Is there a website or approach to finding a good auto body shop in an arbitrary location? Most people say "ask friends" but if you are new to an area, is there another way?

A friend of mine suffered an auto accident recently, but she has not kept up paying her car insurance premiums. Therefore, it was canceled. Now she has no insurance and no money to pay up front. I would like to know if there is an auto body shop in the L.A. area which gives a payment plan in paying in installments or some sort of financing plan? Let me know ASAP! Thanks a lot.

I was pulled over, arrested, lost my job and my car was towed to an auto body shop who is now trying to charge me 1,500 dollars for almost 3 weeks of storage. The tow and original fee only added up to about 200 dollars, I could of borrowed that but now with storage its out of the question. Does anyone know any other way to get my car out?

Someone hit me and then took off. The police are too lazy to do anything about it - they didn't even write an accident report. I am hoping that this person gets their car fixed locally. I am wondering though, if I have the license plate number of the car, and I call up local body shops asking about this car, are they liable to cooperate? Or is it something like they usually protect their customers, etc? I've never had to do detective work before -