Son's car scratched by good friend - nail him?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Yoy’re completely in the wrong. It’s not your car and not your place to “decide” anything. The whole thing was basically none of your business and it was tactless and graceless for you to tell your son what he is or is not allowed to forgive.

Please disregard this post. I didn’t mean to submit it. This post comes off as much more intemperate than I intended. I meant to edit it in preview but I think I submitted it instead. My second post is what I intended to submit. My apologies. I didn’t intend to sound like this much of a dick.

[OpalCat]

@sugar and spice

Not a cultural divide, over here “nail” is generally not used as “hold resposible for”. I actually thought it was the dad’s friend who scratched the car, not the son’s.

If this happened to me when I was in high school and my dad went over my head like this, I probably would have sold the car and given him his $3000 back.

Wow. It took me this long into the thread for it to even occur to me that the OP might be the son’s dad. Heh. Shows what perspective and assumptions do, doesn’t it?

[sugar_and_spice]

@kezami

I used ‘nail’ in the subject line to suggest an emotional response and generate some interest in the OP.

In reality what I was undecided about was the extent that the friend should be held responsible for the damage, and decide, with my son’s input, on any consequences. It is my son’s first car and he lacks experience in dealing with an accident of any severity. I figured it was my fatherly duty. The complicating factor in deciding on reperations is that the damage was done by a friend. I have no experience in such a situation and so I polled the Dopers.

Offering advice and guidance is one thing, fighting his battles is another. Particularly if its a battle that he didn’t want to start in the first place. If this was somehow a safety problem or was actually money out of your pocket then I would say that you were justified in contacting the other family. But this is a dent in a 10-year-old Nissan, and your son’s initial response was perfectly reasonable, and in fact quite good-spirited. You have the right to advise him to do otherwise, but to put the wheels in motion yourself is where I believe you overstepped you bounds.

As others have said better, I think that a good friendship is well worth driving around with a dent in your car. When people ask about the dent, he can say “My buddy did that, he’s kinda a fuckwit sometimes … but he felt real bad so just let it go.” I’m not a parent, but that would impress me.

[kezami]

I guess I came across as hard-hearted but everything has worked itself out. My wife even discovered after finding out the friend’s last name that she went to highschool with his mom. They chatted for quite a while about the whereabouts of their ex-classmates and decided to continue over coffee sometime. The mother was very appreciative that we dropped pursuing any damages.

Thanks for all the suggestions and criticism, though it seemed a little harsh at times.

[gigi]

I live in an apartment adjoining a main house where there are a couple of teenagers. One of their pals was backing around at night one time and scraped the corner of my front bumper. I haven’t fixed any of the dings in the car and wasn’t going to start then, since it was a scrape in the plastic and wasn’t going to rust. I told him don’t worry about it, I wouldn’t fix it anyway, see ya.

I didn’t tell anyone but somehow my landlord heard about it and was concerned that that the kid’s mom know about it, it happened on his property and everyone should know, etc. Then I get the call from the mom, apologizing, offering to pay, etc. I told her the same thing, I wasn’t going to repair it and don’t worry about it.

So basically I had to deal with all these people when between the two of us we had settled it. :smack:

[mswas]

@kezami

I guess I came across as hard-hearted but everything has worked itself out. My wife even discovered after finding out the friend’s last name that she went to highschool with his mom. They chatted for quite a while about the whereabouts of their ex-classmates and decided to continue over coffee sometime. The mother was very appreciative that we dropped pursuing any damages.

Thanks for all the suggestions and criticism, though it seemed a little harsh at times.

Eh, that’s just the nature of asking people’s opinions on a message board. We’re going to answer you taking what you said very literally, and then drag out our soapboxes.

Glad to hear it worked out. Sounds like everything went well with it.