This guy hurt my car:(

[scifisupergal]

So I 'm parked at my local health food store, minding my own business. When this idiot in the van tries to park in between my car and another one. He comes in head first and scratches my front side.http://i180.photobucket.com/al...7.jpg

How much should this cost me to fix? Is there any thing I can buy at the car store?

He tried to tell me it was nothing and wipe it off with his hand. I just said forget it and sat back in my car. Then these guys told me not to let him get away with it. So my sister attempted to call the police. He offered me $20 but he ended up giving me $60. Was this a mistake?

Thanks in advance

[coxcj]

my personal opinion, huge mistake. to get it repainted, it's going to cost you way more then $60.

[Clipsed]

HAHAHA!!! That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard to accept $60 for that. That is going to cost around $300-$400 to fix, your bumper is going to have to be removed, sanded, preped, and completely repainted, color sanded, and cleared. GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

[scifisupergal]

The scratch is barely 6 inches, It's going to cost that much I had no clue obviously. I'm not sure if I can live with it.Thanks for the responses next time use kiddie gloves... I'm sensitive

[matt_a]

...I'm not sure if I can live with it....

Nor should you have to. You have a new car. That scratch just lowered the resale value of your car by a minimum of a few hundered. Even if you were planning to keep the car forever, you shouldn't have to just live with it. You'd be amazed at how much that will cost to fix properly. Sorry it happened to you, but you should have never let him get away with it.

[lain]

/me puts kittie gloves on

man super sensitive...you must be a cancer let me know if im right or wrong.

ya in any case you should always get the police involved unless of course you dont have insurance

$60 is no where near what it is going to cost to fix that. just think of this as a lesson learned so next time you know not to any any amount of money unless you know 100% for sure how much it is going to cost. even then you should also get a police report.

GL!

/me takes kiddie gloves off

[scifisupergal]

Cancer with Leo tendencies

Yeah it's a pretty expensive lesson.

My head hurts now, I need a nap.

Thanks guys

[lain]

that must be interesting...around 19th-22nd?

alright this thread is getting off subject

[MIdnkight-lude]

The scratch is barely 6 inches, It's going to cost that much I had no clue obviously. I'm not sure if I can live with it.Thanks for the responses next time use kiddie gloves... I'm sensitive

the issue isnt the size of the scratch, but the fact that they have to remove the entire bumper. and most place would repaint the entire piece, because it only on one piece of the car. in most case they might try to blend the paint. ya, it roughly a 200-400 dollar job. you shouldnt except ****, and just took his insurance down. lesson learn, just know that any body work require money into the 200-300+ range at the very min. you might be able to take it to a good detailer and get the paint filled in but i still see that as a 100 dollar job. >_<

[Althalus]

Always, always, always, ALWAYS call the police. ALWAYS file a report. Always.

Always.

Edit: Unless you're in the other guys shoes, then try to sneak your way out of it.

[alonsorules8]

That only works getting a police report if you are on state property if it happened in a private parking lot then the cop will only make sure you exchange info no ticket will be given or police report written up.

Believe me I had my 97 camaro smashed in the front end by a trailer hitch on a chevy truck and it going to cost her insurance 1200 to fix. the police came and wouldn't give a report because it wasn't on state property.

[BillyBeaneBall]

Yeah...I've luckily done this with someone who rear ended my gf's car when I was the passenger. The woman wrote down her information but wouldn;t let me see her insurance info to verify any of it. I called the Cops...turns out she wrote down all sorts of false information...glad I called the cops.

ALWAYS call the cops and get a report...ALWAYS.

I'm really sorry it happened this way...you didn;t happen to write down his plate # did you?

[Ever Victorious]

You can always call the cops if it doesn't occur on "state property". Traffic laws still apply on private property, the only thing that changes is parking enforcement.

And believe me, the cops would have been there if he has hit your car then just decided to drive off. Hit and run of an attended vehicle is a gross misdemeanor. Hit an run of an unattended vehicle (i.e. if you weren't sitting in it) is a felony. If you got his plate number, it would be the easiest collar of that cop's career.

But... you took money, which implies settlement. Even if it's not legally binding in your state, it would take SO much to prove that it wasn't a settlement that at this point you just need to chalk it up to experience.

For a point of reference, the re-painting of Versa #1, which required painting the front and rear bumper, rear hatch, and both rear quarters, and blending into the existing paint, was about $1800. (thankfully, since I was hit, the other guy's insurance paid for my whole repair bill).

Edit: I just noticed you are in New York. Verbal contracts are legal in that state, so even if you took him to court to dispute "settlement", you would lose.

[scifisupergal]

You explained it clearly. I underestimated the damage. Never again

[scifisupergal]

No I did not.

Thanks everyone, I have learned my lesson. Always call the police.

[scifisupergal]

Yes, I agree it's too late cause I took the money. But now I feel more informed so it won't happen again this way.

[BillyBeaneBall]

Doesn't make me not feel bad for you though

Go get an estimate at a few repair joints (always get a few estimates IMO and ask what will be done to repair it)...estimates are FREE then you can do what you need to do...

[KimberKenobi]

see your dealer... ask what their repair guy will charge (all dealerships have a paint/body guy who comes by usually weekly to fix up damage on trade ins and such)

you may luck out and get this reasonably fixed for less than $100.

[jfanaselle]

Well, what's done is done and there's no changing that now. If you at least want it to look a little nicer, buff it out with some wax and get as much material off of the surface as you can (such as his paint or buildup of your own paint). Then, pick up a touch up paint pen from the dealership or ebay and fill in the scratch as good as you can. It'll still be very noticable from close distances, but at least you won't be able to see it from far or while the car is in motion.

And just FYI, I was recently involved in an accident here in San Diego in the parking lot of a mall. A lady and I entered an uncontrolled intersection in the parking lot at the same time and colided. I was driving a 2006 Chevy HHR and she was driving an 03 BMW Z4. The impact was at about 15 MPH, but my car ended up with $2K in damage and hers had about $5K (stupid BMWs!). I called the police because I felt it was 50/50 fault, and she insisted that it was all mine. The police REFUSED to come out because there were no injuries, there was no damage to public property and there was no road blockage. We let the insurance companies go at it, and they wouldn't agree on fault (again, my company offering 50/50 and her company insisting on 0/100). Eventually, it ended up in arbitration (spelling?) and her insurance company convinced the arbitrator that I was 100% at fault because there was no police report. Sucks... should have been in a different city I guess. Oh well.

[EdKrull]

Another thing... do you possibly have uninsured motorist coverage? If you estimate is much more than your deductable you may just want to say that you found your car with those scratches. Depends on your deductable though...

[jfanaselle]

now now... remember that insurance fraud is a felony.

[lain]

lol us poor people gotta do what we gotta do

[matt_a]

Letting the guy go for $60 = Not smart.

Lying to your insurance company = REALLY not smart and highly illegal.

[EdKrull]

Letting the guy go for $60 = Not smart.

Lying to your insurance company = REALLY not smart and highly illegal.

Well, as long as he doesn't post the truth on a message board or something... Doh!

[srellim234]

jfanaselle- where was mall security? The rent-a-cops at the minimum should have filled out an incident report to protect the mall from lawsuit in case they get sued for failing to provide a reasonably secure environment and traffic flow. They would have documented that there was no police report because the police refused to respond. You could have subpoenaed a watch commander about the department policy. Lack of a police report should never have factored into the case in this instance.

BTW, my wife is a sheriff's deputy.

[jfanaselle]

I'm actually in the process of becoming a deputy myself. It wasn't necessarially the lack of report that made them come to their decision. It was that they didn't have a statement of facts besides what the lady and I had told our insurance companies. Mall Security did show up while we were exchanging info, and I asked the guard if he was going to take some sort of report. He said he was only there to ensure that we weren't disrupting the rest of the mall's traffic flow and once we exchanged our info he was on his way. I told my insurance company my whole side of the story and the lady told her insurance company her side. Then, her insurance company called me to interview me and she simply ignored all the calls from my insurance. Like I said, they didn't see eye to eye on fault, so it went all the way to arbitration and, without a statement of facts from the scene, the arbitrator went of the way the law is written which states the person on the right at the uncontrolled intersection has the duty to yeild unless they enter the intersection first. Well I was on the right and I feel that we either entered at the exact time, or I may have even been slightly ahead of her. However, there was obstructed visibility on my side (she was pulling out of a tunnel) and never even looked into the intersection she was traveling into. She even said at one point that she never saw me until the collision occured. They determined that because the front of my vehilce struck the side of hers, she had entered the intersection first, but this only happened because she was going much faster than me (at least 10 mph faster) and I made an effort to stop and swerve where she made no effort at all. Without a witness statement backing up my side of the story (no one saw the accident, but she had a passenger that sided with her, of course), they didn't believe me and I was SOL. I guess in all honesty, the responding officer wouldn't have been able to validate my statement of facts either, but her story changed as the process went on so it sure would have helped to have a report.

[jfanaselle]

btw, your wife... is she San Bernardino County? I'm hiring on with Riverside County. I used to be a fire fighter for a few years here and then I became a dispatcher, and ultimately decided I wanted to be in law enforcement.

[Nismo V]

I'm with Edkrull on this one file your claim.. I know how it feel when someone damages your ride while your shopping, when I had my Corrado someone dented my passenger door it was $2K in damages, drive that did it parked the wrong way dented my ride then left but thats why we pay for insurance you never know what could happen put the $60 bucks towards your deductible.. good luck with the repairs jfanaselle..

that makes us V owners

[Ever Victorious]

She can't file an uninsured motorist claim anymore.

She admitted to taking $60 from the guy, which constitutes a settlement. Filing a claim would then be double-dipping. If she falsifieds the information and says she has received no settlement and she doesn't know who hit her, then she is committing insurance fraud.

She legally has no choice, and I'd really thank you guys to NOT encourage her to go do something illegal.

[pr1nce]

Some 16yr old kid did the EXACT same thing to my black hatch The idiot was trying to back in to a parking spot in front of the mall, but instead scratched the entire driver side of my V I was able to rub off the paint, but it looks like the scratches are there to stay. However, I'm glad that I got all the necessary info from him. I will get an estimate on Monday and will let you know. I usually park in spots where there aren't any other cars around, but it was raining today... f*cking raincouver