"190e30-Now with COSWORTH" (190e30)
09/12/2018 at 19:43 • Filed to: None
3
8|
"190e30-Now with COSWORTH" (190e30)
09/12/2018 at 19:43 • Filed to: None | 3
| 8 |
Figured I’d share my story of my first accident from a little while ago.
This was about 6 months ago. I’m 21, lived off-campus with four friends in a tiny shack in the middle of nowhere just outside our college town (and therefore, our rent was dirt cheap).
I went out to the bar with a few friends, got home around 2:00 in the morning, and relaxed in the living room with all of my housemates for a few hours. This was stupid considering I had work bright and early the next morning, but ended up being fairly important. We were pretty lucky to be awake for what ensued.
We went to bed close to 4:00, and as my roommate and I were laying down, the second my head hit the pillow we saw strobes across our upstairs window, heard a loud bang, and a horrible grinding noise. I hopped out of bed and informed my roommate that something had definitely gone down on the main road outside our house, and a car was pulled over with hazards on. He looked out the window and pointed out that my car seemed to be pushed over from where it was parked, and it definitely looked that way. We ran outside.
The hazards were from a kind witness who waited until the officers showed up to leave (read: until sunrise). Apparently, a Nissan Rogue came flying from across the street, blew a stop sign, went across a state route and into our front yard. He then hit the edge of our driveway and caught my right-rear quarter, which lifted the rear of my mint, low-mileage 03 Mercedes C230k Sport 6mt off of the ground and shuffled it sideways a few feet, inches from my roommate’s Rav4. The driver then attempted to take off, and as we were inspecting the damage we could hear him grinding down the main road. Officers were called, but we realized he would not be making it very far.
He was caught, and the responding officer informed me that he was detained for DUI. Where it gets hairy; our house was on the line of our college town and a tiny neighbor town, so the driver of the other car was arrested over the line of our college town. He grew up in the small town, and since the accident occurred in the small town, all charges were brought through the police department of said small town. When I obtained the police report, the suggested “DUI” had been expunged from the report.
Insurance ended up being kind of a nightmare, but the Mercedes ended up being repaired to be as good as new. The other vehicle was totaled. Had my Benz not stopped that Rogue, it would have been in the living room of our shack with all of us in the house and my roommate and I sleeping directly above it.
Nibby
> 190e30-Now with COSWORTH
09/12/2018 at 20:17 |
|
really living up to the kompressor name
WilliamsSW
> 190e30-Now with COSWORTH
09/12/2018 at 20:23 |
|
Oof. Sweet car, and it sucks to see that - but that last paragraph is really scary. Better the car than you!
|
190e30-Now with COSWORTH
> WilliamsSW
09/12/2018 at 20:25 |
|
Our thoughts exactly. I actually still ended up making a little bit on it, the car had sold two days before but the buyer was still interested by chance. Definitely a testament to Mercedes though, every single thing on or in the car still worked perfectly fine. Completely driveable aside from looking sad.
pip bip - choose Corrour
> 190e30-Now with COSWORTH
09/13/2018 at 05:55 |
|
drink/drug drivers need to be executed, on the spot
fintail
> 190e30-Now with COSWORTH
09/13/2018 at 10:02 |
|
At least they fixed it and didn’t total an otherwise good car. You must have been right on the border.
That white house is the “shack”? That would be a million dollars in my zipcode :)
|
190e30-Now with COSWORTH
> fintail
09/13/2018 at 10:27 |
|
Cheapest rent in a good 15 mile radius, it was pretty old and run-down inside. Mouse infestation, dead snake in t he basement, 4 bedroom 1 bath, etc etc.
I was surprised it wasn’t totaled given it was the S portpack, so I thought the body parts would be impossible to find. I then learned in Massachusetts, its perfectly acceptable to replace damaged parts with used/aftermarket parts and lots of non-Mercedes parts were being selected for this repair. That took a fair amount of protest to sort out .
|
fintail
> 190e30-Now with COSWORTH
09/14/2018 at 01:33 |
|
That would explain it, sounds like land value only and a landlord maximizing profits.
With the fate of many 203s, no doubt there are plenty of secondhand parts on the market.
|
190e30-Now with COSWORTH
> fintail
09/14/2018 at 08:52 |
|
The issue was that being a sportpack, it had different factory bumpers than a normal 203. So initially, when the appraiser came out he was saying this was an easy fix and showed me the bumper he had ordered despite me assuring him it would be hard to find, and of course it was the wrong one. So that had to be resolved, and they tried to replace as many parts as possible with cheap aftermarket parts so the car wouldn’t be totaled. See attached picture of the original taillight they put in, that I refused to take back considering it threw codes on the dash (as well as the most obvious problem). They also tried to tell me it was like this due to the taillight being new on one side and sun-faded on the other, and after they ordered an OEM finally agreed with me after installation.
I was pushing for the car to be totaled, honestly. The damage wasn’t bad at all but I’m in school, broke, and I didn’t like the idea of selling a car with a bad Carfax (which I had never done). In the end, having a ton of pictures of the whole shebang actually helped to show that it really was not an awful hit for the Benz.
