My Good-Bad Car Week

[Eric]

This last week started out pretty damned good. I lucked into an absolutely phenomenal car deal. My brother found a 2001 Nissan Maxima GLE for sale with 7,800 miles on the clock. That isn't a typo. The car had less than 8,000 miles on it. It was garage-kept and driven a bit over 400 miles a year. The car was perfect. It even still smelled like a new car inside. It was being offered for an insanely low price and I snapped it up. The car drove like a new car as well. Even though the car had so few miles, the previous owner had even just put new struts and tires on the car, just because the original ones were old. New battery too.

I got the car last Sunday and I thoroughly enjoyed driving it, until about 4pm this last Friday. I was on the freeway and traffic was moving along well, until it suddenly came to a stop. There was a car wreck up ahead about a quarter of a mile. I had to slow down quickly to avoid the car stopped ahead of me, but I did so, stopping at a safe distance. I remember thinking that being stopped like this in what had just been a fast-moving flow of traffic was dangerous. As I thought this, I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a Ford F-150 bearing down on me. The truck's driver apparently had not gotten the memo about the traffic stoppage.  He was maybe three seconds off my bumper when he responded to the situation. He never broke, but did attempt to swerve past me to  my left. He didn't make it. He struck the rear of the Maxima a glancing, but solid blow, at 50mph or so.

So, I've got a one-in-a-million Maxima with a busted ass, whiplash and a chest wall injury that hurts like hell. I am sick about the car. Even if it isn't totaled by the insurance company and it gets repaired, it will never be right again. I had the freaking thing less than a week. What a damned shame. I count myself lucky though, if the other driver had hit me squarely, it really would have jacked me up. You can see from the pics below that even though the impact just caught the corner, it crushed that corner.

Anyway, I am ambulatory and with family for Christmas. Things could be much worse. You never know when random events will bite you in the ass. Don't take your time and your people for granted.

[willie-pete]

Glad you are reasonably OK.

[a9mmfan]

Glad you're pretty much OK. A little Windex and the car will buff right out.

[deputy tom]

I'm glad it wasn't worse. They can fix that. Heal quickly,buddy. tom.

[EdTracker]

The car sounds like a sweet find but at the end of the day a car is a car. The most important part of this story is that I am glad to hear you are okay! Good deals are sweet to find but your health is priceless!

 

Be safe Eric!

[Brown Hawk]

Eric, hope you get well quickly.  

As for me, this is Deja Vu all over again.  

Mine was a 2004 Lexus.  A lot more miles, black instead of white, college girl in an SUV talking to a friend instead of paying attention to the snow.  Same attempt, same corner, although more centered.  Didn’t even set off the air bags.  That was less than 100,000 miles.

Her insurance company immediately tried to shaft me.  I fought those b******* for six months, but finally got them to fix it.  Last week I had a full up inspection, and the mechanics said that it was excellent shape for over 200,000 miles, and the Ohio to Texas trip would be no problem.  

So I hope and pray that your Maxima is fixable, that it gets fixed, and continues to give you joy.  

Again, may you heal quickly, and not let this affect your Christmas.  

And, if possible, may you be able to ram the insurance company for full repair!  

Hawk

[Bish1309]

Wow. Glad you are ok. Sorry for the car. If cars could talk, ya know? 

[tadbart]

Nice ride. Sure hope insurance can make it right. That's a heartbreaker! Heal up quick and enjoy your family time.

[Eric]

My MacBook Pro laptop was in its computer bag in the trunk at the time of the wreck, right where the impact was. I assumed it was toast. When I took it out of the bag later, I found a new dent on the corner of the aluminum screen housing, but the laptop still works. That is one tough computer. I’ve been using it for seven years and it has been dropped and smacked around a lot, but it keeps on ticking. I love my Macs. 

[RenoF250]

He rear ended and injured you, get a shady lawyer and get a new Maxima out of the deal.  Who are these insurance companies that don't pay?  Mine pays way too much at the drop of a hat, my wife tapped a van and they paid like 8k.  Then someone pulled out in front of her and she tapped them and they were going to pay, I had to stay on them not to since it was his fault (if she was driving better she could have avoided it).

I know they were taps because both times our car was undamaged.  Not even a mark.

[DWARREN123]

Well bad about the car but glad you are with family for the holidays, take care!

[PNWguy]

By now, you should be feeling the full effects of the impact on your body, but make sure you get any new aches or pains seen and documented by a doctor.

And very sad for the loss of such a mint Maxima; that was the golden years of Nissan, before their quality took a nose-dive.

Just tried to look up book value, but KBB and NADA have decided to make their websites useless and fill them with so many pop-ups and deceptive links that I couldn't get them to work on my ancient laptop.  Couldn't even figure out how to enter the mileage.  It just auto-filled at 165k and wouldn't let me correct it.

So, basic estimate based on the photo is around $5k of damage.  If that exceeds 70% of the value, then the insurance company will total it.  Shame for such a great car.

[TX OMFS]

Did the other guy have insurance?

[Citra47]

Totally sucks about the car but glad to hear you  came through in relatively good shape ………………………………….. your Mac, too.

[Huaco Kid]

I once saw a brand new station-wagon (70's - the Family Truckster?), stickers still all over the windows,  that had made it halfway across one lane, pulling out of the dealership.

T-boned.

They'd probably seen it happen before.

[Huaco Kid]

I recently ran over a laptop.

I was in the back parking lot of the rental car place,  transferring my gear from my car, to the rental.   A guy came up and said, "Oh.  Sorry.  You've got me blocked in."  No problem.

I backed up a half-carlength,  he pulled out and left.  When I was pulling forward,  I felt a small bump.  ****.  I had several bags and briefcases laying on the asphalt.  I immediately pulled out my laptop,  and it look fine.  Unscathed.

Later,  when I went to use it,  the screen had a jagged diagonal crack from corner to corner.  It booted, and one half of the screen was fine and the other half was black.  I discovered the mouse / touchpad still worked.

After much trial and error,  I was able to blindly drag all the desktop icons to the good side of the screen.  I was able to recover all the data / programs I needed.

It was a tiny cool 10" netbook (good for my line of work) that I can't replace.

[RS_Rider]

Glad you weren't hurt too bad. If the insurance company totals it I'd seriously consider buying it back and putting a few bucks towards fixing it. It will be a PITA going through the salvage title process but dollar for dollar you'll still end up with a better car than starting the used car search all over again. 

[G19 DB]

Glad you are ok (could have been so much worse).  Sorry about the ALNIB car.   

[Eric]

4 hours ago, TX OMFS said:

Did the other guy have insurance?

I’m not sure yet. The officer couldn’t find any insurance for the guy in the database, but the guy insists that the truck is insurance through the finance company. I guess I’ll find out Weds. 

[Huaco Kid]

7 minutes ago, Eric said:

 ...but the guy insists that the truck is insurance through the finance company.

You're fucked.

[bigchuck83]

Heal up quick,  Hope the car gets fixed and still drives well. until i saw the odometer picture i was certain you were joking about the mileage.

[Eric]

24 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

You're ****ed.

The truck is financed though. The finance company is the owner. Whether the guy financing it has insurance or not, it seems like the finance company is still financially responsible for it. I hope. 

[TX OMFS]

The truck is financed though. The finance company is the owner. Whether the guy financing it has insurance or not, it seems like the finance company is still financially responsible for it. I hope. 

That sucks man. I hope he has insurance.

[RS_Rider]

52 minutes ago, Eric said:

The truck is financed though. The finance company is the owner. Whether the guy financing it has insurance or not, it seems like the finance company is still financially responsible for it. I hope. 

We just went through this in Oct. My wife got hit by a guy with no insurance and an expired license. He just bought his car a month ago. We ended up using collision and uninsured motorist on our policy. $500 deductible for us but being in the collision industry I made that back and then some on the repair. Our insurance company turned him into collections for the claim but as they say, you can't get blood from a stone. Since his car is no longer driveable he'll likely stop making payments on it and the finance company will take it in the rear when they repo it. Cop at the scene wrote him a handful of citations and sent him on his way. Aggravating ordeal from beginning to end. Hope you have better luck. 

[Al Czervik]

Dang, glad you're ok.