Bad Day 4 Me and the family...

Long story, but it happened about 2 weeks ago. I was holding out from telling you guys until I got a more definitive answer from the body repair shop. My wife was on her way to work and was involved in an accident in the Armada. (only 150 miles on it. )

She was in a parking garage at Caesar's Palace getting ready to park. As she was approaching the top level entrance, she was coming around a corner and a car was coming the opposite direction in her lane of travel. (He was cutting a corner.) She swerved to hit him and went toe to toe with a light pole that has a cement base; the pole won. Luckily, she was not seriously injured and only had a few bruises from her knees hitting the dashboard. (Had her seat belt on too.) Since it is private property, the police won't investigate the other car and look into it and they said if it would have happened like that on public roads, my wife would have been cited at fault since the other vehicle did not come into contact with her. (What a crock.) Our insurance company interviewed her and said they won't consider the accident my wife's fault, but we still have to make a collision claim on our policy since ass in the other car left the scene. I guess they use a point system based on collision claims and its rated from 1 to 4, with 4 being the worse like a DUI. Since it goes down as a non-fault claim, its a 1 pointer against her insurance policy.

I don't have pics yet, but she impacted the front right headlight area at a speed no more than 15 mph. No air bags went off either. Here's the stickler. She impacted directly on the right frame rail that runs the length of the vehicle. It pushed the rail back a few inches, amongst other things that were damaged as well, and diamonded the frame (Went from looking like this: |=|, to: /=/). The whole front end is being replaced, and the FRAME is too.

They contacted Nissan and they got them to pull a frame off the assembly line in Canton, Ohio and it arrived today. The swap of everything starts tomorrow. The good points of the scenario is that 1) the frame is not being straightened, its brand new and 2) there is no body repair involved. (i.e.; only replacement of parts like the hood, and fenders.) The bad points is 1) The paint is still an X factor as to how well it is painted, and 2) all those things they can leave loose or install improperly from the frame swap. My insurance company, USAA, referred me to these guys because if I went through them, the repair is warranted for life. If anything goes wrong, I go through them (USAA) and they will resolve the issue. The repair shop Toyota certified and they are all ASE certified in body repair. Total repair ESTIMATE: $14,000. I can't believe they are not totaling it, but then again, its worth $45K brand new. I don't have a choice in the matter as to whether or not they total it, because I would rather they did and not mess with it. Believe me, I already tried that route.

Sorry I vented so long. Just needed to get it out. The guy handling our case at the body shop will have a CD full of images from beginning to end, so hopefully you all will see what the truck looks like with just wheels and a frame. I guess that's the only funny I can make about the situation so far...more to come....

Dustin