My VX... is TOTALLED??

[TheUltimateMan]

Who wants to hear a (not very) funny story...?

So last week I was driving home around midnight. I was on my street, and about a block away from my house. The street curves a bit there, and is narrow, but not at all a problem to navigate when you're driving at a normal speed (it is, afterall, a residential side street).

Well, as I was driving along the curve, I saw there were two cars parked on the opposite side of the street. I know to be careful driving when there are cars parked along the curve because you can't always see oncoming traffic. Well, another driver apparently didn't know to take caution, because he was driving in my lane coming right towards me! He was just doing this to get around the parked cars, but he obviously didn't see me because he was also speeding at least 40mph on this quiest residential side street!

I quickly swerved to right to avoid the oncoming driver, but then to avoid hitting a tree, I had to quickly swear back to the left. Unfortunately, when I sweared to the left, I hit one of the parked cars in the most interesting way.

The VehiCross sits relatively high above the ground, while the parked car was sitting very low. Instead of just hitting the car, my VehiCross drove up onto the parked car, and then... tipped over onto it's side.

I think.

It all happened so quickly, all I knew was that my VX was suddenly lying on it's passenger side, and I had to climb out of the driver's side door (now above me) to escape! The other driver who had almost hit me was already long gone, and probably didn't see what had happened, and therefore probably didn't give the near collision a second thought.

The ONLY damage on the parked car was a tear in the body above the driver's side front tire... and then my poor VehiCross lying on it's side beside it.

I wish I had taken some pictures, but I was in SO much shock from what had happened that it honestly never crossed my mind.

The aftermath was that the driver who owned the parked car I had hit was able to drive away with only some body damage. After a tow truck pulled my VX rightside, I was also able to drive away, only with some minimal damage to the side of the car.

Minimal. Seriously. Well, minimal considering that the car was lying on it's side I suppose.

The point is, after all that, the only noticable difference in the VX's function was that it now drove a little bit to the left. That's all. Otherwise it drove fine.

The morning after the accident I took it to my mechanic, he told me that something had bent in the front suspension (I forget what), and as far as repairing the body work, it wouldn't be that difficult to fix.

To fix. Not replace. Fix. Which I was fine with. Considering what had happened, I was just lucky to be alive, and considering how much worse it could have been... well, let's just say that I'm thankful that it happened the way it did.

Now, enter the insurance company. I have great insurance, the other driver will be taken care of, and so will I... or so I thought.

I haven't heard back from the insurance yet, they only just saw the damage this morning. But I did talk to the mechanic, and he said that the insurance company wants to claim TOTAL DAMAGE to my VehiCross.

As in, the price of parts to replace the damage is too high, so they will write me a check for what they believe my VehiCross is worth, and take it away. Probably to a junk yard.

My VX still runs. Perfectly. But because of the cost for replacement parts, (to REPLACE body, not FIX it- they don't deal with that) my insurance wants to TOTAL it.

Again, I haven't talked to my insurance yet, but according to my mechanic, I do have some options...

-I can buy my VehiCross back from the insurance, and still be insured, but only for liability.

-I can (maybe!) ask them to only pay for the minimal repairs to get it working, so fix the dented part, ailignment, passenger mirror, and tell them I'll take care of the rest myself. (I know the mechanic, he'll be able to FIX everything up for me for cheap anyway)

-I can take the Insurance check and kiss my VehiCross goodbye.


...I hope I explained my situation well enough to understand. I'm a little overwhelmed right now, and not really sure what to do. Again, I haven't heard back from the insurance company yet, but according to my mechanic, that's what's happening.

I'm sure there must have been stories of this type of thing happening to other VXers out there- where the cost of repair outweighed the total cost of the vehicle... what did they do?

What do I do??

I don't know... just wanted to share with all of you...

Thank you in advance for any comments or suggestions!






Here are some pictures of the damage (thank you VX KAT for showing me how to upload them!) You can see that the ONLY damage to the vehicle are some dents and a broken passenger side mirror:





...has since been fixed and is as beautiful as ever! Thank you for all the advice everyone!