My $700 Saab 9-3 Aero has been great for the 5 months I’ve owned it, minimal work and it’s running like an absolute top, quirks aside anyways.
Last Monday my girlfriend and I did a Wal-Mart run to get some stuff for my dog. I was getting ready to turn right into the parking lot and this Subaru comes barreling into my lane, no turn signal, and stops at the red light. Whatever no big deal, I’m in no rush. Light goes green he’s sitting there playing on his phone from what I could see inthe rear view. Gave him about 5 or so seconds and lightly tap my horn to let him know the light is green and he loses it. Lays on his horn and takes off flipping me off, again whatever. Ended up getting ahead of him because of how the lanes in the parking lot entrance work and came to a stop at the 4 way stop. Look up and he’s barreling down the road and ends up hitting the back of my car, not hard enough to hurt anyone, but hard enough that I felt it and there was definitely damage.
So I get out to see what happened and let him know he hit me, assuming he would do the normal thing, you know get out and have a conversation and sort things out like any sane person. Instead when I confront him he backs up and goes “I don’t see anything.” So again I confront him ask him to get out or I’m calling the cops and they’ll find him. All I wanted was a my bad, or a what can we do to make this right. But he escalated things.
As I assumed would happen he takes off passing my car on the right clipping my quarter panel on his way. So I call the state police with his plate number and other information I could get visually. Police show up and assume I’m just dicking around because its a 14 year old car, and is assumed to be in rough shape to begin with. After going back and forth with the cop and my girlfriend backing up my story he finally caves and fills out the police report and takes all my info and says he’s going to try and locate the kid and will call me if he manages to find him. I honest;y figured he wouldn’t find him because according to the cop the car was registered out of NYC, which is about 5 or so hours south. Not exactly a short trip.
A few days pass still nothing and basically got ready to get the stuff myself to fix the car and eat the cost of a rear bumper and paint and whatever else I needed to do. Finally though good news, a letter in the mail from state police with all the information I needed. Thank god, even though the damage was minimal I still would rather not eat the cost to repair the car myself.
Here’s to hoping insurance won’t be an absolute battle to go through the claim process with. No pictures of damage, its honestly minimal, and not the end of the world. But imagine the entire rear bumper paint loaded with cracks and scratches and a giant scratch over the rear wheel arch on the right side.
