sometimes you can't make lemonade
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:59 pm
The car I just bought, from a dealership, has four flat tires.
(full story to be posted later)
(full story to be posted later)
So, since fmylife seems to be down at the moment, and I'm feeling very fmylife about this, figure I'll post it here...
Two, almost three, weeks ago, I was involved in a four car accident. No injuries, but my car was majorly damaged. Since I’m poor I didn’t have collision, which meant I needed to get my claim through the company of the guy that hit me.
Days 1/2: The accident occurred on a Friday night and when I talked to geico the next morning they told me not to even waste my time calling the other company because they wouldn’t be in until Monday morning (true).
Day 4: So, Monday I call them using the number geico gave me. The first company told me they are a different company, but they have this mix-up a lot; as recently as last week. So I googled the name and came up with another company out of jersey.
I call them, and at first they tell me they don’t cover the guy. But then they look again and say oh, yes we do cover them, your number was older, but by cover them we mean we are an umbrella company and you need to talk to this other company.
I call the other company. They say we do cover them, where did the accident occur? I tell them New York and they say, oh, well we don't directly deal with new york, instead we go through this other company.
I call the other company, and they have me read the policy number like everyone else, but stop me after two letters. They tell me that ‘BA’ means I was hit by a towncar or limo, to which I respond I was, and they say well… we don’t directly deal with towncars or limos, we have this other company that does it.
So, I call company 4.5, and they finally tell me I am at the right company, but I need to call their claims division. I call the claims division, relieved that I am in the right spot, only to be told that their computers are down and if they take my information they might lose it. At this point I tell them I’ll call them back the next day and get their fax info for the police report.
Day 5: I call up the insurance company to confirm their fax number at 2:15. The person I talk to tells me that I have the number right and to fax it attention her, and she’ll call me as soon as it comes (oh, and their computers are still intermittently down). At 2:30 I send the fax. At 4 I call to ask how come I never heard from her. The person that picked up says “oh, she left a little before 3.” After much yelling she tells me she will start to input my information, but it might not finish until the next day.
Day 6: I call the insurance company and get a busy signal. Since the company has an automated voice answer system that should never happen. I wait 10 minutes, call back and get it again.
So I decided to call the main office, which confirms that yes they are getting a busy signal there. I ask if she can find out if they have started my claim, to which she responds that only if she can get in touch with the claims department, can I wait on hold. (I assume she calls the claims department) when she comes back she calmly informs me there is a busy signal there which is weird, they must have their phones dead or something. Since I was the one who informed her of this (yes it was the same person both times) it was too much for me, so I start yelling at her about all of this for 10 minutes, after which she gives me the number of some place in ohio to call.
I call ohio, where I find out that they have opened a file, they tell me my claim number and my adjuster’s name, but he can’t get anything else because he just got an email saying the claims department in new york is having phone trouble. Calmly this time, I tell him I know, I was the one who reported it, I just wanted to know if they had started.
Day 7: I call the company again looking for my adjuster. We talk for about 30 minutes, she says she will need to call me back. A while later she calls me back, I give my statement, after which she informs me they may not be liable for all of the damage because in the police report another car is mentioned cutting off their driver causing the accident. After a (silent) mini-freakout I tell her that I didn’t contradict his statement because I wasn’t looking behind me, but the laws of physics defy any possibility of another car being between his and mine.
I stew for an hour freaking out over the possibility that I won’t get money for my car, but finally at 4:30 I get a call back saying they will cover all of the damage to the car. Also they will cover a rental.
Day 8: They call to confirm where my car is. I get my rental (yes, I just spent 7 days in suburbia hell without any reasonable means of transportation; thank god for great roommates).
Day 9: I get a call from the place my car is at asking me if they called me today. After hearing they haven’t they tell me that the company said they would have called them by noon if they would fix the car; therefore, my car is totaled.
I start going car hunting. At the 5th place I go to I find a car that is pretty much the exact same car I just totaled and (assuming I get decent value on my car) is within my price range. It is the car I will eventually buy.
Day 10: keep looking for cars.
Day 11: Finally I call them asking what is going on with my car, they tell me it is totaled, and I will be getting x money, they will fax the forms to me. I go to check out the forms, call them back and try and figure out how they are screwing me. After an argument about what my car has extra they tell me it is illegal for them to report anything less than my car has, therefore they must have reported it correctly. I take them at their word here because I need the money.
Later, I talk to the insurance company to get them to allow me to pick up the check in person because I need to get a car while they are paying for my rental (only until Friday of that week).
Day 12: I now revise my estimate of what I can get car-wise because they are giving me 2k less than bluebook value. Towards that end, I go to the place I previously mentioned to try to negotiate on that car, and get them to drop the price about $1400, so I end up getting that one.
Day 13: I talk to geico to try and find out if that company is screwing with me. First night of Passover (crazy for other reasons).
Day 14: I go to the insurance company’s office to pick up my check, go to the bank only to find that they will require me to wait 3 days for it to clear, which means I can’t get the car yet.
Day 15: return my rental, again unable to move.
Day 18: Pay for and pick up my new car. Immediately upon getting in it I hear a rattling that I had not heard during the test drive. It takes the entire ride home for me to realize that there’s a screw or something loose above my head (in sunroof I would assume). On the way back to the dealership I get a call from them saying they forgot to put my registration on the windshield, to which I respond that I was coming back anyway. I get there, they put the registration on, and I ask him to drive for a bit to hear the rattling. He hears it immediately, and claims it’s a screw somewhere on the floor. After a five minute argument he says he needs to deal with a costumer and leaves. I’m hungry so I drive to school to get my lunch and figure I’ll pick up the argument the next day.
As I pull onto campus, I realize my car is driving oddly. It feels like I have a flat, so I park in the first spot in the lot to check my tires. All four of them have much more give than I remember any tire ever having, but they are not clearly flat. So I go eat lunch and then head to a gas station. All four tires were 2/3rds full or less. I drive back to the dealer (livid) and ask what exactly that $450 prep fee that I talked them down on covered. I tell them all my tires were at 20 (psi?) which is 10 less than the 30 my car is supposed to be at. At this point he tells me he drives his car at 24 and its different for each car. Unable to take it any more, I all but yell that this is the same car I just totaled, I have the owners manual, I know where in the car to check, it’s supposed to be 30 and they sold me a car with 4 flat tires (this was in the show room and yes there were customers there). To get me to shut up he gives me the name of the head of their service department.
Tomorrow will be day 20. My car is going in to get fixed. If I don’t get 4 new tires, if they don’t fix the squealing that the breaks do (that I mentioned after the test drive), and if they don’t fix the screw (in the wherever the hell the screw is), then I’m going to need to lemon law the car. Sadly, that puts me back to where I was 9 days ago without a rental and out the tax on this car.
So no, you can’t always make lemonade when life gives you a lemon.