Comment by AngryData

Do you really think cops are going to take the time and the tools to properly disassemble a vehicle for inspection and not rip apart panels, cut into seats, and break shit? Their search is legal and so they have qualified immunity from damages if there is even the slightest hint of possibility that they might have found evidence for a crime they suspected in the process. Harlow v.Fitzgerald established qualified immunity as it stands today and it is all but blanket immunity as long as there is any legal backing for their actions, which we have already established they have.

A 5 second google search will bring you up endless legal explanations from lawyer firms that if it is a legal search you have almost no chance of getting your money back unless you can someone get an officer to admit to damaging your property without cause, and good luck with that when they know they can just claim they were performing a legal search. And a few more minutes you will find endless cases of damage awards being denied, even in many cases where the search was found to not be legal to start with and all criminal charges dropped.