Yeah, thanks, man. It's just a hassle dealing with insurance companies. Just hoping I can make this as smooth as possible between two different companies in two separate incidents.
The thing I'm curious about on this though is that how do they repair or replace that panel on the car? It's not like the front-fender where it's one, smallish, piece. The rear-fender is attached to the C-Pillar, the rail along the roof up to the front fender, and is attached to the shrouding over the frame along the bottom. I mean, it's pretty much the entire side of the car! If they can just "pop it out" they'd still have to remove a large piece of metal to do it and if popping it out won't fix it then they got to replace this entire piece!
I know expense isn't an issue since it's not costing me anything, but still a wonder to me. And even though it's still a new car without very faded paint, I worry about color-matching any newly-painted piece with the rest of the car. (Since it's not like they paint the entire car when repairing damage parts. Normally it's just the damaged part and maybe an adjacent part.) I really worry about how it's all going to look when everything is fixed.
Since getting this car I've been parking in more-or-less the same place I always park. Which, granted, is a more "heavily" trafficked area since it's where a lot of employees park, never had any problems there. My boss parks his new car in a different spot in a far end of the lot that's not as heavily used, to minimize damages. Guess I might have to start doing that for better protection. I mean, I accept door-dings and such (the door guards on the side prevent most door-ding damages) but an actual collision like this?
The kid was apparently driving his parents' SUV (a Dodge Durango.) I'm guessing it's not the usual car he drives and he misjudged it's "footprint" (if you will) when turning into the adjacent space. But considering how extensive this damage is he must have had pretty good momentum/speed pulling into a space flanked by two other cars.
I mean, I pull into my space at pretty good speed but that's at 6:00 in the morning when no one else is in the other spaces. But if I'm pulling into a space between two cars? I pull in tightly, slowly, and carefully.
Sigh. After going back into work and talking with people about it, I began to stew on it more and more which ended up making me angrier. Luckily a co-worker had a "Vitamin-X" to share with me which made things... Sigh. Better.
But I really should have sprung for the shields, but they were packaged in the next-higher trim-level. Maybe it's something I can get added on somewhere down the road, a Tax-Refund "Bonus" for myself. That and a tractor beam. Man, the times I wish I had a tractor beam.
That or the higher-end in-dash information center, the one I can get "apps" for and have things like weather, navigation, etc.
No, I'm guessing I probably don't.
