Well this morning i woke up to a terrible phone call from my buddy that i ride with telling me that both our bikes had been tipped over last night and are on their sides. Went out to the garage of our apartment complex and sure enough they were. Took some pictures and put them back up again. My front and rear plastics are cracked and scratched, stator cover is scrapped up, mirror is busted off and the peg is damaged as well. His bike suffered similar damage. Fortunately there are cameras in the parking garage and hopefully we are in clear sight of them depending on how much they rotate. There is an officer that lives at the building who also has a bike (parked in a different spot and not knocked over) that my friend talked to and is filing a police report and claims he is going to check the films in order to make an arrest. Unfortunately today is also a beautiful day and wanted to ride to work however think its best to leave it for now and take the car to work.

I do have comprehensive on the bike however is a 500 dollar deductible and really dont wanna file and have my rates increase. Id like to take whatever action i can to have the person that did it pay or even the complex i live in. I am hopeful that the officer will have good news for me later this afternoon however am not really sure what to expect as i have never had to deal with something like this before. The only other thing with the complex is that we are supposed to have a locked garage with keyfob access however the door has been broken almost the entire year. I have personally brought the concern to the property manager a couple months ago and said they are in the process of having it fixed. My buddy and i just want our bikes paid for. Its not the end of the world but my bike is my baby and i dont take as good care of it as i do to have to pay for damages like this. Anyways anyone with thoughts or thats been through something similar words are appreciated.

Also anything internally i should be worried about with the bike being on its side all night?

Thanks

 

Sorry to hear that happening to you & your buddy.

Catch-22 w/ filing the insurance claim. However, unless you want more than the $500 deductible out of pocket, that's what you'll have to do. On the plus side however, if you can have a statement from that ofcr/mgr & video to prove it, this will go into the ins claim/file & will be in your favor. Your policy *shouldn't* increase or increase by much.

Your bike is probably ok except for cosmetics. Check for leaks/drips, make sure hoses are all attached, etc. Then, start it up & see how it sounds.

Good luck w/ everything.

 

give it time to settle once upright. you'll have a lot of oil on one side of the motor.


sucks that it happened to you, but what i ALWAYS do, is park next to a window where i'm at or make sure that i'm close to a camera so there's no doubt.



either 3 kinds of people. 1) jealous of bikers - cuz they don't have one 2) people that hate bikers because "you guys ride too fast" or whatever. 3) someone trying to take a picture on it and couldn't handle the weight or the fact the steering was locked.

they're almost always drunk



i think your bike is probably mechanically sound, just give it time to settle. take this as an opportunity to go through your bike and do some service.

does your apartment complex have stand alone garages? you and your buddy could go in on one together. and if you live on the bottom floor - pull your bike into your apartment. that's what i did in college, my bike was inside my apartment every night.

sorry to hear again

 

Well i filed a police report. Two officers came out and check out the damage to our bikes and got our info. They filed it as vandalism and noted the camera by the bikes. They said they would send out a detective to get the films from the cameras and see what they can do from there.

Only other thing i can think of is an issue with the complex itself as the garage door has been broken for 90 percent of the time ive lived here. Will have to look in the lease and see if there is anything to go off of.

Am also talking to the officer that lives here who also has a bike which is parked on the third floor. Am hoping he will be sympathetic to the issue and really push to help us out and make an arrest if the films show anything promising.

Started the bike up smelled oily but ran fine.

 

Oh that sucks. When my got pushed down, good thing the driver stopped and gave me all the info. He was my customer so I gave him my trust and I ordered parts from ebay and he came every Wed to make payment. I was lucky. I hope the camera will show what happened and you get compensated for the damages.

 

if your able to file a comprehensive claim your rates wont go up and if they do it will be very light, its very different then filing a collision claim, especially if you got proof from the camera. example: My friend blazed a dear in his BMW 330ci, $5000 in damage, filed comprehensive claim, $250 dollar deduct paid, his insurance went up 4 bucks. As for getting the complex to pay for it apart from you bringing it to them and they say ok and pay for it you'd have to file a lawsuit in small claims court and prove that the door has been broken for a year and that they knew about it and you brought it to there attention and that they didnt fix it and as a result someone came in and your bike was violated. That will only work if you can prove that it was someone that does not live in or has access to the facility through friends or family that live there. Hope everything works out for you.

 

My deductible is 500 for comprehensive. Didnt think it would ever be vandalized really have the coverage in case of theft. The bike still rides fine but the cosmetic damage bothers me.

Does the insurance company pay out to the shop or to the individual? for my deductible i could do the work myself and fix the damages and have no affect on my insurance. However if the insurance company paid me for the shop quoted price i could fix it myself and put the rest in the bank to cover any increase in my rates and for some gas money. I dont really see a point in filing a claim unless i can do this for my situation.

Secondly i spoke to the management and checked out the fine print of the lease and there really isnt any room to argue it is their fault. pretty much says everything is ur own risk no matter what we have (garage, locks, camera's, etc). The only thing i could go off of is possibly a verbal contract? the incident was not captured on camera so have no way of proving was anyone. unfortunately our bikes were just outside the frame the camera captures.

I wrote up a formal complaint and have a parts estimate. Im thinking i may be able to threaten small claims court and see if they will settle it outside of court and pay me off. I dont think i will have much leverage in court.

Or an other suggestion i was given is for my buddy and i to flip a coin and have one of us file a claim saying they dropped their bike into the others so one persons policy covers both bike and we split the deductible.

 

As far as flipping the coin I wouldn't. To many ppl know what's going on and I believe that would be insurance fraud. Word of mouth travels along ways

 

The insurance company won't give you what the shop quoted but you can ask for a cash payout and fix it yourself.
When my bike was backed into I took it to the Honda dealership and they quoted $4,400 damage. Insurance told me it was classified as a write-off because the damage was so high (All cosmetic) They said they would either give me $4,900 or a cheque for $3,700 to repair it myself (Cost me $1,700 and I got a new chain with that). Only thing is EVERYTHING on the quote has to be fixed and shown to the insurance company and until then if anything else happened to the bike it would be worth a total of $1,200 in their eyes.

And if you plan on making a fraudulent claim after you made a police report saying something completely different and setting one of you up for an at-fault accident (Which would be the case) does not sound like the smartest move.

 

That's one of my pet peeves. Insurance is supposedly based on the company's risk of a claim being filed. But if one files a claim they act as if they are only loaning money to cover damages and want it payed back with interest. What the devil were all the premiums for? Hawaiian vacations for their salesmen?

When our car was damaged in a car wash State Farm informed me that my rates would take a 28% hike if I filed a claim for $750 ($250 after the deductible). Fortunately the car wash company cut us a check for damages - and gave us a coupon for a free car wash.