Ok, well recently I walked out of my house to find one of my mirros broken off, my lip kit damaged, and key marks all over my car. Yes that's right lovely vandalism.

So I called the insurance company and set up a claim. I can either go to one of their shops and get all the damage fixed, or I can choose my own shop and they will send out an estimator to check out the car and write me a check accordingly. And thus I would have cash in hand that I could use anyway I want.

I bring that up because I would love to swap in a VQ35 w/6 spd. It's been my dream for quite some time and I don't have the money to do it on my own, this could easily be my ticket to it. However I would also love to have a freshly painted car with my lip kit fixed. I'm torn between the two.

So I was wanting to get some opinions of you guys on here.

What should I do, just get the car painted, or give newfound power to my car?

 

If they gonna ask for reciepts, i say get the car painted. but i dunno...

 

Thats a tough one. Because this is my daily driver I couldn't put my car out to do a swap, but then again I would put it out forever just to get it repainted. But you should check to make sure they are going to repaint the whole thing. They may just spot fix it. In which case it would be better just to do the swap....

Making sure my car looks good is top priority to me. So I would get it repainted. Maby you can do both! Ya never know!

 

They didn't say anything about wanting receipts.

 

3.5 swap = more money on gas


id just get her painted

 

First of all, what makes you think the vandals won't strike again once everything is repainted/fixed???

I'll add more later.....

 

Find a good appraiser that will appraise it at a lot more than what the damage is actually worth haha
How bad is the damage? It sounds like you worry about how your car looks... me, I dont really care so I would probably go with the vq35.

 

paint

 

do you even have the place/tools/time/knowledge to do a vq35 swap? If you don't then just get the car painted. Id go with black.

 

I say get it repainted, because I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my car looking like a piece of crap all the time, no matter how quick it was. The Wizard brings up a very good point, though.

 

definately paint but if you can get a high estimate you might be able to pull off both.

 

not really...IIRC they get about the same mpg

id still go with paint tho, having my car look good is priority for me also. (i still love going fast tho)

 

are you insulting me? If I didn't have those things I wouldn't even be considering it as an option.

Looks like the majority here are leaning towards the paint. This may be just what I needed.

 

That's another thing I question, how high the estimate will be. The reason I think they will repaint is because the key marks are really dug in.

I was considering getting the check anyhow so I don't have to pay my deductible ($250), but what if the estimate isn't high enough to fix all the damage?

 

There shouldn't be any reason for the estimate not to be high enough. If your appraisers a POS then he'll give you a check to get wherever you got your scratches painted and enough for a bodyshop to replace the mirror.

If you get lucky you'll get a nice fresh paint job and most of the damage fixed. That is if you got your car fully covered (or whatever insurance you have) before you modded it with the lip kit.

 

Go to a quality (expensive shop) and get it quoted, then like my grandpa use to say "CASH is King"

 

I just talked to my insurance company and he explained that if the shop ended up being more than the estimate that the shop would just send them the extra bill and pay for it that way. So I'm going to get a check from them so I don't have to pay the deductible out of my pocket. Then I'll just have to decide shortly after what to do, get the paint or performance. But I think I'm leaning towards the paint.

 

How about adding a viper alarm into the mix? Next time, you can find the vandals while they are at work, and then unmercifully beat them.

 

Or better...pull out that shotgun.