The day after Christmas I was in the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis, near the University of Minnesota to meet some friends for lunch at one of my favorite burger joints, Annie’s Parlour (best fries in town, by the way). As I was driving along 14th Ave looking for a place to park, a driver exited his parallel parking place right into the passenger side of my car, resulting in this:
As you can imagine, I was not happy. The good news is that the damage affected neither the running f the car nor the operation of the doors. Nor did the crash affect my enjoyment of my burger and fries!
Fortunately the driver, who was very apologetic, had insurance and admitted that it was his fault — he simply had not seen me. He promptly called his insurance company and we were off to the races. After his company confirmed with me their client’s version of events they helped me make an appointment with an auto body shop for an assessment.
Since this is the high season for fender-benders in Minnesota, I couldn’t get it in for a couple of weeks. I dropped her off on January 15, and then waited.
Later that week his insurance company called to tell me that their adjustor had inspected the car and declared it “totaled.” FOR A HOLE IN THE DOOR! I was stunned and not a little bit angry since the car is in great shape and the damage doesn’t affect its operation one bit! They said that the cost of repair was too high relative to the value of the car. But in my mind, they were seriously low-balling the value of a 2010 Toyota Rav4 with 127,000 miles on it.
But I didn’t want to sell them my car (which I knew they would turn around and sell for parts and make some good money). I wanted to keep the car. They offered me a cash settlement to keep the car, which means I would take the money and then pay for the repairs myself.
I went back to the auto body place and they said they could find used doors and repair the car for less than what they had quoted the insurance company. In fact, the rep told me, he had already found 2 red doors from a 2010 Rav4, so they wouldn’t even need to do any painting.
With that in mind, I negotiated an amount with the insurance company that would allow me to keep my car. It was less than the offer of them taking possession of the car, but a lot more than I could now get the car repaired for. I know there are some downsides (she’s a “marked” car), but I just couldn’t see junking her for that amount of damage.
My only goal in all of this was to save Big Red! I figure she has a couple more trips to Alaska or Newfoundland in her!
On Tuesday I picked her up from the shop; she looks fabulous!
But I’m still mad at the insurance company for trying to take my car from me!
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