FourBux

Pre-holiday ramblings

As I sit here in my cubicle, surfing the internet and listening to my fellow cube-ites “working,” it’s all I can do to stay awake. It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and everyone in the office is screwing around. There’s Christmas music on every station on the radio. There’s a station in Phoenix that began playing all Christmas music 24 hours a day back at the beginning of November, I retaliated by deleting it from my car presets. Now they’re even sprinkling it in on Last.fm. Suck. It was my last hope for not hating the holidays and now it’s gone. I hope they’re happy. At least there’s the iPod.

I spent all day yesterday running around trying to get quotes to repair my car, and let me just say that was depressing. If the shops would even bother to quote a repair on a fifteen-year-old car, most of the numbers were higher than what I paid for it. One guy took one look at it and laughed, said it’s totaled and walked back inside.

I hope he’s wrong. I hope they’re all wrong. I really hope the other driver’s insurance company doesn’t have the right to total my car. If it was my insurance company and they had to pay to fix it, I could maybe understand it, but not theirs. Sure, it’s an older car, and perhaps that’s just the risk I take by driving it, but still. If they come back and try to call it a total loss, I’m going to have to fight them. It would be like giving up a member of the family. Sure, it’s an expensive and needy member of the family, but a member nonetheless.

For this, I blame the auto repair industry, including the insurance companies for their part. If body shops weren’t out to screw the insurance companies over because they know they can, there would be less issues for those of us caught in the middle. Try this: if you ever get a quote for repair work, when they ask you if an insurance company is paying for it or you are, tell them it’s coming out of your pocket. The cost will be much much less, and by a huge margin. Case in point: once I needed my windshield replaced, and I went through insurance. They billed them over $500 for the glass and installation, which insurance paid without missing a beat. The next time I needed replaced, I told them I was paying for it. The bill was $135, which I then submitted to insurance. Wonder why all our premiums are so high?

I finally heard from the other driver’s insurance adjuster this morning, and since it was the initial contact, it was just the perfunctory correcting of the details:

“So, your car was hit on the driver’s door and scratched all the way to the back?”

“No, from the driver’s door forward, towards the front of the car. Front fender, wheel, molding, etc.”

“Oh, no wonder. The paperwork was wrong. I couldn’t figure out why the back door wasn’t mentioned. That’s a big difference.”

“Uh, this is a two door convertible. There’s no back door at all.”

“That could be it. Well, that’s all I need for now. If you want to take it to a shop you trust and get a quote, you can, otherwise, I’ll talk to you again on Monday.”

“I actually got several quotes yesterday. I can send them to you if you like.”

“Ah, no, that’s not necessary. You could just give me the names of the places you spoke with, and I’ll have them send it over.”

“I spoke with Place X, and Place Y, and Place Z. And this Other Place to repair the wheel.”

“Oooh. None of those are on our list of approved shops. Which means if there are any problems down the road, you’ll have to deal with them directly.”

“Makes sense.”

“Okay, if you don’t have any more questions, I’ll have the shops send me their estimates, and then I’ll touch base with you on Monday.”

Crap. Obviously she wants off the phone, giving me zero chance of starting the process before the weekend, which means no rental car. My wife’s car is in the shop having routine maintenance done, so we’ll be driving my car to visit with the relatives for Thanksgiving. I love driving it, and the car still handles great, but there’s just something about driving a car that’s in beautiful shape except for the part where it looks like it was used for target practice in a monster truck rally. That and every time I get in and out some piece of trim or metal falls off, which I have to collect and retain for the body shop. It’s only been four days, and I am so ready for this to be done with.

And with that, I close this enthralling look into my day. Tune in next time so I regale you with tales of things as interesting as lint and, dare I say, coffee grounds.

Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving. And for those of you outside the boundary of this holiday, have a happy regular Thursday.

Cheers.