Surprise!

They saved her. I've been dying to talk about this for weeks, but I'm not one to count my chickens before they are parked in my driveway. I honestly didn't think insurance ever really fixed your stuff. I thought you just paid and paid, and when something bad happened they were just like - sue us. But it wasn't my insurance who paid, so maybe they get way stabbier when someone else is paying.

So, last time we talked - the body shop said they had reached the point where they had to stop taking the car apart, and it was going to be totaled. Then, somehow, insurance wound up kicking in another grand and the car managed to ~just~ squeak under the limit. There was no frame damage. It was all exterior cosmetic stuff.

This car was so close to being totaled that when the first insurance adjuster went on vacation the guy who took his place just started kicking out docusigns totaling the car. I think it was a flip of the coin and 200 bucks! But the strange thing was they'd already okayed the repairs, and the payout for totaling the car was actually more than the repair. The payout was around 10 grand, and the repair was 7200 and change.

Everything needed replacing except the doors and the trunk hood. And... it took FOUR engine hoods to repair this car. They got the first three and they were too damaged for the repair shop to repair. Each hood took a week to get in. Finally they had to get a hood from Canada.

Obviously the car was going to look weird with just a couple of parts not repainted, but we took the money from when he got hit last time and had the doors and trunk painted. So the car has pretty much a completely new paint job. We kicked in three grand for the extra paint. It basically took two accidents to get a completely new paint job.

All I know is that I've never felt such affection for a car. The whole experience really surprised me. I didn't know I felt that way! Especially because I think this car was the last in the era before touch screens and modern tech. Which I love, but this car doesn't have any of that - and I didn't think I'd be happy with an old timey car. Who doesn't love new tech?

Next year I'm going to look into getting the soft top replaced because it's still pretty sun damaged.