Totaled - A Learning Experience

  

      Subject vehicle was carefully selected and       purchased more than ten years ago.  From day one, it lived in a clean spacious garage no matter the weather, whether ranging from sweltering heat to freezing cold and all options in between. Sometimes, though, when the beloved SUV should have gone to the car wash and didn’t, it was parked in the driveway for nature to give it a good rain bath.   And always, the vehicle was taken for regular visits to the dealer’s garage for scheduled maintenance. 

Then a few weeks ago on a rainy night, the essentially perfect SUV was involved in an accident.  It was a two-vehicle collision.   

Thank God, it seems all involved were okay.  (Each of these five pictures was taken after the accident.)

The SUV was banged up – front grill mostly which included damage to the headlights as well.  It was driven home and parked in the driveway.   The flat bed truck came a few days later to take it to repair.  The driver backed it out of the driveway and onto the ambulance truck and away it went to be fixed.

However, the lovely vehicle was judged to be - totaled.  

The owner is recovering from the shock of learning this.

They had no idea it would not be coming back home.

Lesson learned:  No doubt one must be prepared to wave a permanent good-bye to an insured vehicle of some age that has been in a collision.  The book value will be less than the labor and materials necessary to return it to you repaired and ready to once again hit the road.  Another lesson,  it takes a long time to fall out of love, even with a vehicle.