Car insurance accident parts

 

October 5, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
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Auto crash parts are what the outer areas of a high performance car are called. These include things like the doors, body, and so on. They’re called that because they’re more likely than anything else to be affected, crunched up, and the like when you get into a car insurance accident. These parts for most of the history of cars could only be replaced by parts that were made by the manufacturers, called OEM parts or original equipment manufacturer parts. However, in recent years generic parts, or aftermarket parts, have also been made, and as a result the really expensive price of the OEM parts has gone down around thirty percent. Lots of car insurance companies started using these until a recent lawsuit against State Farm for the use of aftermarket parts. Since then, car insurance companies try not to use them.

The main part of the debate is coming from whether or not the parts that come from the aftermarket part suppliers are just as safe as the parts that come from the original equipment manufacturers. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety would like to state that most of these aftermarket parts are exactly as safe as the original equipment manufacturer parts, with no difference. The only part that doesn’t fall into that category are the hoods. The IIHS has conducted plenty of crash tests with aftermarket versus OEM parts, and that is how they have determined the safety of these parts. Now that they have these results, there are still many who are doubtful.

So do you have the right to choose whether you want generic or OEM parts when your car is getting repaired? It all depends on the company that you are with. Some companies make it a practice to use only original equipment manufacturer parts, but other companies will go with generic parts unless you say otherwise. With some of these companies, if you don’t want them to use the generic parts, then you will need to pay the difference between generic and original equipment manufacturer parts. If you are willing to take this cost, then you can do whatever you want. However, if you want to be certain that you will get only OEM parts for no extra charge, then you should go with companies like State Farm who have had the problems of being sued over the usage of aftermarket parts instead of OEM.

The debate that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety brings up is a pretty good one. What a bunch of people fail to realize is that most of the time, the original equipment manufacturer parts are made in the very same factories and by the same people as the generic parts are. The materials that are used are often of lower quality, but according to crash tests, despite this most of these materials have still managed to stand up to crashes and car accident collisions just as well as have the parts from the manufacturers.

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