Dear fellow SOLer's,
Ohmegosh THANK YOU for all of your advice! I really appreciate all of
the warnings, suggestions, support, and COMMON SENSE (something I
obviously lacked recently)... and I'm sorry I couldn't thank each of you
individually but, amazingly, my mailbox is filled with responses from 40
concerned people...
Anyway, to recap the day: at around 9:00 am, I check my mailbox. Holy
smoke, 15 new messages already. And all of them basically saying:
"File that police report... now!"
"Call your insurance company... now!"
"The hell with this 'lady'... get this irresponsible idiot off
the road... now!"
I get the hint... and thanks to y'all, common sense and rational judgment
begins to return to me...
The plan: (1) Stop by the DMV and pick up an accident claims form. (2)
Get estimates from at least two body shops. (3) Go to the police
station and fill out an accident report. (4) Call Liberty Mutual, my
insurance company. Even if this means missing my morning classes. But
try to do this before Mech. Eng. lab at 1:00.
Ok, this means I have just three hours. I run over to Goldie, drive down to
Mountain View, park in the huge Walmart parking lot where a parking space
is always available, sprint over to the DMV. Wow, no long lines! The
accident claims form is done in a jiffy.
Now to "Beautiful Sportscars," a body shop speciallizing in old sports
cars. Hmmm, I find it, but the office door seems to go to a bathroom
only. Oh, knock on this locked door... friendly guy appears...
"Hmmm, that your MG? Nice. Let's take a look at that damage."
For about 15 minutes the guy is looking at/over/under/through the
accident damage at the right rear of Goldie. He's talking constantly and
confidently, muttering a lot to himself but also explaining what he would
do to repair the damage. The options: (1) section off the damage, and
MIG weld in either a similar section off an old MG or a fabricated
piece; (2) push the damage out by bracing a 2X4 in the boot and pounding
for 14 hours or so; or (3) replace the entire quarter panel and part of
the rear (doesn't want to do this). He touts his pulling & fabricating
skills over other body shops, and brings out a huge stack of Moss
catalogs (and has every one except for the MGB one!) Had an MG before
but now has a Fiat 124. And now the bottom line: $2000. Whoa,
"definitely contact your insurance company!" he says. Gosh where have I
been hearing that all morning...
Now onto to a second body shop: Acabus Auto Body in Palo Alto. I walk
into the office and there's "quick-finger" Dave punching away at his
computer while on the phone. I wait not too long and soon he's looking
at the damage of my MG. "Owned quite a few MGs before, but then I moved
up to Triumphs," he says. He tells how he put in Buick V6s in some
Brit sports cars.
Anyway, the best word to describe this guy is "efficient". Not hasty, not
a mad rush, but quick and sure. Soon we're back in the office
and he's "piano-playing" the computer.
He fires a few questions, I fire back, and zap! a detailed estimate comes
out. I'm impressed. "4.5 hours here, 2.0 hours, there, .3 here, parts blah
blah... total is $1300." I now wonder how he would go about to fix the
damage. "Do you have a few minutes?" he says with a grin.
He gives me a tour of the facility. "What we would do is chain the car
down like this one [points to a Buick Century]. To the dent we weld a
piece of metal that is connected to these machines, you see... this one
can pull with 10,000 lbs of force. After the dents are pulled our body men
spend several hours pound the damage so that it is very close to how it was
before the accident. This way we can use a minimum of plastic filler
as possible."
Plastic. Yuck, I think.
But what he says next is a little reassuring. "We have a lifetime
warrantee on all repairs. Here's the details... you'll notice that it is
very straight forward and is valid as long as you don't, say, race
off-road or somethin'. Oh, and if you want, you're welcome to watch us
repair your car as much as you like." Sweet!
[Note: I'll be getting a couple more estimates tomorrow, this time by
antique car restorers, but I'd like to hear y'all opinions on these two body
shops and their techniques.]
Okay, one hour to go, down to the police station at Stanford. Wait 10
minutes. Finally lady asks, "Where did the accident occur?" Northwest
corner of Page Mill and El Camino, I say. "Oh, that's Palo Alto. You
would need to go to the Palo Alto police department." Great.
So there we go. I rush in and an officer hands me a form after I
tell her that there were no injuries although damage of >$500 occurred. I
then realize the form is the basic DMV accident report. "Oh I got this
already," I say. "Well that's all you need to do," the officer says.
Now... back home, 20 minutes before lab. What's that Liberty Mutual
number? I exclaim. No problem, I get it and soon a representative is on
the line. She is tape recording our conversation.
I answer her questions as accurately and clearly as possible, and the rep
soon concedes that "it is indeed obvious that the other person was at
fault, no question." She says she an appraiser will come to look at my
car, and that another person will try to contact the other party. I say
that we are meeting for coffee on Wednesday, so the rep agrees to call
the offender Wednesday afternoon (for insurance info) so she doesn't get
scared off before then.
So that's it for now, and because I followed the conventional accident
procedure I feel just so much better. *Phew*, it's not over but I feel a
lot more comfortable with the matter. Just need to see Liberty Mutual's
appraiser ASAP, have my insurance company verify that the lady is in fact
uninsured (or, if she does have insurance collect from her insurance
company), and choose a competent body shop. Goldie may be out for a
couple of weeks but, hey, I'm young and have a good pair of legs...
Oh and I will be meeting the lady Wednesday morning, assuming she is true
to her word on this. If not, I know where she lives, even saw her car
when I bicycled home from work at 10:00 p.m. today. Any suggestions on "The
Strategy" to conduct the meeting... currently my ideas are: (1) Be firm,
assertive, and confident (though not belligerant); (2) present *only* the
highest estimate I have by then; (3) ask her straightforwardly how she
intends to reimburse me, and make it clear that I will not settle for
anything but upfront cash-in-full, and if she refuses (likely), I will:
(4) ask her what she would do in my situation, and (5) make it clear that
she cannot run as my insurance company will be after her and I'm fully
prepared to sue. A couple of people have suggested that I should bring
a friend along, and I think that's a great idea (unfortunately I don't
have a friend who's a cop :-) ). Even pondered the idea of having my
roommate come and covertly tape record the conversation-- how legal is this
(and am I just paranoid and is this entirely unnecessary. I am just
concerned that later she may try to tell the DMV that I backed into her,
as some SOLers have suggested.) And should I reveal that I have already
filed a DMV and insurance report? If so, during what part of the conversation?
As always I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Again,
much thanks, and happy motorin'.
__________________________________________________________________
__ Felix Wong Palo Alto, California
| \_O (415)497-5434 [home], (415)725-4640 [work]
( )/ LL http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~felixksw/
( ) '69 MGB, '92 C'dale R500 (stiff, light, and FAST)
Fw = mg "Safety fast!"
|