Quote Originally Posted by owlice View Post
(My second split-second thought while the other car was hitting mine was something along the lines of "Gee, I hope I don't have to go to the hospital; I have on old underwear!" I wish I were kidding about this... but ~~ sigh ~~ I'm not... )
You should be proud of that moment. That is hilarious.

My car is a 1998 Ford Escort. I had the same situation about 5 years ago. I was waiting at a stop sign and a snow plow backed into me. Insurance declared it totaled and gave us $1600 since I said we wanted to keep the vehicle and fix it anyway. I think they were going to give us $2000 if we didn't keep it. I don't want to buy a car for $2000. It wouldn't run. The mechanic fixed it for as close to $1600 as he could. We paid the difference. It wasn't much, so I was happy.

We were able to get it fixed for less because I guess one of the things they do is paint it to match the rest of the car, and after the car is this old it has faded quite a bit. I could barely tell that the hood was a brighter white than the rest of the car, and after a few months when it was equally dirty I couldn't tell at all. The front and rear bumpers are now black, on a white car. Since then I've noticed a LOT of cars have black bumpers and I wonder if that is intentional or just a cheaper way to get the bumper fixed. It's not noticeable, not like having a blue door or something.

I just wanted the car to run, and be safe. It's stupid to pay for cosmetics on an old car.

I guess technically we were supposed to get a salvage title, but we never got any paperwork on that. We don't intend to sell this car, we are going to drive it as long as it will run, so it doesn't really matter.