...it happened on February 8. On the way to work I headed to a crossing with solid green. On the left turn lane, a few cars waited to make the left turn. When I entered the crossing, a Dodge Dakota pickup truck turned right in front of me although I had the right of way. I looks as if the driver could not see if anybody was comming straight, but decided to make the turn anyway. I went hard on the breaks and tried to think of a maneuver to avoid the truck, but since their were cars to both side of me, I decided to continue to drive straight and finally hit the truck. Here is a pic of how my Vette looked afterwards...



I was still able to drive to the body shop of my nearby dealer. The pickup truck had to be towed as I apparently had hit the rear wheel, which was turned to the side, and the impact also had created a big bulge. Its driver got a ticket for not yielding. Moreover, the insurance company that he reported to the cop told me that he had canceled the policy in October last year. My insurance company sent an agent to the body shop and advanced the cost for the repair (minus a deductible). Should the other party indeed turn out to be uninsured, my non-insured motorist policy will kick in.

Meanwhile, most of the damage is repaired. The front part of the rectangular frame (bumper) was bent and had to be replaced. The body parts are painted and replaced. What still needs to be done is an adjustment of the body parts with respect to each other and of the lamps. I am not sure if the particular body shop (of a big local GM dealer) is really that qualified to repair Corvettes. When the manager wanted to return the car to me, the above adjustments were not made. Additionally, the shop messed up mounting the frame savers (the little wheels from A&A Corvette) by welding them to the front of the frame instead to the sides. The manager explained to me that this was how it was described on the mountiung instruction which, by the way, the shop had thrown away. Fortunately, the mounting instructions are also available on the Internet.

I have had great experience with the repair shop of this particular dealer, but I now have serious doubts about this particular body shop which, the manager described as "the best in town." Now he is comming up with all kinds of explanations, as for instance, that the body parts do not match properly because of the rather large temperature difference between inside the hall and outside I am also concerned with visuable differences between the lights of the right (all new) and left (old) sides.

I just wanted to share this missfortune with you. Frankly, I now have the car for 6 months and with the trafic in this city (with people usually making turns without using the turning lights), I expected something like this much earlier. Needless to say that in these 6 months, I had a lot of fun and drove about 8000 miles.

 

Ouch...I'm glad you are O.K. I hope you get it all patched up so I can see you on the highway. I am in Charlotte, NC, but I will drive through Greensboro several times a month. On that note...how is speed enforcement on I-40? Always seems fairly cop free to me.

 

Wow!! That's really to bad. And repairs are definitely a whole other story these days. It's almost as though you need to be part lawyer and consumer advocate to know how to deal with these people. Everyone seems to know how to get around everything without any responsibility whatsoever.

Good luck with it and post some pics once it's done to your satisfaction. Here's hoping anyway.

 

Sorry to hear. Hope everything gets fixed to you satifaction.

 

Glad you're ok.
Good luck with the repairs.

 

Wow. So sorry this had to happen...

Hope it gets fixed so that you can't tell anything happened!

 

Glad to hear no injuries, did your airbag come out?

 

Glad you were not hurt! Am sorry your baby got damaged. Hope all works out to your satisfaction! Good luck!

 

ouch, sorry about that man, good luck with the repairs

 

Hope it all works out for you in the end.

 

sorry to hear glad your okay and your vette wasn't badly injured

 

That's a friggin' shame, man. I'm glad you're alright.

 

sorry to see that....glad you are ok

 

Glad you're OK and hope the Vette is soon returned to its former glory.

 

Where in Gboro did this happen? I go to Elon Univ, not too far away and frequent Greensboro quite often, although it is typically just to go down to Wendover and visit Best Buy!

I hope you get it fixed up to your satisfaction!

 

Sorry to hear. You are certainly right bout' the body shop's line o'BS. I was treated poorly at my (large Chevy) dealer and politely told them I would be going elsewhere. He said "so what, your loss because we have, you guessed it, the best body shop in town."
Good luck.

 

I hope you car is fixed to your satisfaction.

 

Poor thing! Glad you are okay!

 

I`d like to hear of more LARGE tickets given to Non insured Drivers...I hate paying High premiums because People think its OK to own a car and not have insurance. One of my many Pet Peeves....

 

That looks familiar to me, but on the other side. It'll be like 3500 in damage. Glad your ok though.