Just wreckec my wifes 93 Cabriolet

I would start with flowers & dinner first! Since the defective Toyota caused the accident it should/may cover the damage to her Cab. But then again it's something I wouldn't want to tell my insurance company.

I was thinking that. First thing this morning I asked her how many people she called last night telling them I was an idiot. She actually laughed which is a start. I'm taking the car to a body shop this afternoon so I'll get some idea as to whether the care is fixable or not.

did it actually bend the body structure?

Lights and grille are bolt-on items. The radiator support also is bolt-on (I think anyway). Same for fenders and hood. As long as the structure is sound, you can probably do most of the work yourself (although you'd have to get various parts painted).

The light assemblies need to be replaced, the hood needs to be straightened a little, and the grill has to be replaced along with the front apron unit. Of course it all needs to be painted too. The bumper is fine.. just badly scratched. That's going to be fixed as well. I think I'm looking at about $1000.00, maybe a little less.

Well, yeah, but you can correct the primary mistake by selling the Toyota. :)

Seriously...

The previous owner of my Scirocco ran it into a pickup and crunched the hood, all four headlights, both turn signals, the grill, and bent some of the metal all that mounted to. It turned out, however, that after forcing the hood open and removing the headlight/signal buckets it mostly took some muscle and crowbars to straighten the rest out, then straightening the buckets by hand. He even uncurled the hood by hand. But even without that, it look OK and passed all inspections since then. He didn't get the buckets or hood quite right, so I got some undamaged buckets from a junk yard and a hood from a guy on this news group. In this particular case, the fenders didn't take any damage at all. Sounds like you clipped them too so I don't know how much that's going to add to the work.

Basically, I'd unbolt the removables and have a good look at what's welded on that's damaged.

I've had some success with body shops stripping off the removables first, taking the car in for them to fix the stuff they do best, then remounting that stuff when I get the car back. Saves them the bother, and thus me some money, and in your case you're going to want to replace those parts anyway.

Good luck, with the car and the owner.

- Bill

this might end up costing less. The guy who runs the shop is the brother of my wife's best friend. She's known him since he was a kid, even dated his best friend. I don't think he'll screw us especially since we're paying for this ourselves.

That and you've given not just your wife but her friend an excuse to rib you endlessly for your screwup. The guy could be just doing you a favor just out of pity for the neverending shit you're going to get for wrecking it in the first place.

Foot rub, Fooooot Ruuuuub.

TBerk

You are an amateur when it comes to trashing your own cars. My Uncle lives in a house where you drive down a steep hill to get to the garage. He lost it on snow and did major damage to his car, two of his kids cars, bounced off a corner of the house and knocked a boat that was on blocks over and into an above ground pool, crushing the pool.

Tell your wife it could have been worse...much worse.

Oh, yeah. You just reminded me of a guy I worked with years back in a similar arrangment. He came down the hill towards his garage, but the driveway had iced over then got snow on it. His wifes car and his other car were outside the garage at the bottom of the hill. He was driving a rather large SUV and lost it right at the top of the hill, He ended up with all three cars IN the garage, which was bad enough, except that there were already two cars in the garage. They ended up in the back yard. I thought I recalled that one of them may have also gone through a hedge and tagged one of his neighbors cars in their driveway, but I was never clear on whether than happend during the initial pile up or later when they were trying to clean up the mess.

I've found that this rarely helps, though it is funny for family and friends to watch you try.

- Bill

That is an excellent point. (;^D)

My uncle was lucky, his driveway didn't lead right into garage...you had to make a turn at the bottom to get into the garage, otherwise he may have had an even more complex disaster!

don't feel too bad my friend

my wife.. backed her mini van into my Corrado en route to summer camp with the kids, and took out the whole front left side.. Euro lites, clear signals, etc... she was so afraid of me.. she came in the house, and said.. bye.. see ya next week.. ;-)

then the next summer.. after the damage had been fixed.. she did it again.. backing out in the same minivan.. hitting the same spot....

sheesh.... see ya tomorrow dear.. i am late for work..

got alot of mileage out of those to benders.... but I never got flowers....

got alot of other trades.. if ya know what i mean..

but the moral of the story is.,.

shit happens.... no one was hurt.. and cars can be fixed...

cheers.. hope it all works out

Mike