Well, in the interest of "closure", I got my car back and it's fine. Shop did a good job. Paint is fine, gaps are fine, no leaks, everything works as it should, no rattles, etc.
The final tally is as follows:
- Repair and repaint the hatch (includes removing and reinstalling any necessary parts)
- Replace diverter
- Replace bumper/cover including painting with all appropriate flex additives, etc.
- Replace rear impact bar
- Replace right hand guide bracket (not sure which item this is but it was apparently bent)
- Replace R logo (not sure why they couldn't reuse the old one)
- Any other remove/replace items such as parking sensors which did not need to be replaced
Total was 29.8 hours at $2567, all paid for by the other insurance company. All parts replaced were OEM VW parts. Paint used was OEM Lapiz Blue. So I'm satisfied with the repairs which, considering how hard the impact felt, were not as bad as I thought.
Diminished value? Sure but I don't really care. This is my daily driver and I don't treat it as a collector car. Unless I absolutely have to have something else for some reason, I intend to keep it a while at which point the diminished value is less applicable. Very low miles, regular maintenance and a regularly cleaned and waxed (ceramic coated) car will tend to make up for that in my opinion.
Accident on Carfax? Yeah. Again, not that big a deal if I keep the car a long time. I have pictures and any reasonable person can see the car was not significantly damaged so if they just have to have a couple grand taken off the price, so be it. Again, I did not buy it for an investment so I can easily make that money back by eating generic Pop-Tarts for a while.
