I used to be disgusted, now I'm just amused. Here's the story:

Coming home from work in my stock '85 GSL I was doing about 40km/hr in rush-hour traffic on a single-lane (each way) street when some clueless punk does an abrupt about-face and steps off the curb to cross the street without bothering to look. (yes, it was at a cross walk. At least he got that right).

I come to an equally-abrupt stop to accomodate him. The lady in the Volvo behind me also comes to an abrupt stop--- when she rear-ends me, pushing me one car-length into the intersection where I just miss wiping out the afore-mentioned idiot/ pedestrian.

We both pull over and examine our vehicles. Hers appears un-damaged, and mine has some minor rear bumper damage that doesn't hurt the car's over-all appearance or value. Looks like not enough damage to be worth dragging it in to my insurance broker, and I've never been the sleazoid type to rake some poor driver over the coals just to get a bogus whiplash injury out of the insurance company. So we part ways with no info exchanged.

When I got home I took a closer look at my 1st gen. Uh oh. More damage than I first thought. Although subtle at first glance, the right rear quarter panel had been slightly buckled and the 1/8" gap between the trailing edge of the passenger door and the quarter panel is now only about one millimeter. The door still closes fine though.

At this point I'm not sure which path to take. The damage can likely be pulled out by a body shop and then prepped, primed and painted by me to keep the cost down. But even if I had gotten the driver licence number from the other driver (her fault) the insurance company would have gotten an estimate of over 3K and written the car off, offering me a low-ball figure in the $1000 range. Either way I lose, so the fact that it's too late to make a claim is of little or no consequence.

So the problem now becomes:

Do I still want to restore this car? The body is very solid, with very minor surface rust in a couple of small places, and none whatsoever in the more critical places like behind the storage bins, in the wheel wells or in the front unibody frame members. (the car originally came up from California).

But the rear suspension and bushings are shot, the paint and clearcoat is faded and flaking, there's a significant yet illusive vacuum leak and the engine, while clean and still running fine with no fluid leaks anywhere has high mileage on it and is not as powerful as the stock one in my wife's (also from California, the car not her) '85 GSL.

I'd been contemplating whether I should do a complete resto (with possibly a 20B conversion) sometime next year or just sell the car and look for one that needs nothing and do it up instead. A tough decision just got easier, but now I'm not sure if I want to drive it this winter and sell in the spring, or sell it now and get a winter beater instead.

If I do sell, the wife has already laid claim to the stereo and glass sunroof for her car. Between that and the dented quarter panel the car would fetch no more than $1200 and probably not even that. Maybe I should part it out, but I'd hate to condemn yet another increasingly-rare 1st gen to the wrecking yard.

What would you do?

 

i made this mistake, and ill never let someone just drive away agian.

 

So did I, with a work truck, looked like tha car that rear ended me took all the damage since I had a big *** lift gate on the back of my truck. When I got back to our shop I realized that the gate would not go down anymore. I almost lost my job over it. NEVER again will I leave a scene without following proper procedure.

 

Always get info!!!!!!!! Even a minor whiplash will take up to a week to manifest itself. I had a minor rearend collision (more minor than yours), and had issues with my neck for over 6 months. Body damage consisted of a minor crack to the plastic covering to the bumper This minor damage ended up costing $1300, and I settled for $1500 for my injury since I "did" get the info. I found out while exchanging info that this driver had a history of many many accidents, so I felt no guilt. You deserved to be compensated, you would've got your $1200 for the car after extracting the gold from it and even if you didn't claim for an injury settlement, you would've gotten weeks of soothing massage at the insurance company's expense. But with all that in mind, I'm sure you did the right thing and will rest better even after you can't close your door at 20 below, the rear hatch starts to leak, bumper falls off, and you can't get a sale without disclosing the clear and evident frame damage. But ya, you'll feel like the good guy, LOL.

 

My suggestion, B...

Report it to your insurance company. Explain that you didn't get info, and why, but include the location, time, and particulars of the accident (does Alberta have a central system like SGI or ICBC? If so, they might be able to get the plate #s of volvos matching that description and track down the driver).

But here's why you contact them: Even IF they write it off for, say, $2,500, you as the owner have 1st refusal buy-back rights. When Pamela was written off for $6,500, I bought her back for $500.

So let them write off the car, take the $2,000 ($2,500 less $500 buyback - or maybe a lower buyback fee, depending on what you negotiate) and have a body shop straighten the frame. Get it to pass recertification, and you're back to square 1 with a few bucks in your pocket.

 

Agreed. And next time I'll break out the microscope before inspecting the car for damage. Even looking right at that area of the car from certain angles and lighting it's not that obvious. But up close you can tell that it won't just "buff out."

BTW, D: when your insurance company wrote off your SE and allowed you to buy it back for $500 I'm assuming that if you were to restore that car it would from then on be listed as a "salvaged vehicle." (?)

As for my reasoning re "to restore or not to restore?", that fact is that even before the hit I was looking at a considerable amount of work to bring the body, steering and suspension up to snuff before even beginning to shoe-horn a proper *****-to-the-wall engine/drive train--- on the order of 4 to 5k plus my own investment of time and toil.

I'd almost come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth my investment of time and money when I could easily find a more suitable 1st gen that needed very little restoring before the drive train swap. The car we just picked up for my wife is a prime example, but I'd have to pry it out of her cold, dead hands first.

The only reason restoring this particular car was being considered was because my conscience wouldn't allow me to let the car rot and eventually go to the scrap yard, ie: I was willing to "take one for the team."

But now, even if the car were fixed at the insurance company's expense I'd still have a car that had a salvage title because the cost of said repair would exceed the car's real value and almost triple the lowball figure that an insurance company would spew. And I'd still have all that time and expense hanging over my head to get the rest of the car restored.

So at some point in the future I'll probably just sell it for a fair price to someone who either doesn't mind the warts or has the time and ambition to restore it. After having 24 hours to mull things over I'm thinking I'll just keep it until sometime next year when I can shop around for another one and then sell it.

And 84Stock, I can feel your frustration all the way from here and I knew that would be your reaction.

My neck feels fine (thanks to the 2nd gen high-back seats that Max sold me) and considering that I almost sold this car (complete with stereo, metering pump mod, oil cooler conversion and glass sunroof) to Alak as it was before the crunch for a paltry $1300 I'm not really out that much.

 

If you dont get it written off, I might buy it off you still (or trade you for my 2nd Gen). Minor Body damage for body damage. Man I hate 2nd Gens.


As for recertification. Let me warn you ahead of time that if you attempt the recertification process, you WILL have to do a complete restoration to pass the inspection. The book is about half as thick as the yellow pages.

 

[QUOTE=Alak]

If you dont get it written off, I might buy it off you still (or trade you for my 2nd Gen). Minor Body damage for body damage. Man I hate 2nd Gens.

Uh, no thanks. 2nd gens don't do it for me either, even if they are technically a more advanced car.

As for recertification. Let me warn you ahead of time that if you attempt the recertification process, you WILL have to do a complete restoration to pass the inspection. The book is about half as thick as the yellow pages.

Yeah, no surprise there. Even if you win, you lose. Might as well bypass the insurance company altogether. This car needs work but compared to some of the 1st gens that I've seen people try to restore it would be a cakewalk, both time and cost-wise.

I still haven't decided if I want to keep it until I've scored another 1st gen or if I want to just sell it now and pick up a winter beater to tide me over. Meanwhile Tiana has dibs on the stereo, glass sunroof and metering pump mod. PM me if you're still serious about buying. (BTW, Karla has a Panasonic deck that she might sell for cheap).

 

Next time you get in an accident, the first thing you do is memorize the plate #.
Trust me on this one! I had a guy hit and run my mother in law, but he couldn't move until I showed up (I was in front of her in another car at the time.) and I memorized the plate as I walked up to see what was wrong, 10 secs later as I'm looking for a pen, he took off!
As most of us are car people, we know makes/models of cars....
So needless to say, b/c I did that the cops pulled the persons file and had him on the phone 5mins after we went to the cop station.

You could always phone the police and claim hit and run. You know what type of car and description of the driver.

 

[QUOTE=MyRxBad]

Next time you get in an accident, the first thing you do is memorize the plate #.

Old news and kinda obvious if you notice any damage. I didn't until it was too late. But yeah, next time I'll record everything just in case something comes back to bite me on the ***.

Trust me on this one! I had a guy hit and run my mother in law, but he couldn't move until I showed up (I was in front of her in another car at the time.) and I memorized the plate as I walked up to see what was wrong, 10 secs later as I'm looking for a pen, he took off!
As most of us are car people, we know makes/models of cars....
So needless to say, b/c I did that the cops pulled the persons file and had him on the phone 5mins after we went to the cop station.

That's a situation I've been in before, except that when the guy cut me off he bolted immediately. I memorized the plate as I chased him on foot (my Toyota was totalled) and was able to catch the bastard because he tried to turn left in a left-turn lane. The oncoming traffic was grid-locked and he had nowhere to go. But in any previous situation I've been in where the damage was obvious I've always taken down the plate number first and then the driver licence number.

You could always phone the police and claim hit and run. You know what type of car and description of the driver.

If it was actually a hit-and-run I wouldn't have hesitated to do just that. But since it wasn't, to do so now would be both dishonest and unethical. So yes, I could claim it was a hit/run. If and when they found the other driver I could then admit that I let her go rather than let the police charge her for a crime she didn't commit. This would get me brought up on charges for filing a false report.

Or once they tracked her down I could swear up and down that it was a hit/run and that she's lying. This would be just wrong. If I were a Liberal I could probably find some way to justify it but since I'm not (and never will be) this is not an option.

Besides, for reasons already mentioned in above posts I'd really be no further ahead by the time the claim was settled. As it stands, the car was worth less than 2k before the hit.

 

I'll talk to you further about the car. I have some Ideas I'd like to dicuss.

 

No problem, S. At this point I'm not even close to finding a winter beater (ie: I haven't been looking) and depending on what's available and at what price I may have to coordinate it so that the funds from selling the 7 are used to partially pay for the beater. Otherwise I can hang onto the 7. I'm staying around the house for today (Monday) so you want to call me or drop by you can likely catch me at home.

 

Well, here's a little good news to somewhat offset the bad. I've located the cause of that massive yet illusive vacuum leak and remedied the situation, so if I do end up keeping this car for the winter at least it will start when the temps dip all the way down to freezing and points beyond.

What was it? The '85 models had what is known as a port air switching valve mounted onto the right rear portion of the carb. This valve has a rubber hose leading from it to a point on the aft portion of the intake manifold, and this valve sucks air from the intake manifold--- except when the hot exhaust has deteriorated the hose to the point where there's a big-*** hole in it.

When this happens air gets sucked in through the hole and dilutes the intake charge. (this part of the intake is independant of and bypasses the air control valve, which I've removed and installed a block-off plate in place of).

I couldn't locate this flaw to save my life until after I'd removed the ACV and its peripherals, which provided access and view to the bottom end of this hose. Car runs and idles fine now, with none of the backfiring that had previously drawn too much of the wrong kind of attention.

 

Nice work. Im sure I would have found that leak in the same process you did, by taking **** off. Hahaha. Trial by Elimination.



Oh and I think I found out what was wrong with my custom ignition system on my 2nd gen. Im going to try some stuff later to determine if Im correct before I offer any solutions for the masses. Its not like anyone could have helped me, I can't recall anyone whos done a setup like mine.

 

If you don't report an accident over $500 and then try to file for insurance could you be charged with leaving the scene of an accident?

 

Not in cases like this one. As I understand it, "leaving the scene" in the legal sense means not sticking around to give the other driver your info--- without the other driver's consent. In other words, leaving them holding the bag.

There would have to be intent to avoid legal responsibility to the other party involved. If two people agree to let the matter drop and to not exchange info, and then one of them discovers the damage caused was worse than previously thought, that person may still file a claim and no laws have been broken--- even if the damage is in the thousands.

But since proper procedures were not followed, even if the claimant wasn't at fault he (or she) may not have a right to claim anything, or at least (possibly) having any claim paid out go against his insurance policy. Not sure on this last point though. But claiming it was a hit-and-run would be considered fraud.