2 month old 04, hit and run driver in So. Cal.

Darn, that's tough.

I'm no expert, but from the damages my cars have suffered I have a bit of experience. I don't think you need new doors.

 

A place like Maaco may be able to fix that without replacing the panels. My wife (same wife who scraped up my Prius with a shovel) scraped my Ford Focus against a cement wall a few years ago (our parking space was very tight with a cement wall on one side). Large gouge/dent across both driver's-side doors, and the side mirror was wrecked too. They de-dented it to the point where you couldn't see that there was any problem, repainted both panels, and fixed the mirror too. The whole thing only ran me about $500 I think.

Get an estimate, anyway.

 

Oh man, that sucks. I think I would cry if this happened to me. Have you tried DNA testing to find the culprit?

 

I cried when I saw that. I am so sorry to see those pictures.

That really just sucks that there are drivers out there that are so bad that they hit you. Mistakes can happen. But to run away is that one step over the line where they should automatically have their licenses taken away if caught.

I hope your Prius comes out of this okay and with minimal impact on your pocketbook.

 

I think hit-and-run is indeed treated as a very serious crime. If caught!

newpriusspouse, I'd take it to the dealer or a first-rate body shop and have everything replaced with new Toyota parts. Your insurance ought to treat it as vandalism or uninsured driver and pay 100%. Presumably it is drivable while you wait for the parts to arrive, and replacing them once they arrive should be quicker than repairing the damaged parts.

 

I was surprised that the body shop just pounded my damage out and didn't replace the quarter panel. But they did an excellent job of matching the paint and took great care in avoiding overspray (they removed the side mirror instead of just taping it).

If your body shop doesn't seem to know what they're doing, you have the right to shop around. If the car is still driveable, and there's a closer body shop, there's no reason you can't go get a different estimate (who is your insurer?). Chances are if they do need to order parts you can drive it until they come in, but insist on an immediate alignment (you never know what they knocked around inside) to be sure that you're not doing more damage.

I'm pretty sure Modern Auto Body (where I took mine) is the place where Glendale Toyota sends their cars for body work (or at least it was back in the day when they were Johnny Lail Toyota).

 

OMG! i grimaced when i saw the pictures! i've also got a seaside. that sucks big time! grrr if that happens to me... :guns:

 

My hit and run story:

I had my side mirror knocked off by a hit and run driver while my car was parked on the side of the street. My neighbor saw it happen and jogged to chase the car up the street. Found it parked in front of a house a few blocks away, engine warm. Long story short, I found out it was a high school kid driving the car, and he was on his way home from bible study class; admits to police he was driving his car in the area at the time but says he took a different route home (which would have been longer and less pleasant). Father is a lawyer. Kid wouldn't admit that he did it, and the mother called the police on me for trespassing when I rang their doorbell to try and work it out. The police ended up believing that he did it, but since my neighbor only saw the car not the driver, and lost sight of the car before finding it again parked, it's theoretically possible that it was someone else, so I ended up paying the $500 deductible. My insurance guy also believed that it wasn't my fault but they weren't able to collect from the other insurance company, so I'm still out the deductible. The one good thing that happenned was that the insurance adjuster agreed to reimburse me for the $500 or so it would cost to repaint the door panel that was scratched, but I ended being able to repair that myself since the damage was minor to the panel.

I gotta wonder what the kid is learning from his lawyer father during this whole process.

 

And coming back from Bible Study no less :Wth:

 

Some insurance companies charge less, and then balk at paying out.

I've never tried a mathematical risk vs cost analysis (one can never really know how likely an accident is) but I have very low deductibles.

If a hit-and-run is treated as a collision, there's your deductable to pay. But in a normal collision, if it's the other guy's fault, he has to pay and you have no deductible. So a hit-and-run ought to be treated as vandalism, in which case there might or might not be a deductible. And that's where a bad insurance company can try to cheat you, by looking for ways to avoid paying, while a good company can help you by honoring the intent of the policy.

 

People don't learn from what they're told, they learn by example. The kid may have been studying the bible, but his dad's a lawyer. The law is the only profession where your professional code of ethics actually REQUIRES you to lie. ("Your Honor, my client is innocent," when the lawyer knows his client is guilty.) The really surprising thing, considering what the father is, is that the kid didn't stop and steal the wheels off the car after hitting it.

 

Replies to two listers:

Tmorrowus (sp?); Your deductable should have been recoverable in small claims court. If the driver couldn't be positively identified, just go after the registered owner of the vehicle. He is ultimatly responsible for the car and what happens with it. If he claims he wasn't driving it, then he gave permission to somebody else to drive it. Hence responsible. If he didn't give permission, then the car was stolen and the police need to called and a car theft report and investigation started. Either way, the dirtbag lawyer should cough up your deductable to save his time and trouble having to deal with small claims court and/or the police and a stolen vehicle case.

Newpriusspouse: Go for new panals and/or doors. Fight to the death against letting a body shop repair anything that CAN be replaced. Even the best shop reshapes metal to as close to the original shape as possible, but they then finish the job with Bondo. Sure there is newer and better stuff than the original Bondo, but on thin panals like the Prius doors, some flexing is inevitable and filler may crack with time and flexing. The color may change with time as well. Ask any body shop, the material under the paint affects the color. That affect could only intensify with age. The only way to get and keep a good color match is to have the paint ont he same base as the rest of the car, not filler material of differing thicknesses.

Good luck both of you.

Mike

 

Agreed, with the provision that "what the father is" is, apparently, an *ssh*le.

There are lawyers, and there are lawyers. I tend to think engineers are more truthful on average (probably 'cause I is one; but I've met some that will shade facts or lie to make a point, or get an advantage. (Luckily, very few of them; and almost all of them either left the company, were laid off, or rose into the ranks of management.)

 

This is an old joke. Only I suspect it's true:

An old, half-blind man, went to a lawyer for some legal advice, and after getting it, asked how much he owed. The bill was $100. But due to his decrepit condition, he handed the lawyer two $100 bills, without realizing it. This put the lawyer in an ethical dilema: Should he tell his partner, and have to share the extra 100 bucks?