[SETI20]

Today was the first sunny and mild day. Spring is coming, and I'm feeling good! I'm going to wash my car! Yeehaa!

So just before school I drive to the wash cabins so I can soap her up.

[phone voice] There are 2 people in que, please hold[/phone voice]

So I'm patiently sitting in the sun, in my raunchy black car.
When all of a sudden I see 2 white lights coming on on the car in front of me.

....oooh no he's not going to is he?? :x
I plant 1 hand FIRMLY on the horn, as I slam the car in reverse.

*KRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* Goes the tranny.
But it's already too late, as I feel my car being pushed back an inch or two.

The car stops, and I get out. I walk over to the driver of the car in front, and I'm staring right in the mug of captain bluebeard.

"Did I hit you?" He asks.
-"Would I get out if you hadn't?"

As luck would have it, he had a towing hitch. There's a nice cash on my bumper, and a small kink where the paint has cracked. A couple of scratches over an inch or 5.

"Oh that'll buff out. Don't worry"
...my blood starts to boil.

I take a moment to decide if I should hook him. But I doubt he'd provide me with his insurance info if I did. So I make an effort to keep my cool.
All the damage is on top of my bumper. So he figures it was already there. I pull up right behind him....to show him that the bottom of his bumper is higher than mine.
He takes my point, proceeds to shut the hell up, and gets an insurance form. (Good, cause I didn't bring any)

As he's filling out the information.
Honda....civic....crx....blah blah...1991....

-"Ohhh....91. What if I just give you 100 bucks and be done with it?"

....my hands physically start to shake at this point.
This is when I decided I'm taking my car to the most expensive body shop I know of to have them make an estimate.

I'm ripping him a new one.

 

[Krix]

tell him the paint wont match if they do the bumper, your gonna have to do the whole car :lol:

 

[downest]

Why was he even backing up?

 

[SETI20]

I have no clue... there was nobody in front, so he could just as well have pulled out forward.

 

[ComposiMo]

Thats it.... ship the car to my body shop, we'll hook it to the rotisserie, and fix that thing right.

Bluebeard can foot the bill :lol:

I'm kidding of course... but that would be funny. hahaha!

 

[bmaca455]

damn that sucks!! :evil:

also what do you mean by captain bluebeard??

 

[rex2nr]

Thats it.... ship the car to my body shop, we'll hook it to the rotisserie, and fix that thing right.

Bluebeard can foot the bill :lol:

I'm kidding of course... but that would be funny. hahaha!

Bas, you still want to move stateside, right? Nows your chance, hehee

what an asshat. I probably would have killed him. And as Krix said, paint wont match...

 

[SETI20]

Yeah I'm taking the old geezer to town on this one. Seriously.

He's old too. Maybe we should just let him die instead. You know. Mercy killing.

 

[SETI20]

Thats it.... ship the car to my body shop, we'll hook it to the rotisserie, and fix that thing right.

Bluebeard can foot the bill :lol:

I'm kidding of course... but that would be funny. hahaha!

That would be awesome. I need my quarters fixed too. :lol:

 

[purplecrx]

Make him fork over the bill to ship it to the states and have John fully restore it.

 

[SETI20]

So, today I had 2 estimates made.

He had a good o' story about how he didn't feel a bump etc etc.
Ahh well the bumper has a couple of knicks in it already. How bout' I give you 150 bucks and you buff it out yourself. You look like a handy lad!

(Granted, I could buff it out and respray it myself...but I don't WANT to.)
The body shop obviously wasn't feeling the "fixing an old car" theme. They must be busy.
I'll do it for 350. Take off the bumper, paint it real quick, and put it on straight again.

So I went to the body shop that my own insurance company uses.
Oh that's an easy 600 dollars. We need to take the bumper off. But we can't just paint it. It's an old car, that'll look like ****. Color difference etc.
They recomended I have the damage appraised.

...and that for just a couple of scratches.

So now is the question. Do I rip the old polite but clumsy geezer a new one. (I'm still insulted) and have it fixed so it was better than new...

Or am I going to give the guy a break, take the cash and drive around with a bumper that wasn't perfect to begin with.

I'm leaning towards the "that's what you get when you're stupid" side.

 

[baker_jeff]

You should get it fixed properly. He backed into you, he should pay to fix what he did. Try for a couple more estimates to be fair, and then if he doesnt want his insurance to go up, get him to give you cash. Otherwise, go through insurance. That's what it's there for.

I was tired one morning, and rear-ended a poor fellow in a beater (Was in my beater as well. He got some estimates, but decided it really wasn't worth fixing. He asked for $500, and I asked if he was happy with that, to which he said no, but it was ok.

I gave him $600 (My whole paycheck that day) because it was my fault and he deserved to get it fixed (or in his case replaced).

 

[crxfisher]

If it were my car...nothing but the best. His fault for being stupid. Next time maybe he'll make the effort to look in the rear view before backing up. Moron.

 

[azulito]

Hey if you get a high estimate it's not like HE is going to pay for it, the insurance company is (probably). My self I would get the high estimate, and keep the check and put it in the "paint the whole car fund". Which has happened twice to me by the way. Both times they ran into me. Now having said that I realize that I did give them both a break and gave them a very reasonable estimate.

 

[SETI20]

Well over here, the higher the estimate, the more insurance discount they cut off.

And I can talk smoothly...but no way in hell can I pull off to have the whole car repainted just because of a few scratches.
I'm going to try to have the side quarters painted too. And I'm having my fibreglass hood (in terrible condition) painted on my own expense.

 

[ollie]

Give em the hook Seti!
Can ya get the front end painted at ol bluebeards expense?

 

[SETI20]

The bumper I can manage. Maybe the front quarters too. That shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I'm going to be psyched if I can get them to do the hood too. But it's apalling. Don't think they're gonna fall for that one.

 

[mithuth]

The bumper I can manage. Maybe the front quarters too. That shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I'm going to be psyched if I can get them to do the hood too. But it's apalling. Don't think they're gonna fall for that one.

Well what you do is have them do the bumper and quarters, claiming that he must have pushed the bumper into them and caused dmg. After all, your no mechanic, just a driver... *grin*

As for the hood, just ask them if you cna just throw in some cash and have them respray the hood too, while they're spraying the rest of the frontend. Most shops would rather repaint a panel than mess around having ot mask around it, etc..

 

[jaowli]

That really sucks to hear. I had some jacka** run into me as I was stopped making a right turn at a yield sign. He got out and fortunately, there was no visible damage. The good news of your incident, at least it wasn't CPT Caveman who hit you...I can imagine him hitting your car with his mighty club. Then we're talking mass damage...yeah...I know...stupid joke...guilty. I suppose I shouldn't quit my day job?

 

[SETI20]

Well what you do is have them do the bumper and quarters, claiming that he must have pushed the bumper into them and caused dmg. After all, your no mechanic, just a driver... *grin*

The bumper -did- get pushed into the fender.