Hello to All!
Its been awhile since I last posted and here's why...My mustang was wrecked not once but twice, quite a story. So if you haven't anything better to do sit back and listen to this one.
My biggest mistake with my car was letting inexpereinced drivers, drive it. Such was the case the rainy night of September 23rd, 2005. We had gone to the store about 2 miles from school and when we drove back he asked to drive the stang, I agreed to let him since it was hardly a drive at all. We exited the parking lot and went out to a street light, as I said it had been raining and it was the first rain we had, had in a long while so the roads were quite slick. When the light turned green (we were turning left) my roommate mashed on the gas and made a nice hard turn, being the wild beast that she the rear end of my mustang decided to kick out, which would have been no problem for a more experienced driver but my roommate drives a civic and is not an experienced driver, so he totally overcorrected the spin and tried to slam the brakes...the result was a wonderous skid that took us a full 540 degrees then backwards over a curb and finally into a guardrail. My first thought was that we were okay, the airbags didn't go off, I figured he screwed up my bumper but that we would be able just to drive back to school and he could fix the bumper. I jumped out to look at the damage and immediately saw that the rear drivers side wheel was no longer attatched. This is what it looked like.
Apparantly the wheel had snapped off as we went over the curb and we slid on the tire (which was sideways under the car) until we hit the guardrail. Anyways, since we obviously weren't going anywhere for awhile we called a tow truck to come and pull us off and as we get off the phone the police showed up. Ended up issuing my roommate a citation for "Failure to Maintain Control" and we got the vehicle towed to a body shop just off the road. At the time I only had liability insurance and it was up to my roommate to pay whatever bill we got. So the next day we headed back to the body shop for an estimate, here are more pics of the damage.
Ended up needing to replace the entire rear end, the bumper, and the quad shock. The impact had also shattered two of my stock rims so I decided to by all new rims. The entire cost of this activity was $4300 courtesy of roommmate.
Took just over three weeks to get the car back to me. In the meantime I made the decision to get full coverage, it just wasn't worth the risk to me if I were to wreck it again or something crazy like that so at 1:30a on October 1, 2005 I signed up for full coverage with a $500 deductible and a $330 monthly payment. That day was also the day I got my car back out of the shop. I made the decision to take her down to Phoenix for a test drive, this proved to be a bad decision.
As I was driving through town I got behind this late 80s Cougar, this guy was driving like an idiot, starting and stopping for no reason so I was watching him closely (not following closely mind you). Anyways, all of a sudden out of nowhere he slams on his brakes and comes to a stop in a cloud of smoke, I checked traffic to the left and right and had nowhere to go, I also mashed down on the brakes as hard as I could but I had no chance of stopping, I plowed into the back of his car at about 20mph popping both of the airbags. I later found out that we had come to a red light, he had hit a 99 Malibu at the light (no damage to the malibu) and then I hit him. Of course I was the 19 year old in the GT, so when the cops showed up I was issued the citation for "Speed Greater than Prudent" and stuck with a car missing headlights, crunched in the front and with two airbags, like this. Went to traffic school to get the ticket off the record, quite amusing as my roommate went to traffic school for his ticket the same day, quite a story to tell.
It pretty much sucked, but I was still able to drive it, took it about 3 miles down the road to my girlfriends mom's house and left it there, went back home and called the insurance company thanking the good lord that I had signed up for my full coverage on that same morning. The insurance guys at first told me I didn't have full coverage but I had printed the confirmation so they had no room to go there and they decided to cover it (they had no choice).
The agent I dealt with was an idiot, he didn't have a clue about what was going on but he sent out an adjustor who put the damage at about $5100 dollars. I then called him back after I got the estimate and he asked me if the airbags had deployed, I said yes, and he said "well your car might be totalled", this really sucked to hear, he then said he needed to see it for himself and that he would call me back. The next day he did call and said he had estimated the damage at about $6150 and that they were totalling my vehicle. They valued the car (94 Mustang GT Conv. 114k on the clock) at $7100 with tax, the offered me $6600 if they kept the car or $5300 if I took the car back. Now I am sure some of you would have taken the money and got another car, but this is my baby, my first car and I didn't want to get rid of it, not planning to sell it, so the salvage title was no big deal and I took the car. Sent it off to a shop to be repaired, and when all was said and done it cost me $6700 to fix the car that I only paid $3500 for, but oh well...shes all fixed now and awaiting my return to school tommorow, still needs to be inspected to get a restored title and then reregistered but she drives perfectly and you cannot tell she was ever wrecked.
Ah and the best part??? After I the insurance company totalled my car I cancelled my insurance policy retroactive to the date of the accident. I had paid for that month my normal liability fee ($110) and they refunded to me $95 of that...and I never paid a penny for the full coverage...the accident actualy cost me $15 in terms of insurance. I told them about this and they said that I had gotten lucky and chose the right time to go full coverage.
THANKS FOR LISTENING, and I look forward to getting back in the forums, next plans are for all new brakes (Options???) and getting her lowered, also have new headlights that were to go on before the first accident. I also need to redye the airbag covers (they didn't do it ~ wanted $300 for it) and get the ABS checked out.
Its been awhile since I last posted and here's why...My mustang was wrecked not once but twice, quite a story. So if you haven't anything better to do sit back and listen to this one.
My biggest mistake with my car was letting inexpereinced drivers, drive it. Such was the case the rainy night of September 23rd, 2005. We had gone to the store about 2 miles from school and when we drove back he asked to drive the stang, I agreed to let him since it was hardly a drive at all. We exited the parking lot and went out to a street light, as I said it had been raining and it was the first rain we had, had in a long while so the roads were quite slick. When the light turned green (we were turning left) my roommate mashed on the gas and made a nice hard turn, being the wild beast that she the rear end of my mustang decided to kick out, which would have been no problem for a more experienced driver but my roommate drives a civic and is not an experienced driver, so he totally overcorrected the spin and tried to slam the brakes...the result was a wonderous skid that took us a full 540 degrees then backwards over a curb and finally into a guardrail. My first thought was that we were okay, the airbags didn't go off, I figured he screwed up my bumper but that we would be able just to drive back to school and he could fix the bumper. I jumped out to look at the damage and immediately saw that the rear drivers side wheel was no longer attatched. This is what it looked like.
Apparantly the wheel had snapped off as we went over the curb and we slid on the tire (which was sideways under the car) until we hit the guardrail. Anyways, since we obviously weren't going anywhere for awhile we called a tow truck to come and pull us off and as we get off the phone the police showed up. Ended up issuing my roommate a citation for "Failure to Maintain Control" and we got the vehicle towed to a body shop just off the road. At the time I only had liability insurance and it was up to my roommate to pay whatever bill we got. So the next day we headed back to the body shop for an estimate, here are more pics of the damage.
Ended up needing to replace the entire rear end, the bumper, and the quad shock. The impact had also shattered two of my stock rims so I decided to by all new rims. The entire cost of this activity was $4300 courtesy of roommmate.
Took just over three weeks to get the car back to me. In the meantime I made the decision to get full coverage, it just wasn't worth the risk to me if I were to wreck it again or something crazy like that so at 1:30a on October 1, 2005 I signed up for full coverage with a $500 deductible and a $330 monthly payment. That day was also the day I got my car back out of the shop. I made the decision to take her down to Phoenix for a test drive, this proved to be a bad decision.
As I was driving through town I got behind this late 80s Cougar, this guy was driving like an idiot, starting and stopping for no reason so I was watching him closely (not following closely mind you). Anyways, all of a sudden out of nowhere he slams on his brakes and comes to a stop in a cloud of smoke, I checked traffic to the left and right and had nowhere to go, I also mashed down on the brakes as hard as I could but I had no chance of stopping, I plowed into the back of his car at about 20mph popping both of the airbags. I later found out that we had come to a red light, he had hit a 99 Malibu at the light (no damage to the malibu) and then I hit him. Of course I was the 19 year old in the GT, so when the cops showed up I was issued the citation for "Speed Greater than Prudent" and stuck with a car missing headlights, crunched in the front and with two airbags, like this. Went to traffic school to get the ticket off the record, quite amusing as my roommate went to traffic school for his ticket the same day, quite a story to tell.
It pretty much sucked, but I was still able to drive it, took it about 3 miles down the road to my girlfriends mom's house and left it there, went back home and called the insurance company thanking the good lord that I had signed up for my full coverage on that same morning. The insurance guys at first told me I didn't have full coverage but I had printed the confirmation so they had no room to go there and they decided to cover it (they had no choice).
The agent I dealt with was an idiot, he didn't have a clue about what was going on but he sent out an adjustor who put the damage at about $5100 dollars. I then called him back after I got the estimate and he asked me if the airbags had deployed, I said yes, and he said "well your car might be totalled", this really sucked to hear, he then said he needed to see it for himself and that he would call me back. The next day he did call and said he had estimated the damage at about $6150 and that they were totalling my vehicle. They valued the car (94 Mustang GT Conv. 114k on the clock) at $7100 with tax, the offered me $6600 if they kept the car or $5300 if I took the car back. Now I am sure some of you would have taken the money and got another car, but this is my baby, my first car and I didn't want to get rid of it, not planning to sell it, so the salvage title was no big deal and I took the car. Sent it off to a shop to be repaired, and when all was said and done it cost me $6700 to fix the car that I only paid $3500 for, but oh well...shes all fixed now and awaiting my return to school tommorow, still needs to be inspected to get a restored title and then reregistered but she drives perfectly and you cannot tell she was ever wrecked.
Ah and the best part??? After I the insurance company totalled my car I cancelled my insurance policy retroactive to the date of the accident. I had paid for that month my normal liability fee ($110) and they refunded to me $95 of that...and I never paid a penny for the full coverage...the accident actualy cost me $15 in terms of insurance. I told them about this and they said that I had gotten lucky and chose the right time to go full coverage.
THANKS FOR LISTENING, and I look forward to getting back in the forums, next plans are for all new brakes (Options???) and getting her lowered, also have new headlights that were to go on before the first accident. I also need to redye the airbag covers (they didn't do it ~ wanted $300 for it) and get the ABS checked out.
