It's Dead Jim! Carnage from Road Debris - Squeamish Beware

1. Call your agent and mention words like "Good Faith" and the responsibility to "Make Me Whole".

2. Remind them that you paid for coverage, and you want it fixed NOW.

3. Make them give you a comprehensive estimate of damage, INCLUDING labor.

4. Tell them the next phone call will be to the State Insurance Board.

5. Give them 24 hours to get you and appointment.

6. Be sure to get the name and number of who your talking to, (agent), and hold them responsible.

You paid for it, get them to cover it or else. You did nothing wrong, and road hazard is covered, whatever the source.

Than call the State DOT about road debris.

Hate lazy insurance companies. They are paid for coverage, use it.

Larry

 

The "agent" is going to be a "company man" and operate from the script. Call the insurance commission or access the website on how complaints are handled. Ya gotta be specific with these insurance folks and watch your ass all at the same time. Same deal on calling VDOT. Engineering keeps records on all this stuff.

aka.."Ducks in a row", Be Prepared"," Haste makes waste" (many others) (too many)

 

It's Alive!!

Well, no thanks to VDOT or Geico, I finally got the engine swapped for one from an 01'. The below is the first time trying to start the new 01' engine that I bought from E-bay:

[video=youtube_share;9DMnWx7WhDw]http://youtu.be/9DMnWx7WhDw[/video]

Attached are some pics of the swap and finally how the bike sits now. There are 3 major things that were different from the 98-99 to 00-01 engines worth noting if you get put in a position where you have to try this:

1. Coolant elbow on left engine crank case (has a line-out to throttle body)
2. Thermostat housing (has a line in from throttle body)
3. Stator Connector - Different Pin Layout

For all these parts I just swapped in the parts from my destroyed engine onto the new engine in order to use my old manual choke throttle body, as well as my regulator/rectifier which has never missed a beat.

I drove the bike this past sunday and it is fantastic! Even faster than I remember. I cannot wait to get everything completely back together. I had to stop because my neighbor complained about me revving my engine to bleed the coolant system.

 

Impressive ! That u did all that work yourself ? I know ur feeling better about it now.

Exactly what kind of coverage did you have with Geico ? I'm insured with Geico too and would like to know what i might someday have to deal with should I have an accident of some kind.

 

My dad actually helped me a lot, especially with moving the engine/bike around (I could not have myself). And yeah it feels good to have her back.

I have geico's comprehensive insurance on this bike with liability. Apparently a road reflector going through your engine does not count as a "falling object" and so this incident would fall under collision, which I do not have. If I did have collision the bike probably would've been totaled and I would pay my deductable, get paid the bikes value, but something else, and then still be out the same amount of money as I am. Also the tow bill would not have been covered unless I paid extra on my insurance bill for it.


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Congratulations!

 

So. Have you made attempts at getting resolution from your Dept of Highways? I know they will try their best to skirt around responsibility, but clearly this is debris from their roadway that became dislodged, either from wear and tear of the roadway, or their maintenance removing same and leaving this debris behind. I should think that their is liability on their part for this type of thing.

 

This is a known hazard and the state is liable. Just chase them down it will be worth it. Also Geico should help point you in the right direction, they're the ones comming out smelling like a rose. Ask them for help seeing as though they dodged the bullet and it hit you!!

 

Rocker. That big truck in the background of maggot's avatar is one belonging to his DOH. His DOH pissed him off and look at those tires. LOL

 

Insurance company v. guy on VFR World...episode 9,001. FYI, 9,000 of those episodes were reruns, i.e., the outcome was exactly the same as the first one.

 

A couple of things I have found interesting with insurance coverage and claims. First on my wife's VFR we were not able to get collision through GEICO, only comprehensive and liability. I found this odd. So with that said because comprehensive should cover things like road debris, from personal experience on one of my cars the comprehensive insurance only covered me if the road debris was in the air an unavoidable. If it is on the roadway the insurance would not cover it since their stance is you should be aware and avoid road debris.

I know this for a fact because this happened to me. A big chunk of metal hit the front of my car causing about $5k in damage. Now on the car it was obvious to the insurance company because there was damage to the bumper, grill, and hood as well as undercarriage damage. So the point is if you can definitively state that the road debris was in the air you have a better chance of being covered.

But keep in mind insurance companies are in the business to make money so they will fight not to pay.

 

You'd be surprised on how much they'll give you for your riding gear. ...helmet...jacket....gloves ect.
Not much.....

 

Guys the geico ship has sailed, I'm still working on trying to get cooperation from VDOT (Virginia department of transportation), but mainly I'm happy she's running again, and pleasantly surprised at how quick the swap was.


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Awesome. Went through the same engine swap this year myself, I see you had the same prop the rear up method. Congrats on getting it back on the road!

 

Thanks! Why'd you have to do your swap? Just got here re-registered and inspected today. She's looking good!

 

thats a road reflector totally your state DOT on that issue

 

Nice job!

I salute you for not giving up on her, a good bike is worth the work, and all the scraped knuckles...

I bet it felt good to have her fighting fit again.

 

I like your stand. Did you make that or was that a piece of re-purposed furniture?

Looks really nice!

 

Wow. Necro-bump!!!

 

Thanks! Yeah it did, I've got about 8k miles on the swapped engine now (~56.5k on the bike). I've done a couple track days since and lots of commuting and she has been holding together! Only thing I'm noticing now is that I'm getting a lot of clutch chatter when I slip it too quickly with too many revs, the engine sort of catches and tries to stall. I will upgrade the clutch/springs some point down the road.

Good eye! That "stand" was a table in progress that my dad had lying around and never finished, I'm pretty sure it's still just sitting in the basement as is. Works great as a vfr stand!