what a way to liven up your day....

I'm an assistant store manager at Blockbuster in Damascus Maryland and I got off work at 3am tonight because they were installing all new computer systems after we closed at midnight, and walk out to my car to drive home in the nice pouring rain and saw a big'ol circular scratch/dent/smack in my back bumper, walk around the right side and whaddya know.... somebody or something slammed into the back end of my car. my best guess is that it was raining and someone was backing up and didn't see/couldn't stop and hit my car, then ground their bumper or whatever across my car like 12 inches - there was no note around and noone came into our not-busy store or anything, just damage after I got off work...

nice.... I've bought the damn thing saturday, Nov 20th (12 days) and it already got hit. it's my first car, first new car at that, my insurance is sky high because I'm a 20 year old male with his first car and under my maryland provisionals license (long story short, on provisionals in florida for 2 years, moved to MD and had to start their learners program all over again, and it takes 24 months to get off it ticket free)) so there's no way I'm claiming it on insurance, my comprehensive deductible is $500 and collision is $1000 - would probably be listed under comprehensive since I have no proof another car hit me and it wasn't moving. god forbid if it's going to cost a lot, I'm hoping under $500.... god I hate people

I'll post pics up tomorrow when it stops raining (hopefully, weather.com says AM rain... yippie) and I need to know if anyone can estimate the damages as soon as I get pics up, here's a pic I photoshopped about the accident, looks like it got hit at an angle and dragged across the rear quarter-panel. it took off the bottom right of my tail light plastic too. The tail light is fully functional, there's a hell of a dent right next to the rear tail light on the quarter-panel and the rear bumper's not dented but it's scratched to hell and back, and the quarter-panel is dented and scratched straight to the metal.

The black are scratches, the red is the dent and the green is what needs to be replaced, and that's all I hope. - the rear bumper may be able to get sanded, painted and not replaced since it's plastic, although it might be cheaper to just buy a replacement, the entire rear quarter-panel will definately need to be replaced, and the red tail light cover needs to be replaced. oh, and there's scratches where it's dented, just didn't remember where, stood outside in the freezing, pouring rain with a flashlight looking at it for 10 minutes. and I'm not really looking for sympathy, I'm looking for a rough estimate of the damages when pics are up before I take it to a mechanic/dealership tomorrow.... god this sucks.

 

The total cost to replace my bumper cover was like $525, including painting it. I got the repair done at a Toyota collision center, so if you shop around, you might be able to do better. I just didn't want to take any chances on a brand new car.

I have a $300 deductible so I had my insurance cover it. The cover itself is like 220, I think. I can't recall exactly, though.

 

sorry dude, there is no way it would be within 500 bux.

 

As a guide, I had my front bumper, left front fender, a tie rod, and an alignment. Total cost $1600....... Luckily I did not have to pay a penny as the crappy driver who hit me had good insurance.

Good luck.

Kevin

 

I have had a hole made by someone's trailer hitch in my front bumper for about a month now (have had the car for only 2 months). Toyota quoted me around $500 to replace and paint the bumper cover.

My solution, BONDO and a local body shop. Much cheaper.

 

Just an FYI, next time get a police report. That should be enough to prove that you had it done while in a parking lot, etc, and that it wasn't you backing into anything. Sucks. Body damage is EXPENSIVE.

 

well, here it is, i took some pics of it - my image hosting site is at 60% for the day, so not sure how many views will get to see them before they go to X's until tomorrow - if you really want to see them and can give me an estimate on what you think it'd cost, or if you really want to see the pics, PM me and I can e-mail them to you

yeah, there were a lot of things I should've done last night, but I was so ____ed and not thinking right because it was 3am - I shouldn't have touched my car before I called the police, probably at least let my insurance company know it happened and give them a report number... all sorts of stuff.... but now I'm screwed and will probably have to take fault for something like this.... anyways, here are the pics for however long my 100mb bandwidth lasts

 

thats burned up

 

omg! what the hell did they do to your car? thats some pretty bad damage on a car that was parked. i feel for you....i would be flaming (which u obviously r) i mean im thinking when you are pulling in/out of parking lot u are not going that fast or hard. they must have really not been paying attention or it was some punk kid that doesnt know how to drive...to cause that much denting and damage.

again...so sorry about your car....hopefully you can get a good deal on body work. if you were in chicago i would be able to get you a good deal my dead is in the auto business...pretty much get everything done at cost.

good luck

 

err...not dead, LOL my dad i meant, ha

 

Does your store have camaras pointing outside or in the direction of your car?

 

I am getting my rear bumper replaced with some other stuff. On the estimate it says:

Cover, Rear Bumper 205.48
Cover, Rear Bumper Refinish
Surface 2.6
Two Stage 0.5
3.1
Refinishing rate is $38
Paint Material is $24/hr

Don't know what else would be on there my estimate has a lot of stuff.
Should give you a general idea of how much it would cost.

 

there's no cameras that face the parking lot, only inside the store

sorry that the limit on the bandwidth on the pics hit 100%, will try and host them on my girlfriend's site when she gets back from college, she knows all this hosting and website stuff that I don't, so I can try and get em up again - otherwise they'll be up again tomorrow

well, I just got back, I went to the dealer I bought the car from, and he recommended a good work and cheap bodyshop to go to, I got an estimate... $1883.20 before they even pull panels off to see the damage underneath. I was hoping to not have to get the insurance involved but since it was a hit and run and way more than I can afford to lose, I had to. called in a hit and run report with the police, called insurance and they said a claims adjustor will call me in a few hours when I'm at work tonight 5pm-midnight 12/01 - I'm sure he'll find a way to say it's my fault or something lol - looks like I backed into something doing like 30mph - if only it was that simple though. I'm thinking someone clipped the back end of the car, or backed into it pretty hard, either way it sucks, i'll try and keep up to date about it.

 

Once I was walking into the mall and a girl, that I knew even, pulls into a parking spot and her front pass side fender hits the next car's side. She looked confused and floored it. scraaaaaaaaaape all the way from the rear quarter to the front fender on the other car was crushed. She got out, took a look and moved her car .

I think I reported it to the mall people.. but I can't remember for sure. She and I didn't get a long, so I'd hold it over her head "I know what you did last shopping trip" They made a movie based on it.

 

Probably one of the little punks from the High School across the street. I've never liked that tight little turn right in front of the blockbuster.

 

Ouch. To me it looks like a tall truck, or just a truck like a RAM 1500 or something backed into you. The damage is going to cost between 1600-2300 to fix. That sucks bad... sorry to hear that happened.

 

well, I just got back from dropping my car off at the collision center, I drove about 45mins to get there and about 5 mins from the shop I got a call from the claims adjuster telling me not to drop it off thurs 12/01 because it'll just sit there till monday when they get around to new vehicles, and I should come by on monday to drop it off, well I was agitated and drove home and when I got home 30mins later, my girlfriend told me some manager from Progressive called her and told her to tell me that the adjuster who told me not to drop it off that day shouldn't have said that, and it needs to be dropped off ASAP so at this point, all I could do is laugh, and I drove the car back to the collision center which took another hour (rush hour now) and got a rental car from enterprise

well, I was getting setup and the guy I called and spoke to yesterday said they'd get me in either a 2004 or 2005 model, like an altima or a GTO because my tC is a 2005, and he said "we've got a dodge stratus cleaned up and ready to go if you want" and I said sure, signed some papers, he showed me the car and handed me the keys, I go get in the car and whaddya know, there's no way it's a recent model vehicle, it's got 10000 miles on it (for a rental) and the interior and engine are both very, very sub-par from what I was expecting, I'm almost positive it's a 2003 dodge stratus SE 4cl 4-speed auto, but the engine is really weak compared to the tC, at least in acceleration, online numbers say 0-60 in 7.2 and 1/4mile in 15.9 but there's no way, that's faster than the tc, with a 150hp engine. the car's 15in goodyear eagle LS P205/65R15 92T tires are really weak, they were squeeling when I got off an offramp that's stated 35mph and I was doing 30... I take corners in my tC doing 40 and it stays glued on stocks.

but it's ok, hopefully I won't have to keep it for all that long, and it's making me appreciate my baby more and more each time I drive it, and now I can say "dude... you got a dodge!?" the stratus doesn't even have a CD player, or power mirrors, or rear disc brakes, or alloy wheels, or a good audio system, or sunroofs, weighs 300lbs more... costs $1500 more even being 2 years older.... all I can think of is "granny-mobile"

boy I miss my tC... it was such a depressing drive back from the collision center, the tC is sooo much more fun to drive than this car.

 

I once took my acura to get service done on it, and the enterprise place at the dealership put me in a Chevy Aveo. You'd beg for a Dodge Stratus after driving that s4!t box. Good luck with your car man.