One month, and then it was toast

This is my first post. I happened upon PC a few months ago during my Internet research before buying my Prius. I found a lot of useful information on making the deal, extended warranties, etc., that helped save a lot when we went to buy. I’ve read even more threads since and really enjoy the useful advice, enthusiasm and community. This is a really great place to hang out.

I figured I would wait a few weeks to take pictures, until the sun showed up and the trees bloomed. Fate intervened, but my story does have a happy ending.

We bought our Seaside Pearl Package #6 Prius on March 27, and really enjoyed it. Neither my wife nor I have any real commute, and with the weather being gloomy and every freeway around us beginning summer construction, we hadn’t had a chance to drive it extensively. But it was a ton of fun to learn about and drive, even though we only put about 400 miles on it in the first month.

Early in the morning on Monday, April 28, someone torched my next-door neighbor’s garage. Living in Chicago, our garages are at the far end of our properties, facing onto the alley. We don’t put out the trash, we just walk trash out to our containers in the alley, and once a week the city empties them. My neighbors had just finished remodeling their house, and they had a bunch of wood and construction debris plus some cut-down boxes in their containers.

Someone apparently pushed all that stuff up against the garage and lit it on fire. The fire burned down their garage, burned the 8-foot-tall wooden privacy fence between our garages, and then burned my garage. With my one-month-old Prius inside. The first we knew of this was when the police woke us at 1:30 a.m. to tell us our garage was burning.

We ran outside to see the fire fighters putting out the last of the fire. It had completely destroyed two garages, melted the vinyl siding off of three other garages and burned down a fence across the alley. It was devastating to look at.

The crime was on the local TV news shows the next morning. It had been the second arson fire in two nights, with the other destroying a handful of garages about one mile due north of us.

Monday morning, I called the telephone company (because the telephone and cable lines into the house had melted) and the insurance company. Then I called my Prius salesman. I explained my situation, and he said he had seen the news reports.

I told him I needed to get my car back, and he said they only had two low-package Super White ones on the lot (when we bought ours one month earlier, they’d had 30). But he had two coming in later in the week, and he’d go check the manifest. He came back to tell me that one of them was a Seaside Pearl Package #6. I put down a deposit. He told me he would let me know when it arrived, and I would work on getting my insurance check.

On Wednesday, he called to tell me it had arrived. He said he’d talked to the sales manager, and they agreed they would give me the same deal we worked out on the first one, even though they weren’t offering deals on Prii any more. We agreed that he would prep it and we would plan for me to come get it on Saturday.

On Thursday morning, the insurance adjuster arrived to inspect the car to determine what they would pay. He said he had never seen a car so completely incinerated. They usually find parts that can be salvaged, but the only possibility here was the metal in the wheels. Only the front driver’s side tire had any tread, the others had burned away. The license plates melted. The hatch door was missing, possibly blown off when the gas tank burned.

Anything plastic or leather on the interior was gone, leaving a thick layer of ash. I’d hoped I could salvage my prescription sunglasses from the upper glove compartment, but when I could get close to the car, I found there was no glove compartment at all, just an engine wall.

I explained my car plan to the adjuster and the desire to get the money before I bought the new car on Saturday. He said he’d upload the photos and the information, along with my request to expedite it, to the claims examiner in a couple hours.

24 hours later, on Friday morning, I had a check in hand for the purchase price of the car. 24 hours after that, on Saturday morning, I owned a new Seaside Pearl Package #6. The salesmen said the other Prius they’d gotten in had been claimed, and they were expecting two more next week. After that, they were on allocation for eight to 12 weeks, so they didn’t know when or what they would get.

We drove it home and then out to a party 50 miles away that night, and it runs beautifully—just like the first one. It was a very good feeling.

I don’t know that my story has a moral. I’d suggest that, like Joni Mitchell sang, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, but I think most of the people at PC *do* know what they’ve got. So I would just say, be sure you appreciate it, because it can be taken away before you know it. And unless you are really, really lucky, it might be difficult to get it back right now.

Here are some photos for you to enjoy. Well, not “enjoy,†but you know what I mean.

 

Here are some additional photos, of the front seat, back seat, and hatchback.

 

Thanks for the good wishes, all.

Morpheusx, I agree that this wasn't the worst outcome, especially given that my exact car was available. It would be awful to try to "fix" a car that was pulled from a situation like that. The car is smoky blue in color, it's not supposed to *smell* smoky. You just know it would never be quite right again.

JimboK, my insurance is with State Farm. They have really come through. The car and garage investigators coordinated their visits so they'd be here together to take up less of my time (which wasn't necessary, since I work at home). I'm to get a check for the garage by mid-week. Meanwhile, my neighbor where the fire started hasn't heard from his agent yet, from what I know.

efusco, there is too much debris and ash to want to mess around in it too much right now. I'm guessing they'll wait until the garage is demolished to take the car away. I'll see if there is anything to see once it's easier to move around it.

 

Boo, the trim rings were on the car, so they either melted or burned away. If they had survived, I would have found out exactly what material they were made of and sided my new garage with it!

Patsparks, thanks for the warning, I wouldn't have thought of that. I don't intend to get too close, as just being near it is a messy job. Besides, it occurred to me that I don't own the car any more...

Here's a happier picture I took yesterday of the Mark II, as I like to think of it.

 

Freshmtt, I bought both cars from Libertyville Toyota. When we bought the first one, they had 30 Prii on the lot, including several copies of the one we got. This time, they had no cars that weren't claimed, and they had only two coming in next week.

Prii are getting a lot more scarce, which makes me feel really lucky that they had my combination on the way in. I don't even want to think about what the chances of that happening are.