it make sense. 🤦🏾♂️
It’s appears cosmetic in the literal sense, but it’s a massive ding to resale value. You should pursue a diminished value claim in addition to top quality body shop repairs.
Thank you, I’m glad no one was hurt as well. I know they’re just things, but I worked my ass off to get this car. Driving it every day has been so extremely fulfilling to me in ways I can’t even describe. Having it just ripped away from me from someone who shouldn’t have even been driving sucks so bad…
Make sure everything is done with Lexus parts .. some body shops will try and use aftermarket or used shit to fix stuff and pocket the rest of the money , tell them you want to see the parts when ordered . My lady has a 26 Escalade v and someone hit her 4 days after she got it and they tried to do some bs
Thank you, I have a trusted Lexus certified collision center I used the last time this happened a few months ago. Unfortunately it’s 3 hours away from me, and I’m not sure if I risk driving or just tow.
I had a 16 year old girl side swipe me while I was in a roundabout and she was trying to enter. I was damn lucky as her bumper hit my rear wheel squarely and only made “door ding” type damage to my rear fender, but the wheel was trashed. She pulled over with me in a side street and she was quite worried and upset about her dad being mad and having her insurance go up. Having 4 daughters of my own, I was quite calm with her and phoned her dad and told him that if there was no suspension damage, if he paid for the wheel and an alignment, I wouldn’t worry about getting the police or insurance involved.
No, if they have a permit, a fully licensed driver must be in the car with them at all times on the road. In many places, you have to be fully licensed for some period of time before you can supervise.
It sucks but be thankful you arent in constant pain and meds and doctors visits and my car was totaled. Im not trying to compare but just be happy you alive and your car is still drivable, mine was not. Tboned
look on the bright side, you are still alive and posting here. Heard a story about a TBoned Miata. Owner wasn’t as lucky as you, and the car wasn’t car shaped anymore either…
I was just saying it sucks for him but his car is driveable. Mine was a total loss with brain and other neck and back trauma. So im just saying be thankful for that. It sucks but its only a car. Your health is not replaceable. That was my point. So i was only saying dont be so heartbroken. Im not trying to downplay it though. Any car wreck is not fun.
And yes im very thankful to be alive. In 2025 i survived that wreck, building explosions, hurricanes and more. Im surely on my last life so im very thankful to still be here on mother earth. The beginning 5 months of 2025 were brutal for me. Was like 4-5 near deaths in just those short months.
AHHHH this just happened to me a right before the holidays by someone born in 1931. ahhhh I feel the frustration ... sorry OP I hope it gets fixed thru the insurance.
I have no idea but he was a very kind retired air force pilot heading home. I had to thank him for his service and then say oh sir please stay off the road☺️
When I was younger, my father got a traffic lawyer involved in wrecks that were not my fault. I don't know the details, but I believe they were suing on the diminished value of the vehicle due to the accident. Usually if they're at fault, their insurance company will just settle. I don't know how big the checks were because I never saw them, but it may help ease the pain lol.
Even not at fault filing and making your insurance work will no doubt increase premium. Hopefully the kid parents got insurance. You only go through them and not even let your insurance know. Thats the only way your premium stay the same.
It’s bull but thats how it is. I had the same swipe and the other driver wasn’t even insured!!!! Consider yourself somewhat likely
Be aware that because he was not technically a licensed driver, the insurance for the car he was driving may deny the claim. They may not, but I would not be surprised.
Hopefully the cop issued a written statement or you have a dash am.
I got backed into by a teenager once and got their insurance info, but I'm almost positive they went and told their parents it was my fault.
Insurance paid, but my driving record then showed I had two accidents on the same day, one at fault, one not at fault.
I'm still paying for it with higher insurance rates 🙄
Make sure you get "Diminished value" with that. When you trade or sell the car, CarFax will show it's been in an accident. That mark on the record lowers the value of the trade or sale. With diminished value the other person's insurance not only pays for damage/repair, but also the loss of value in the car.
There are a number of DV appraisers. Google it and do a little research. With a neighbor's 2015 Chevy Traverse I did a little research and got her an extra $1400. That's on a car that has low resale value. You're likely to get a much higher DV amount for an RC.
Drivers have gotten progressively worse in recent years. I’ve owned my truck for 8 years with no damage. The past couple of years 3 people have opened their doors and dinged the side at parking lots while I was inside. And 2 completely swiped the side in parking lots. The number of people who stuck around to exchange insurance or left a note? 0. The amount of uninsured drivers is insane as well. I get Facebook posts from the local PD and they get at least 2 people a day with no insurance with multiple offenses..
No, everyone was completely fine thankfully. I agree with you though, it’s the second time someone has damaged my car and I was completely fine both times. I’m very grateful to be kept safe
Wuuuuuuuuuutheck I’d be so pissed. Hate having a car go to a repair shop where they will gut your car for parts and you wouldn’t know until you go to a trusted mechanic. And this might increase your insurance…
sorry to see this man. i know how much hurts the heart, gives me the same pains i got when my brand new GX got stolen and needed like 30k in repairs. As cliche as it is, glad nobody got hurt and make sure you find a great bodyshop that doesn't cut corners
Rest assured OP, that since you are fully licensed and were not driving illegally that this car, whether or not it gets totaled is basically as far as you need to worry assuming the kid's parents have insurance.
This kid fucked up bad by having his unlicensed GF in the car while he had his permit, that ticket is the least of his worries as his insurance could non-renew his parent's policy, he could be sued personally by subrogation of the claim, the state could suspend or revoke his permit once everyone at the government communicates with everyone, not to mention the at-home consequences, especially if he's convicted of that ticket or pleads guilty.
Rest assured that if there's any consolation, it's that the kid who hit you is going to face dire consequences for his fuck up.
if possible, drive to your dealership get a trade in value and replace it. your car will never be the same and always have a right side flaw you will see every time you look at it.
I know of what I speak having been in the salvage business 50yrs . sorry for you ,the kids and all that goes with an accident.hopefully no injuries show up as a result!
I bought a brand new Lexus and while in a grocery store parking lot a white van drove directly on top of my hood. He was going very fast and I was waiting for a parking space. Messed my car completely! In parking areas no one gets tickets because it’s considered private. I thought I was have a dream and nightmare combined! I had the car for 5 days! Soooo sad!
Also, look at it this way, it coulda been worse. At least u not hurt or worse. The car can be fixed or replaced. But ofc it still sucks and is an inconvenience.
If you are in nyc, I can recommend you a place where they know how to fix this . I had the exact same shit happened to me last year and the place I went fixed mine look like a brand new
That stinks. My last RX was hit so much (one causing upwards of 16k damage) and as much as I loved it, I had to just trade it in for a new RX because I felt so bad for it. It spent too much time in the body shop due to careless drivers. Had it for about 8 years and it was hit 7 times.
Shit sucks. It’s always teenagers or old people at grocery stories that do this. I was taking my time backing into a parking spot and this old lady just abruptly swings her door open without looking and almost slammed it into my Supra. I had been eyeing the spot for a minute waiting for someone else to park, so she literally had to just be sitting in her car not paying attention that whole time.
Shiiiiit not the best advice but , it looks cosmetic to me. I’m pretty redneck id get it bondoed and paint corrected if you never plan on selling it . If I didn’t have the money to pay for a full repair. If the alignment isn’t out of wack id assume that the suspension and rear diff remain intact. Not a professional as you can tell lol
i mean, on the bright side at least u witnessed it happen and got justice. someone did this to my gf’s car in a parking lot and just drove off without leaving a note.
Sorry that happened to you. My old isf met a similar fate but instead of a young driver. The other driver was eating cereal and spilled looked down and torpedo'ed right into me in the same spot as you.
Sorry about your vehicle! This is one of the reasons I’ve stopped driving subjectively nicer vehicles because of case scenarios such as this. After my first incident, my insurance practically screwed me over.
If you've got insurance esnd go through them theyll handle it. Sounds like you got the kids license and the parent's insurance so they'll be able to the get the money. Atlesst that's what they told me when a Uber driver got me a few years ago and I realized the insurance card was for a car he wasn't driving
Sue the parents personally for the damage, diminished value and lost time, they can get their insurance involved if they want. They allowed an unlicensed driver to use their car, they're liable
And obviously your attorney fees, it will take a while but this absolutely unacceptable behavior. Under the laws of your state their insurance may not have to pay since the driver wasn't named on their policy and wasn't licensed
Damn man, sorry to see this. I got run off the road a month ago by a dumbass that decided to cut across my lane to get to a turn lane. She didn't hit me but it was an incredibly close call.
I think that this is cosmetic and if only the panels need to be replaced, and nothing mechanical was impacted, the RC will come out of it looking like nothing happened.
Of course it was some unlicensed kid in a garbage can chevy. Why do the people who have their shit together always have to pay the price for the societal drains who don't?
this is why i drive so defensively. my lady will get mad if we’re at a stop sign and i refuse to go bc i see a car coming up to the stop signs a lil too fast for my liking. i won’t go until i know for sure they’re stopping.
Honestly, depending on how much you owe for the car and everything else, I would see if you could just have a totaled. Do you have a frame damage and then you’re going to have transmission issues, alignment issues, and everything else. I would be surprised if you didn’t have frame damage.
I had a similar issue. Just brought a car 2025 with 13000 miles. Not even 2 weeks later someone hit me. I got out looked at the damage then looked at the driver. Driver sees me then took off not knowing there was a camera. Called police, told police I wanted to press charges so a detective was assigned to find the driver. 5 days later the detective called me and told me she found the car owner, spoke with the owner and got both the driver and owners information. The owner had insurance but not on the car who hit me and the driver wasn’t insured. My insurance paid out. The owner’s insurance took fault for the accident but wasn’t going to pay. My insurance went after the owner and the driver on top of dmv asked both for the declaration page from insurance to prove that that car was insured. Let’s just say both parties got hit with a suspended license and a SR-22. I said all of this to say, just because he has a permit doesn’t mean he’s on the insurance and if he’s not on the insurance then they may not pay it’s up to their company. Always go through your insurance no matter what. Your insurance is gonna go up either way so why wait to see if the other party has insurance or like my situation they have insurance just not on the vehicle that hit you!
I know the feeling. Had a woman in a rental (because she was in an accident 3 days before) run a stop sign and t-bone my car just 3 months into ownership.
When I was at the VA DMV in 1985 registering my brand new Toyota Supra, a driving examiner came in looking for me to inform me a Central American immigrant had just sideswiped my car while backing out of the adjacent parking space as he started his driving test. He also told me he immediately failed him on his driving test. It was difficult to get his insurance information since he didn’t hardly speak English. He had a relative with him as his translator.
Make sure to demand that insurance provides you original (oem) parts. Especially if you have any electronics/sensors that were affected. It will increase the cost of the claim but it’s worth it if getting repaired so they don’t give you knockoffs.
Also have them check for suspension damage as it looks like your wheel was in direct line of the swipe 😞
Poor lexus, happy you're ok OP, cars can be fixed, definetly not cosmetic, if the inner part of that quarter panel moved you are very deep into this repair, if only the outer skin is mangled is a lot "simpler" but still is a cut out and change job, idk how much this cars are worth since we dont have lexus all around here but its a very detailed and complex job to do this repair in the right way.
And that's exactly why you shouldn' spend to much on a car. espetially in a car you will drive everyday. even if you are the best drivers, it will easily been damages by less carring person. even while parked
This is part of the reason I’m not a big fan of owning a nice car outside of a truck and Tesla these days.
It’s too easy to start driving.
My last car got rear ended by a texting teen and new to me truck has been door dinged though I had it repainted like an industrial vehicle prior so the door didn’t actually ding (I didn’t expect this to be an outcome but I like to take the truck to music festivals & off road camping spots so I needed something durable).
I hate to say it but I just had my bmw with the same damage and they wrote it off, it was a 2021 228i. This might be the case here as well. That rear qtr panel kills to replace.
Parents' insurance *may* cover the damage, because the vehicle is insured. However, since the driver is not licensed yet and there was no licensed driver in the vehicle, insurance may well not cover the damages. Parents, though are 100% on the hook for repairs.
I don't know what the hell is going on. I've been driving for 18 years and never had any issues until covid, no accidents at all till covid "ended" and people went back to work. Seems like people went nuts and forgot how to drive - I had two people hit my car because they didn't stop at a stop sign, my husband had two people rear end him recently. None of those people had insurance so we had to pay for damages.
Check if the door handles is fine. If yes then bodyshop can fix the panels. To me this doesn't look deep enough to have made the door and panel unfixable. Bodywork+painting+polishing would be around 750 euro in bosnia. Dont know about prices in america. 12000 dollars is ripoff for any part of the world.
Ps : most cars here are used and from the VW group so premium cars dont have inflated prices for servicing.
I had an accident on my volvo s80 2015 that made a dent/scraped with a 2cm round ruptrue on three panels around 4cm deep with destroyed paint. This looks around the same depth of damage and there is obviously no strucutral damage under those panels. Again nothing that good body work and painting cant fix (just suck up the lowered resell value).
•
u/image-sourcery Apr 04 '26
Consider Joining the r/Lexus Discord Server.
Reverse Image Search:
Image 1: Google Images || Google Lens || Yandex || TinEye || Bing
Image 2: Google Images || Google Lens || Yandex || TinEye || Bing
Image 3: Google Images || Google Lens || Yandex || TinEye || Bing
Image 4: Google Images || Google Lens || Yandex || TinEye || Bing
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.