What would you do?

[KingOfPain]

If I'm worried about the car, I can vacuum the thing and make sure the oil gets changed regularly.

My car loving days are over. Last year I got new tires for my car and I got it winterized too. I decided I might as well get an oil change while it's there since the car hasn't got one for years. The mechanic said "What oil, the oil is DRY". Sheesh, mechanic with an attitude... Fine, I am not going there if I decide to have a tune up (how long has it been, 3, 4 years?)

I have got to admit I am very fortunate with this car, it has lasted me 12 years and it has seen no more than 3 or 4 tuneup and oil changes but it still runs like "new". Cars are no more than transportation to me these days. Don't even ask me how many car washes it's gotten in the 12 years. All I can say is white is the best color on a car if you don't plan to wash it too often.

Actually, I've pretty well adopted this "carefree" philosophy to material things. Some people become slaves to their material processions. Not me, I buy things to use, not to slave over - bad enough I have to slave for the money to buy them in the first place. Hehe, I know people who owned a sofa set for 9 years and still have the plastic wrapping on it.

I did get my first rock chip in the windshield this week, though. :mad: Maybe I'm just doomed.

Hehe. I can almost feel you pain. This brought back memories...

Years ago I bought a brand new jeep, it was one fancy looking rig. It was the first year Jeep offered "luxury" options such as AC, tinted windows, chrome wheels, chrome bumpers and chrome grill. This was the pimp mobile in the 4x4 world. The base price for the jeep was 8k, the Larado package and extras bumped the final sale price to 15k. First weekend with the jeep, I went hill climbing but ended up with a bunch of motocrossers. To make the story short, I found out jeeps are not built to jump like motocross. Had A couple of fun jumps but ended up calling a tow truck the first time I made 8 feet high. Damage done, 4.5k. Bruised ego, priceless. I know, this has nothing to do with your first rock chip, it just invoked this memory I like to share. I can never forget that crunching sound when the jeep landed, and how lucky I was I had the soft top on that day instead of the hard top when my head hit the roof, else I will be a couple of inches shorter.


KoP

[ShadowHM]

If I'm worried about the car, I can vacuum the thing and make sure the oil gets changed regularly. Both of those things will probably go a lot further than a scratch on the bumper anyway.

I did get my first rock chip in the windshield this week, though. :mad: Maybe I'm just doomed.

I couldn't agree more on the 'if I am that concerned about the car, I have to spend the time and money to maintain it' attitude. I have never even owned a new vehicle, myself. I have owned a series of used cars. I do my best to keep them in good shape (although I admit to being worse than lax about the vacuuming ). I have a good relationship with a trustworthy mechanic to whom I report all 'funny noises' and who has encouraged me to make sure those oil changes and tune-ups are regular. He has saved me much grief over the years.

Hubby, on the other hand, is more likely to be cavalier about his car maintenance. However, he has improved much since he had the grief of having an engine seize on him. Murphy's Law applied, of course. It happened in a snowstorm on the way home from a ski weekend with two of the boys. He really didn't enjoy the mad process of working out how to get home safely somehow.

[Ashock]

Hey gang,

I have a judgement call to make here, and I could use some input. I've probably made up my mind already, but it would be nice to hear others' points of view.

Last week, while my husband and daughter were waiting for me in our car, somebody pulled in next to us and scratched the bumper. It's not a big scratch, but it's all the way through the paint and maybe 4" long. It's small enough that I wonder if the person who did it might have just driven away, except for the fact that my husband was in the car and saw it happen.

We got her name and phone number, but not her insurance number. It doesn't seem like calling the insurance company would do either of us any good.

I didn't think that it would cost very much to repair. Maybe a little sanding and some touch up paint, and we'd be all set. But, all the repair places want at least $350 to fix the scratch. They say that it's too deep, and with metallic paint you can't touch it up anyway; you have to repaint the entire bumper.

The bumper is plastic. If we don't fix it, it won't rust. On the other hand, the car is new. We have another 6 years of car payments to make on it.

So, I'm not sure what to do here. If the repair was less costly, I'd have no problem asking the woman to pay for the repair. But, $350 seems like an awful lot to charge for a little scratch. There's even a chance that we could fix it and have it scratched again the next day by somebody else, who wouldn't stick around to pay for the repair. We have a similar scratch on the front bumper already, for example, but we don't know who did it and don't have an extra $350 to repair that one ourselves. On the other hand, if I had put a scratch in somebody else's car, I would want to make sure that I had paid for the repair.

If this was our old car, I wouldn't think twice about leaving the scratch on there. Of course, looking at our old car, I'm guessing that similar contact would never have scratched the car.

I think we're going to tell her not to worry about the damages. It's just too expensive of a repair. Part of me hopes that she will insist on paying, although that's probably unlikely. So, I'm just wondering if I will kick myself for this down the road, if scratch by scratch our nice new car starts looking like a piece of junk.

-Griselda

This is what I would do here (not that it matters now). Calle her up and tell her about the estimate. Give her a choice to go to any body shop of her choice and get their estimate in front of her and you. That way you don't need to worry about her thinking that you're trying to take advantage of the situation. This is pretty standard practice actually. Of course if you feel that the damage or the $350 is not important to you , that's a different story. However, it does not sound like that to me. Oh well....



-A