Thanks for the support. Yeah I have a lot of sentimental attachment to my Dakota, like all of us here do. I put a ton of time and energy, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears into my truck. Not to mention a lot of money. And yes my Dakota is like family to me. I am just glad they are fixing it, I looked all over around here and there really is not a Dakota I would want available at a good price. And of the ones that are for sale, not too many are Club Cabs and there were hardly any with a 5-speed. I don't like automatic transmissions much. I am too tall for a regular cab, and I don't like the looks and shorter beds of the quad cab. No offense intended toward the quad cab owners here.

I went by the body shop this morning before I went in to work and they are real nice and extremely helpful people there and they are being very good about everything. Just from judging by the other work they had in progress, I believe they will be able to do a great job fixing my truck. Their shop is as clean as a hospital operating room. The shop manager thinks they might have my truck done by next Friday, if they can get all the parts soon enough.

I am just very grateful to be getting my truck fixed. It's a great truck and I have a lot of new parts on it and I don't want someone else's used junk and I really don't want a higher payment on a used piece of junk either. My truck is a real good truck and I am very glad to be keeping it. I just have to drive carefully and watch out for idiot drivers on the road.

Thanks again for all the support here.

Jimmy

 

Exactly!!!

I get SOO sick when they total a <10 year old car INSTANTLY, not matter the damage.

 

Well the body shop called today and said my truck was ready..I picked it up and overall am pretty satisfied with the work. They did a pretty good job, the only thing I am not very happy with is the front grille. It is definitely aftermarket and I don't like the fit and finish on it. It pooches out a bit at the bottom and at the top the small space between it and the hood is not consistently equal distance across the top of the grille. One thing that is nice about the new grille though is the horizontal fins in the grille insert are painted to match the silver color of the grille and hood. It looks better that way, the old one had black fins.

Other than that, there were a few things I had to go back and re-do, like they mounted the mercury tilt switch on the hood for my alarm backwards and did not re-route the wire for it through the metal frame channels on the bottom side of the hood. They had to replace the battery tray and when I got the truck back the battery was not sitting level in the tray, it was propped up at one end on the top edge of the surface of the tray, and the battery cable ends were not as far down on the battery posts as I had them before the accident. When I fixed that I took the opportunity to clean the cable ends and battery posts and put a fresh coat of Vaseline on them to help stop corrosion. And they kind of left the wiring for my fog lights sort of wrapped up together up by the battery, but that is OK because since Allstate would not replace my aftermarket fog lights, I had the body shop install the bumper cover for a Dakota without fog lights, and I told them I would reinstall a set of fog lights myself later on.

I didn't like the way they had routed the hose for my windshield washer fluid pump so I re-routed it myself. They definitely used an aftermarket headlight assembly on the driver's side, so now I have to put some elbow grease into the passenger's side headlight to make them match as best I can. And they replaced the rubber flap on the inside edge of the driver's headlamp assembly with a very flimsy aftermarket part. It is that flap that goes between the light assembly and the edge of the grille. I'll have to pick up a factory one at a junk yard some time.

The nice thing is the new AC condenser, the new radiator and the new fan shroud are definitely good quality parts from what I had before. The strange thing is they had to R&R both side view mirrors, I don't know if that is an insurance requirement or they just did it to keep paint off of the mirrors. The mirrors don't look new, so I have no idea why that was done. I can tell they had the door panels off though, the window handles are in different positions now.

All in all the imperfections were very minor and were things that only I would notice. They did a pretty good job considering Allstate had said they would pay to fix the truck but the limit was $4,050.00. The final bill came to $4,035.00. No, the truck is not exactly like it was before, but I think it is an acceptable repair. I checked every single function on my truck except the 12 volt socket, and the test drive was good, no odd new noises or driveability problems. I consider myself very lucky that Allstate repaired my truck instead of totaling it out. Here is a link to some pics I took today, click on the previous and next arrows on the right side of the page and you can flip through it like an album. I even threw in a couple shots of my garage.

http://yfrog.com/jnp1010014tj

Thanks everybody for all the help and support here. It sure is good to have my truck back home again.
_________________________
Jimmy9190

 

Good to hear you got your truck back and seem mostly satisfied with it.

Not to hijack the thread, but I have a question which is at least kind of related considering you just had massive front-end repairs done...

Why is it apparently IMPOSSIBLE for the gap between the bottom of the headlights and the bumper to be the same on both sides? My truck never had front end damage, and it is like that. Yours has been fixed, and it appears to still be like that. Has anyone else ever noticed this?

 

Maybe it's from the locations of the bumper mount bolt holes being a little higher on one side, or maybe there is a little too much play in the bolt holes and the assembly line guy only has so much time to put the bumper on and could not get it straight all the way across. I don't know, I never really noticed it on my truck, not before or after the wreck.

Jimmy

 

Your truck looks great. I'm really glad it was fixed for you. Seeing your new headlight makes me want new ones too! But I think I will just buy them and skip the bodyshop thing

 

Thanks. I called Allstate today and complained about the grille. They had the adjuster call me back, he said he had already given the body shop authorization today to replace the grille with a new OEM or a clean salvage grille, whatever it takes to make it right and keep me happy. So hopefully I will hear from the body shop soon to bring it back in for that and I will be done getting my truck fixed.

They replaced the headlight and I guess it has a plain 9007 bulb in it, my passenger side still has a Night Hawk bulb so the light pattern is off. The Night Hawk shines further and brighter so the light pattern looks wierd. I'll have to pick up another Night Hawk next time I go to Walmart.

 

Man, you should say a quick little "thank you" for having one of the three decent insurance adjusters walking the face of the Earth (no offense if anyone is an insurance adjuster here - you are likely the second of the three).

 

Oh I let the adjuster and the claims rep know that they have really done a great job handling this for me. I thank God they fixed my truck. It was just a hair away from being totaled and sent to the junk yard. It would have bene a financial disaster right now if I had to buy another truck. And I don't want someone else's used piece of junk either. One thing I like about my own truck is I know its history and I know it has been and will continue to be very well maintained.

I am very grateful they fixed my truck. All I need now is to get the grille taken care of.

Jimmy