2006 Mazda 3 Rearender.
 

Yesterday someone ran into me during a traffic stop. The damage appears to be surface damage above the rear license plate.

When I got home I noticed both lights above the rear license plate had come off and were hanging behind the license plate. I snapped them back in.

The insurance company told me to take the car to a few body shops including the dealer to determine if something else is damaged.

A bummer but I guess these things happen.

Marty

The same thing just happened to me in my '06, 3, see the post: "Sad (Long) Story" - https://www.mazda3club.com/mazda3-mazdaspeed3-98/sad-story-long-post-42519/ (sorry, don't know how to link other threads).

Same deal, surface damage, plate lights popped out. In all, they replaced both parts of the bumper and the absorber (which I'm assuming is inside the bumber). There was damage on the inside even though the bumper was not displaced at all. Definitely make sure the shop takes a good look.

As for loss of value, for the amount of work done our lawyer said it wasn't worth the effort.

Our Mazda dealer was not in the other party's insurance network, so we called around to a lot of shops. I found this important because the adjuster didn't think anything would need to be replaced - but he didn't question the shop we picked when they wanted to replace everything because it was in their network. I did not use his "preferred" shop, we picked our own.

Like everyone else said, demand Mazda parts, no aftermarkets.

Besides that, it looks fine, colors match, drives fine. Just a lot of hastles.

Hope this helps

this isnt really related to this topic but i just wanted to add this...

someone rearended me about a month ago(basically a hit-and-run) and when i check the damage, to my surprise, NOT ONE SCRATCH only the license plate was bent. this made me love my car even more!

Same here, we were hit hard enough that the other car's front liscense plate number and the word "Toyota" were imprinted on the bumber but it didn't budge. Had to be replaced but didn't cause any secondary damage. Even the hatchback closed perfectly fine.