Caj Darkmoon
02-01-2005, 02:34 AM
So a couple of weeks ago, actually, the day before I came back to college after break, I went up to my local video store to rent a movie (Gladiator). I parked in the middle of the lot and wen't into the store. About 5 minutes later a guy walks in asking if anyone drives the blue car in the lot. I drive a slate gray (ie nearly black) Nissan Sentra, so I didn't figure he was talking about me. Nobody responds after a minute though, so I walk up and ask if he's talking about a sentra, he say's he's not sure, but he backed into a car in the parking lot.
So we walk out into the parking lot, and, as I'm sure you already guessed, he had backed into my car. Now, I drive a Sentra. A Sentra is a relatively small car... OK, it's really small. This guy drove a large white truck. Not just large as in 'hey, that's a big truck,' but large as in he backed over my bumper without hitting it. His bumper pushed in my passenger headlight and grill , bent my hood up, and bent a piece of frame behind the radiator mounts. Then his exhaust pipe, apparantely feeling that my little used bumper was under represented, knocked a hole in my bumper... on the other side of the car. He managed to not damage the radiator or anything of mechanical importance though, so that was cool.
Now, I've never had anything bad happen to my car along those lines. It's a '94, so it's not in perfect shape by any means, the exaust, for example, has rusted apart in 3 places in the past 6 months. That led to a lot of cash and frustration, but whatever, that's another story. So it bothers me, but I figure it's cool because we both have insurance, I wasn't in my car, he backed into me, clear cut and all. Because it was on private property the cops wouldn't come do a police report under current michigan law, but he's not denying anything, so I'm still cool.
I get home to find out that with my PLPD insurance the max I can get is $500. That's not going to get near fixing the car, so I start figuring out what I can do on my own.
THEN I find out that under michigan's laws because it was in a parking lot and I guess I wasn't in the car, his insurance has to cover all of it, sweet.
So eventually, i.e. 3 weeks later, i.e. this morning I get in to get an estimate. The guy comes out and looks at my car, makes notes, opens the hood (which, for the record, took me 20 minutes to close because apparantely the frame had shifted more [it closed fine before] and I had to figure that out and then bend it back forward a little bit so the latch would take) and does his thing. Total estimate for damages came to $1798.
HuuAaah. That's a lot of money. Especially considering this is a car that I only payed 1500 or 1700 for (can't remember which, it's been a while).
Now there's two questions. First, will they pay that amount or decide to declare my car totalled and give me the value of the car. I find that humorous to declare a car totalled that only has front end body damage. The other question is whether I'll have to use the money toward the repair (i.e. it goes straight to the auto body place) or whether it will be at my disposal. If the second is the case I'll still end up doing a lot of the work myself. We'll see how it works out.
And that is my story for the night. :)
So we walk out into the parking lot, and, as I'm sure you already guessed, he had backed into my car. Now, I drive a Sentra. A Sentra is a relatively small car... OK, it's really small. This guy drove a large white truck. Not just large as in 'hey, that's a big truck,' but large as in he backed over my bumper without hitting it. His bumper pushed in my passenger headlight and grill , bent my hood up, and bent a piece of frame behind the radiator mounts. Then his exhaust pipe, apparantely feeling that my little used bumper was under represented, knocked a hole in my bumper... on the other side of the car. He managed to not damage the radiator or anything of mechanical importance though, so that was cool.
Now, I've never had anything bad happen to my car along those lines. It's a '94, so it's not in perfect shape by any means, the exaust, for example, has rusted apart in 3 places in the past 6 months. That led to a lot of cash and frustration, but whatever, that's another story. So it bothers me, but I figure it's cool because we both have insurance, I wasn't in my car, he backed into me, clear cut and all. Because it was on private property the cops wouldn't come do a police report under current michigan law, but he's not denying anything, so I'm still cool.
I get home to find out that with my PLPD insurance the max I can get is $500. That's not going to get near fixing the car, so I start figuring out what I can do on my own.
THEN I find out that under michigan's laws because it was in a parking lot and I guess I wasn't in the car, his insurance has to cover all of it, sweet.
So eventually, i.e. 3 weeks later, i.e. this morning I get in to get an estimate. The guy comes out and looks at my car, makes notes, opens the hood (which, for the record, took me 20 minutes to close because apparantely the frame had shifted more [it closed fine before] and I had to figure that out and then bend it back forward a little bit so the latch would take) and does his thing. Total estimate for damages came to $1798.
HuuAaah. That's a lot of money. Especially considering this is a car that I only payed 1500 or 1700 for (can't remember which, it's been a while).
Now there's two questions. First, will they pay that amount or decide to declare my car totalled and give me the value of the car. I find that humorous to declare a car totalled that only has front end body damage. The other question is whether I'll have to use the money toward the repair (i.e. it goes straight to the auto body place) or whether it will be at my disposal. If the second is the case I'll still end up doing a lot of the work myself. We'll see how it works out.
And that is my story for the night. :)