Yep, only 4000 miles and a dern 17ish year old, inexperienced driver, popped me on the way to work this morning. I got out of the way all I could and managed to limit the damage to probably only a rear bumper cover but still, the V only has 4000 miles and I am border line furious. After I got done with the kid though, he was shaking so hopefully he will heed my advice next time and not follow on people's bumper. I will let ya'll know how expensive Versa's are to fix.

electech wrote:Yep, only 4000 miles and a dern 17ish year old, inexperienced driver, popped me on the way to work this morning. I got out of the way all I could and managed to limit the damage to probably only a rear bumper cover but still, the V only has 4000 miles and I am border line furious. After I got done with the kid though, he was shaking so hopefully he will heed my advice next time and not follow on people's bumper. I will let ya'll know how expensive Versa's are to fix.

Wow that sucks. Maybe some of the members can get together and tip his car for you...lol.

dude I am really sorry to hear that! that sucks.

How about hanging him by his heels from the nearest bridge until he promises to not tail gate anymore!!

My wife used to be a horrible tailgater until she rear ended a Frontier and caused $7800 damage to her own truck.

Perhaps the accident alone is enough to teach the kid... (although, the younger they are, the thicker their skulls...)

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Don't forget to get a "diminished value" check from his insurance company once your car is fixed.

dude that totally sucks the big one.

Never heard of "diminished value" check before!! I did feel like taking a little value out of his head though! Fortunately for him, he sat and listened without opening his mouth except to say "yes sir" which was a good thing for him. Luckily, it is a minor hit and hopefully just a bumper cover will be all it needs.

I guess you can be considered lucky. I guess if you're going to get hit, it ought to be from someone who's got some common sense. Atleast you didn't get hit by some a$$h*le who didn't want to hear anything you had to say and tries to make the accident your fault.

proxim2020 wrote:
Wow that sucks. Maybe some of the members can get together and tip his car for you...lol.

LMAO, or just let me know and i will hit it with my 5,200 Pound 79 Benz 300SD Last year they had it out of Steel.

BKKloppenborg wrote:LMAO, or just let me know and i will hit it with my 5,200 Pound 79 Benz 300SD Last year they had it out of Steel.

I think that was the year that someone finally told Mercedes that the Vietnam war was over and they could stop building those tanks

OH NO!!!

Now that is funny!! The driver turns out was only 16, just got done talking to his mom. She was really nice and very appreciative of not calling the law which would have run up a young drivers insurance even more. To tell you the truth, I figured most anything on a new car would be over $1000. I got the estimate at lunch and if nothing else is damaged, the total comes to $582. They won't know if anything else is broke until they get into the teardown. Let's hope not.

Make sure if they gona replace the bumper, use genuine oem parts.

Best to get one already painted by the factory. if they gona painted, it will not match the factory machine paint and wont last as long.

electech wrote:Now that is funny!! The driver turns out was only 16, just got done talking to his mom. She was really nice and very appreciative of not calling the law which would have run up a young drivers insurance even more.

In my experience, you should have called the police. I got slammed on the side one time, and almost didn't call the cops. That police report is much more important than you think... Not that this kid would, but he could easily say he didn't hit you, where's the proof? No police report....

electech wrote:How about hanging him by his heels from the nearest bridge until he promises to not tail gate anymore!!

Splendid idea...

indus49 wrote:In my experience, you should have called the police. I got slammed on the side one time, and almost didn't call the cops. That police report is much more important than you think... Not that this kid would, but he could easily say he didn't hit you, where's the proof? No police report....

Exactly. I don't think you'll get as much from the insurence company without an accident report either..if you get anything.

electech wrote:Never heard of "diminished value" check before!! I did feel like taking a little value out of his head though! Fortunately for him, he sat and listened without opening his mouth except to say "yes sir" which was a good thing for him. Luckily, it is a minor hit and hopefully just a bumper cover will be all it needs.

Neither had I until recently, and now both my wife and I are pissed that our insurance company didn't give us one.

"Diminished value" works similarly to the principal of totalling. When your car is totaled, the insurance company is supposed to pay you the amount it would cost to REPLACE your vehicle (with like year, condition, mileage, options, etc.) minus your deductible. When you have your car repaired, the company pays for your repair minus your deductible. Well, here's how diminished value works:

My wife's truck, a couple months ago, low-booked at $13,000.We were offered only $7500 by the dealership because we were honest and disclosed the accident, even though Carfax showed a clean history (read a detailed Carfax report sometime... they are SUPPOSED to notify you of three different categories of collision: minor, moderate/severe, and totaling/salvage)Even after arguing with the dealership over value, we weren't able to get them to go above $10,000... so we walked (this was over an Escape Hybrid we wanted to buy).

So there is an example of what diminished value translates to in the real world. There is $3000 that we SHOULD get if the vehicle had never been in an accident that we will NEVER get because it has. Our insurance company should have cut us a check for an extra $3,000.

We didn't know about this at the time, and the case is already closed, so we can't pursue it.

My insurace company gives you $200 off your deductible if you call the cops and file a report. You don't have to file a claim, but if you have the police report and then later decide to file a claim, you save $200 bucks. Considering my wife has damaged her SUV twice in the past 2 months....that's a good deal.

You may want to get your insurance company involved, just in case. You can ask your insurance company to be the middleman and take care of all correspondence, and you can ask them not to report the other party to their insurance company.

electech wrote:Now that is funny!! The driver turns out was only 16, just got done talking to his mom. She was really nice and very appreciative of not calling the law which would have run up a young drivers insurance even more. To tell you the truth, I figured most anything on a new car would be over $1000. I got the estimate at lunch and if nothing else is damaged, the total comes to $582. They won't know if anything else is broke until they get into the teardown. Let's hope not.

Thanks guys for all the advice. I agree that I am taking a chance this time and probably won't ever do it again like this. Hopefully there won't be another time! I am meeting the boy's mom tomorrow and she is giving me the amount on the estimate. Her brother in law is a police officer and told her that the amount quoted ($582) was very reasonable. It was minor damage. I may have trouble if it turns out something else is damaged. We shall see.

Oh man, I feel your pain cuz my WRX got rear ended twice in the past year. The sucky thing was that I was stopped at a red light for approx 2 minutes and I got hit from the rear by two inexperienced drivers.

Had a similar incident many years ago. Both parties made two stops at Body Repair Shops, (the vehicle could be driven), got an estimate at either and we agreed to use the smaller estimate. The Shop gave a written and firm price. No one turned in to insurance.

This was years ago and might not work today.

Also depends on the state. Here, if there is at least $500 damage to any one vehicle, the accident MUST be reported to the police. Failure to do so can be construed as hit-and-run.

Now... just because it has to be reported to the police in our case does not mean it has to be reported to the insurance companies.

This was the case with a little "incident" I had when I was 17, when I backed out of a friend's driveway at night (when it was raining) and crushed the door of his across-the-street neighbor's dark gray ford taurus that was parked on the street directly behind the driveway. It was a perfectly legal (although extremely stupid) parking job on the part of the Taurus owner, and I ended up signing a contract to pay him back for the damages (which I did over the course of 6 weeks.. I worked at McD's after all, not much pay...)

I hope that the part is in stock with Nissan. Most parts for the Versa seem to be on back order because of it being a new model.