If you are in the Birmingham area and are involved in an automobile accident that causes damage to the automobile, you will want to get an estimate on how much it will cost to replace the car. This may be a confusing area for you, particularly if you have never had to have an estimate done. Luckily, auto body repair estimates in Birmingham work in a very simplified manner that will make the process easier.
The first thing to remember is that if you have the ability to get more than one estimate on the repairs needed, you should. Moreover, make sure that the auto body shop that you get the estimate from guarantees the work: this means that if something is discovered wrong with the body later, the auto body shop will help fix it. This guarantee should be made in writing and you should make sure that you keep it with any receipts.
After getting your insurance estimate and identifying potential body shops to take the vehicle to (using reviews, for example), you will now need to know what the repair estimate involves.
The auto body repair estimate in Birmingham involves a series of steps that a body shop will take in order to provide you a cost for repairs.
The most crucial part of the estimate process is the visual inspection. The body shop will examine both the surface damage and inspect whether any damage to the framework occurred.
The costs that you will have to pay in order to have your car repaired stem from the visual inspection and are proportionate to the location of the damage. In other words, if there is damage to the framework, the costs of repair will be higher; cosmetic damage will be cheaper to repair.
The visual inspection is also the reason that you may want to get a second opinion on the estimate. This is not because you should only be searching for the cheapest repair, but because this will allow more than one set of eyes to examine the vehicle. The first inspection may miss something that the second picks up. If, on the other hand, both inspections miss the damage, having the guarantees will help ensure that anything that is missed can be fixed more quickly.