San Diego

Lagging Jaguar Repair

NBC 7 Responds helps one San Diego man get his prized Jaguar out of the shop

Anders Mattsson was stopped in traffic near Oceanside on Interstate 5 when he looked in his rear view mirror.

“I noticed something in the rear view mirror, granted a little bit late,” said Anders Mattsson. “That’s when someone hit my car and I just came to a complete stop there.”

Mattsson’s 2006 Jaguar was in bad shape. There was damage to the passenger and driver door as well as the rear end.

Mattsson said the driver’s insurance company, USAA, inspected the car and said it would be $2500 to fix. He said USAA also gave him the name of a shop that would fix the car.

“They were gonna fix it and so on,” said Mattsson. “I thought, hey this is moving smoothly. So far so good.”

But a week later Mattsson said the body shop called him and said the repair would cost $5000, twice the cost of the original estimate.

“They told me that they considered the car totaled,” he said. “I asked if I could pick up the car. They told me it was in pieces.”

Meanwhile, Mattsson said USAA declined to pay him for the rental car he rented while his car was in the shop.

He told NBC 7 Responds that he was at a fork in the road.

“I thought what else to do. Well, I thought, why not contact the media.”

Nearly five weeks after dropping his car off, Mattsson contacted NBC 7 Responds for help.

“I left a message with NBC 7 Responds and sent all of my documentation over like they asked and then a day later the local representative called and said, ‘Yeah we decided they were gonna fix for the car.’”

A few days later Mattsson received a letter from USAA stating that they were cutting a check for $8100 for the damages as well for the cost of the rental car.

Added Mattsson, “I was happy. I'm sorry that they got it wrong. You know I wish they had. But now when they did I think they had to take a little bit of responsibility for it.”

In a statement, a spokesperson from USAA told NBC 7 Responds, "USAA takes pride in providing best-in-class service, paying what we owe on claims and working with our members and claimants through every step of the auto claim process.”

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