Now that I have a course of treatment for my injuries following a car accident last week, I am left worrying about the state of my car. It is a very nice SUV, which I paid off entirely last year. Now the shop is telling me that it may be totaled and they must examine the damage via the "tear-down" method. I called the shop in horror, assuming they were going to rip the car apart and sell it for parts or something.
The guy at the shop laughed at me. The "tear-down" method is merely a way for the shop to examine all of the damage before they give a final estimate to the insurance company. They tear down all of the damaged parts to allow them to look inside (and presumably find other damage). The guy at the shop told me the damage (just from looking at the outside) is $7,800. The max repair value is $9,800. If the car is totaled, I will only get about $15,000, which may sound good, but not when you consider the car originally cost $40,000. To make matters worse, the car is really my wife's, but she transferred title to me because of issues with the IRS (sometimes it is good to be gay and have our union not legally recognized). I sold my other car (which, as an aside, if I had been driving in the accident I would have been much more severely injured... the truck saved my left arm).
So here I am, waiting on pins and needles to find out what is going on with my vehicle. If it is totaled, I am going to use the money to pay off much of my debt; that is really my only choice. I cannot add car payments to my repetoire at this point. I will be left taking the bus to work (and praying for good weather). In a few months, when I have sufficiently repaired my credit, I will buy a car, but it won't be nearly as nice as the truck.
So friends, let's pray for my car to be repairable. Does anyone know about the engine cross-member cradle? Apparently that part needs to be replaced, and it is important because it holds the engine in place and all of the suspension parts mount to it. The car sounds royally f*ed, and my wife is royally pissed. It is not my fault that this happened. I would have avoided it if I could have. Duh.
InterplanetJanet posted on Aug 07, 2006
| views: 281
Comments
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silverwhisper said on Aug 07, 2006....
i'm sorry, i haven't the foggiest. it sounds like a very expensive bit of body work, given that it supports everything else. how does the insurance company only give you $15k on a $40k vehicle? are they counting the handful of days worth of depreciation or something? ugh. ed -
InterplanetJanet said on Aug 07, 2006....
Yes silver, the car has depreciated. It is a 2001 with almost 90K miles. That hurts the value a bit. When you buy a new car and drive it off the lot it immediately looses 20% of its value. The car business is a real racket. -
silverwhisper said on Aug 07, 2006....
damn but that sucks. ugh. how's things going w/ the brat's insurance company? ed -
Zayda said on Aug 07, 2006....
First IPJ, I cannot say how glad to see that you are here to actually post. That does brighten my day. I am terribly sorry to hear that your car may be totalled. And the whole 15K for a 40K car just sucks. -
InterplanetJanet said on Aug 07, 2006....
silver: Fortunately, my insurance company is handling everything. Once my claim is processed (with my company), they will subrogate against the "brat's" company. Her adjuster has been harassing me (to be discussed in another post), so I know she's at fault and they are scared. I have been told that I should have gone directly through her insurance co. to avoid any out-of-pocket expenses, but my mom is on the board at my insurance co., and advised me against it. In one of those rare occurrences in life, my mother was right. It is so much easier to have my company go beat up the other company (rather than me doing the beating myself). Zayda: Thank you so much for the well wishes. I am glad to be here (and have sufficient use of my left arm to type). I was really worried I was going to need surgery, but now it is looking like a couple months of PT will do the trick. My arm hurts like a beast, and following my ||{1}|| about pharmaceuticals making you crazy, I am reluctant to become reliant on my percocet. Plus, it is hard to do my lawyering thing in a pharmaceutical-induced haze. I am going to make the best of whatever determination the body shop makes. I do not want them to do a half-assed job fixing my car only to find a bazillion problems in the future or have a car that is dangerous to operate. The good ol' car saved my arm, and possibly more; I shouldn't ask too much of the old girl. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe I am meant to eat some humble pie and take the bus for a few months before I buy my 325ci convertible. The Lord works in mysterious ways. LOL, off the topic a bit, my wife was pleading with me the other night, "Please [IPJ], please believe in God." LOL. I believe in God, just not religion. Maybe I should pray more, but I feel so selfish when I ask God for help. I should be able to work it out on my own... and to some extent, I am. I'll keep y'all posted of the car saga... and my left arm. Did I mention I'm a lefty? There goes my pitching career... That brat should pay!
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