This has not been a good day.
In preparation to our move to the Middle of Nowhere, I recently drove my car to the UP of Michigan. I arrived today, and went out to have a drink with my brother, his wife, and some friends. I drove back to my parent’s house, got out of my car, and happened to glance at the front end. ARRRGGGHHH! My front end was SMASHED in - someone had obviously backed into my car. No note, no nothing. Just a smashed-in front end. WTF?
My car, if I haven’t mentioned, is a BMW Z3. I was planning on leaving the car here in anticipation of our move. There is not a BMW dealer in 150 miles. There are, however, bodyshops here in town. I think this is body work only. At least, I hope so. Because I drove 12+ hours today, and it’s nearly 1 am, I’m not thinking straight. But I’m hoping that tomorrow I can call the police, file an accident report, and go about finding someone to fix my car.
Which leads to my first question - this obviously happened while I wasn’t around. I didn’t notice it until I was back at my parent’s house. My car was fine when I left my parent’s house - I know that because we were all out gagaing at my car. I realize I should probably call the cops right now, but it’s 1 am, and I’m beat. If I call 'em tomorrow and file a claim report, will my insurance pay for the damage? Pleeeassse say yes!
Question #2:
I’m in the middle of nowhere. Chances are the body shops around here have never seen a z3, much less worked on one. However, there are 6 or 8 body shops in the immediate vicinity. Is body work something that, if I find a quality shop, I have a decent chance of getting done right? Any non-body work I needed done I’d definitely drive the car to a BMW dealer to have done; however, I’m hoping that maaayyybe if there’s a quality body shop in the area, I can get this done without having to drive the car 100+ miles away. What do you think?
OK, cut: here’s another subject entirely.
I just called Mr. Athena to tell him about all this. We’re both understandably quite upset - we just paid $500 to get the bumper fixed on this car, and it’s already screwed up again. Mr. Athena’s been out of town, and he just pulled into the driveway as I called him. He walked upstairs while I was on the phone, only to find our roof was leaking. Again. This house is only 5 years old. The roof has leaked 3 times now. The first time, the house was under warantee. I called the builder, they ‘fixed’ it. The second time was a year ago. The house wasn’t under warantee, but I called the builder anyway. They came out and looked at it, and told me that they didn’t really think there was anything wrong with the house, that it was an anomoly that it leaked, and they weren’t gonna do anything. Yeaaaaah. I didn’t believe them, but also didn’t follow up on it (I know, I screwed up). Mr. Athena did a quickie patch job on the drywall in our bedroom. Well, here it is, a year later, and the roof is leaking again. It appears to only happen during heavy rain, which in our area, only happens in the spring. Our house is up for sale. Needless to say, this looks bad. We need to get it fixed. What’s our choices here? Is there any chance our insurance will pay for it? Like I said, the house, and the roof, is about 5 years old. Any advice?
Thanks for reading all this. This has NOT been a good day.