Bad News

chew* · Post by chew* » February 18th, 2007, 9:45 am

So I was at work friday and my boss asks me to pick up one of our employees at his house ( I guess he had a dead battery ). So It's real icy out and I'm going down this steep hill like 5 mph in my project car ( 1992 pontiac bonneville ). At the end of the street there is a left turn. When i got to it some guy was doing like 10-15 mph from the side street and saw me slammed on his brakes and hit my drivers door. I slid on the ice towards a restored jeep parked on the side of the road. I was heading right for the rear quarter head on which would have spelled disaster for the jeep. ( the frames twist easily on the square box removable top jeeps ).

Since I know the guy had put alot of time into it I cut my wheel hard avoiding the rear quarter with my front bumper and aimed for the Big rear tire. ( had a lift kit with oversized mud huggers ) I was sucessful and only sideswiped the jeep. There was no noticable damage except a cracked tail lens which my mirror smacked before it broke off. I managed to avoid wrecking the jeep but in the process wrecked my car.

Total damage to my car includes drivers fender, front and rear door and passengers fender, front door and mirror, also the passenger side rim
( 2006 pontiac rims ) took damage along with the suspension being damaged, haven't investigated as to what was damaged, all i know is my alignment was straight which I had just redone the whole front suspension 3 months ago and now my steering wheel is 45 degrees to the left when vehicle is going straight.

To top all this off It appears the offending driver was a nigerian immigrant with no registration and still questionable as to whether he had insurance. I will find out if he had insurance Monday. O the real funny part is he was worried if my insurance would cover his front bumper that broad sided my car when I was going straight and he hit me in the drivers door.

trimble · Post by **trimble** » February 18th, 2007, 11:59 am

Wow that's brutal.. Good luck man.

chew* · Post by chew* » February 23rd, 2007, 10:41 am

It gets better, My car was at the auto shop i work at awaiting appraisal for the damage. The body shop is around the corner. Someone with a van backed into it while it was parked and took out the hood,bumper, passenger headlamp and marker and passenger side fender. This isn't looking good for my SQ car. From what i understand the insurance company is going to try to total it. If they do it's gonna cost them a preety penny as they are going to have to eat over $1000 worth of dynamat and the time and energy for the R&D that has gone into this particular car to get a "perfect score on the RTA plus alot of money in brand new parts as i've slowly been replacing everything new over the past year.

Anyway wish me luck with the bloodsucking insurance company today.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » February 23rd, 2007, 12:19 pm

Tip: bring "copies" of all reciepts for the parts and if you can, get a bill for labor from your shop. The only way to get back what you lost in custom work is to prove its worth. Give the insurance company the copies so that they have a record and to calculate the cost of repair and replacement of the stuff, plus the damage to the car. The car does sound like it would be totalled, but the custom stuff should be extra on top of the cars value if it is totalled. This might not be 100% b/c I'm not too familiar with RI law, but should be close. I would also suggest getting Your agent involved. (hopefully you used an independant agent so that he is on your side and not worried about an uninsured motorist claim, like a captive agent would) Your agent will help you understand how the process "should" work and walk you through how to get back what you lost while protecting you from the other company jerking you around.
Sorry to hear about your loss, I would hate to loose all the work on a project car like that. GL

chew* · Post by chew* » February 24th, 2007, 12:52 am

Well they totalled my car on the second accident alone. The value of the car is being argued at the moment. When asked to prove all the parts and whatnot in the car, I waved a stack of receipts at the adjustor that you could choke an elephant with, I swear he turned 3 shades whiter when I showed him the pile of them. Of course I didn't give them to him. I told him I will make copies of the receipts of all the parts that are lifetime warrantied as there shall not be any pro rating issues with the value. 90% of the parts are guranteed for life that i installed

.

As far as the car being a competition car I mentioned the fact that if i do not receive enough funds to actually fix the car I will lose my sponsorship as car audio companies sponsor cars not the owners. If i ditched the car I would have to finance my next install 100% on my own and win consistantly for a season before I could get sponsored again. I explained this to the adjustor and then mentioned punitive damages......Needless to say I don't think he likes me to much. After softening him up with that I then went on to the list of car audio expenses for him to add to the value of the car.

Of course this is just for accident 2. Accident 1 is still up for grabs, It seems I will be getting 2 seperate claims. ATM it looks like i will have to fight it out for accident 1. Luckily I have pictures and witnesses for this, along with a testimony from my boss that the guy said not to call the cops and he would pay me for the damages.

SuperK · Post by **SuperK** » February 24th, 2007, 6:27 am

Have you been practicing good Karma?

That sucks the big ones. Sorry bout that. You could always move to the south, we never get ice down here.
Just have to worry about the '86 Caddy's with their 22" Chromes smashing into you because the drivers are too stoned and drunk to know what they're doing.

chew* · Post by chew* » March 2nd, 2007, 11:31 pm

So there's bad news, bad news and good news and more bad news and even worse news.

First the bad news, accident 2 damage was estimated at $1,800 however since the car was "totalled" by accident 1 they prorated the car and did some calculation and gave me 40% total value of the car which resulted in a $500 check which I am now refusing to cash. So thats the bad news and bad news.

The good news is apparently the owner of the car in accident 1 did indeed have a legal bill of sale which in turn means he had insurance. More bad news, the damage from this accident was figured in @ $3,200 however the book value on the car is 2,350 and they are refusing to pay saying that it was my fault and i was speeding ( which i wasn't cited for and they are not pursuing my insurance to pay for they're clients car hmmmmmmm.... )

At this point I had to return my rental car ( I re rented it however as soon as i returned it ) and contacted my lawyer. Since the insurance company want's to play hardball we are going to play they're game now that we know the rules. It appears that the accident caused injuries to my back which took about 5 days to kick in full blast. So once we settle on the car which will be for the damage and not the book value now we will pursue them on personal injuries and they can pay for the rental and my lawyer.

mr1in6billion · Post by **mr1in6billion** » March 3rd, 2007, 4:20 am

I wish you luck. It sucks when insurance companies try and bully people around. It just sickens me that they get away with it most of the time since a lot of people can't or don't know how to fight them. Threaten to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. That should get your foot in the door and show them you aren't going to back down.