In my experience the Police just dont care about theft of auto parts....they only seem to care about gun crimes or terrorism these days and if you try to get their action about anything short of those events they give you some kind of run-around while they do NOTHING to help you or to try and catch the perpetrators.

Would be nice if you found out who took your stuff though +1,000,000 for the vicious beating!

Best of luck in getting your car back to working order

 

Sorry to hear what happened to your ride. But yeah, Queens, BK, and the bronx, have always been a major target for the 5.5 headlight thefts. They've died down recently. My GF also lives in queens and i would constantly look at my Clifford's remote for any detection of movement. Could never sleep properly. LOL... They did steal my fogs though.

It's also the main reason i still havent installed my 02 headlights on my 2000 yet.

 

Finally got the complaint # from the precinct on Tuesday afternoon.
All that wait for a 3 digit number.
NOt sure whose worse, the thieves or the cops at this precinct

 

wow that sucks....i hate thieves get a job losers....good luck man

 

UPDATE:
got an estimate for 3900 minus my 500 deductible.
Dropped car off at my auto body guy and the second I told him that I have Progressive insurance, he was upset and said that if he didn't know me he would've asked me to go back home and take it to someone else. He said insurance companies are nothing but thieves but specially Progressive. They are hard to deal with and always looking to replace parts with NON-OEM parts which is what is stated on my estimate. Everything is NON-OEM.

If an aftermarket bumper fits just the way factory did, maybe I don't have such an issue. But when you put a non-oem grille which the chrome is going to fade in less than a year, then I have an issue. When they write me up for non OEM headlights then I have an even bigger issue. Provided that I have been contemplating on getting the halos, but let that be my choice, not theirs, the car has nissan HID lights.
From what I understand, you can never reproduce the lighting quality of a factory HID with any knock-off Joe Schomo-put together lights with a HID kit.
Really heated about this. Going to call insurance and demand that I want NISSAN HID's just like it had.

 

It depends on the state that you live in, here in MA, if your car is 2 years or newer and has 20k miles or less, then the insurance HAS to replace all parts with OEM, other wise, they usually go with used parts if they are available or CAPA certified parts if available. ONLY if good used parts are not available and CAPA certified parts are not available then they will purchase new oem parts but they will deduct betterment.

You, as the policy holder, can request to have all OEM parts put on the car, but once again, you will have to cover the betterment, in your case, I would recommend sourcing out good used OEM parts because the betterment for a 9 year old car will be substantial especially on the headlights.

I finished classes to be an adjuster so we went over all of this, I also run a repair shop and deal with this on a daily basis.

In my experience, the CAPA certified bumper covers are decent but the headlights are horrible, nothing close to OEM fit and finish and don't even get me started on the light output of the aftermarket headlights.

$3900 seems kinda high for a bumper cover, side markers and headlights (especially if they wrote up all aftermarket parts). Did they write off the harness? Are you sure they called for aftermarket parts? How much are the rates in your state? I would like to see the appraisal if you don't mind posting it up.

 

[QUOTE=02nissmax;6860438]thats what i'm saying. I mean, it's a pretty busy road even at 3 or 4 am in the morning, I see people drive up and down the road. Plus there is a whole array of building apartments right there. Someone must've heard noises: ratches being dropped, things being pulled left and right

Well think about it, i was actually watching tv and there was a show on chop shops and how they go about their work. If you were driving by and saw someone with the hood open on there car, flashers, and had a tool box and was doing work would you suspect he was stealing the car? Maybe, but i doubt it'd be your first response. Usually personality and "trying to be slick and quick" gives away theives.. But you weren't kidding when you said professionals.. Sorry about the loss man, surprised Nissan hasn't taken responsibilty for this..
gl..

 

thanks for your input.
You stated, only if good parts are not available will they use aftermarket.
I mean what is the defenition of good used parts?
Let's throw them on because they are good shape, forget whether they leave gaps or not? That's crazy.

My estimate on parts from Nissan is around 3500, they wrote it for 3900 -500 deductible. Don't forget this includes the labor as well. So really 3400 for aftermarket parts and labor is a scam to me.

I can e-mail you the copy of it if you pm me your e-mail address
I would defenitely appreciate your input on this estimate
IF there's a way to post a pdf file then I'll post it.
thanks

 

To add to that, I deal with these parts everyday. I know for a fact that the 00-03 maxima front bumper even non capa certified fits perfect. My cousin has one on his car now and have sold to a couple friends. My cousin also has the grille and it looks pretty good.

As for the Headlights, i believe at one point the TYC brand just sold OEM Nissan Headlights as their part. I'm not sure anymore but you can give that a shot.

Good luck

 

thanks!! Appreciate your input. This is driving me nuts cause really I don't want my car to be butchered with non oem parts that fit like crap.
As long as the bumper fits good, then i'm good.
I'll search for those TYC lights, thanks

 

Progressive is now stating that the this is under investigation because this kind of thing doesn't happen in that area?

LOL they are a bunch of clowns
I believe they are really calling this fraud.
Now, why the heck would I go and cut the damn wires of all my headlights? If I was going to make money on this, it's easier to make money other ways, not cutting my damn headlight wires so I'm left with the task of replacing my own damn headlight harness.

They might take up to 5 days, in the meantime my car is sitting in the body shop doing nothing.

 

Insurance finally send me a check for 3412.00.

They are giving me 375.00 for each headlight assembly which they located at some place called Accurate Auto. These lights include the ballast.
I called the place myself and they said the ballast is myade by phillips and the headlights are made by depo.
NOt sure what kinda crap i'm getting here.

 

Sorry to hear that man, I'm in Queens all the time for work and I'm already worried to death about it (got the car on Tuesday).

 

Yeah, gotta be careful

there has also been lots of thefts around here of s2000 seats.
the thieves simply cut the soft top, open the door and unbolt the seats and take them.
Losers need to get a job

 

I would just source the parts yourself at this point. Depo headlights are garbage....check ebay for stuff, you can probably get your car reassembled for around 1-1.5k.

Use the rest to pay your raised insurance rates....

 

just checked ebay on those seats....WOW they fetch 800-1k$ DAYUM

 

yeah I did try to check ebay. Didn't really see any lights that were OEM.
The only indicator I have to go by is price. Everything I saw was for 1/2 the price and for the pair, I mean that can't be factory Nissan headlights...?

 

Headlights:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/02-Ni...QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-X...QQcmdZViewItem

Posting a WTB ad in classifieds helps turn up some more for ya.

Front Bumper replacement:

I used them too replace my bumper it worked fine:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NISSA...QQcmdZViewItem

 

thanks very much for your time/research
gonna see what I can fetch from these links

 

really who cares? get whatever money from insurance co then buy your parts off this board and surely you will have all oem parts and def money left over.

i have 2k but 2k3 front bumper bought off this board for 50 then just had it painted. you said 3000 ish was what they estimating which wow! you could replace all parts and paint your whole car and still have some mponey left over.

 

I've seen some salvage yards sell brand new tyc headlights on car-part.com . I dont know how they compare to oem. Nissan oem headlights will have nissan written on the ballast and will also say nissan & ICHIKOH on the front of the assembly.

Good luck with your car. Looks like someone got into a front end accident and needed some parts to fix their car.

 

Finally got my car back this past Saturday it's looking good.
Because I really had no time to be looking around for parts. And on top of that if I get something from a member or ebay, you just don't know what you are getting or you can get screwed(past experience speaks), I just let the body shop get factory bumper/grille/and emblem. Headlights are TYC, oh well. The headlights though, they look pretty damn good and the light pattern is good to my knowledge. And they fit very nice to the factory bumper. I don't have another car to compare to though.

I could've probably saved money and pocketed money but all I wanted was to get this fixed ASAP given I had no time to look for parts, etc.

Here is the final product. (pic doesn't do justice, it sucks as I took it with my phone)

 

Looks good. The headlights seem to fit real nice. I would keep a couple coats of wax on those lenses though. Those NY winters will kill the aftermarket lenses in no time.

 

yeah, my auto body guy was really impressed with the fitting quality of the lights. He was very opposed to me using aftermarket lights but also understood my situation.

thanks for the wax tip.

 

looks oem to me from that pic glad to see that everything worked out well

 

that came out good.

 

you now need to visit PROLINE and get an aftermarket, alarm with shock sensor, auto page, tilt, proximity sensor. i would never have my Maxi in nyc without aftermarket alarm support.

 

I had just one of my headlights stolen down in Florida so it happens everywhere. I bought a gun so next time they won't get it easy.

 

They make brackets for the headlights so they can't be ripped out but it will cause more damage to your car when they try to get them out.

 

Did you just join, and start strolling through the forums finding threads and posting random comments about stuff already covered?

 

Yes i did, is there a book I should read before I post something?

 

It looks just amazing to me . Sorry to hear your loss. And yes...brother has his civic si seats stolen at yankee stadium....cameras? lol