Los Angeles Car Hell

This summer has not been good for cars. My fiance's got rammed by a crazy lady trying to make a right turn into the side of his car from the middle lane. My tutor's got rammed by an emotionally unstable woman who had to be talked down by her therapist before she could hand over her insurance information. My friend's car got hit, repaired, hit again, and then impounded by the DMV because they had outdated records. My other friend's car was supposed to be shipped to him in AZ, but it's still sitting in CT and the shipping company hasn't even put it on the truck yet.

My poor car, my precious 2002 Jetta "Sydney", has now been hit. By a 6 inch metal disk. That fell off some P.O.S. sea foam green compact that drove away. This tiny little disk apparently managed to crack my transmission housing, causing me to leak fluid in the middle of the 10E in pre-rush hour traffic. There was nowhere to pull over and she seemed fine, until 3 blocks later my gas pedal stopped working. My transmission fluid was leaking = no more power to move. I turned on my hazards, hung out the window and literally coasted 3 lanes over to the shoulder. I just barely made it and I got incredibly lucky. The actual car not moving/coasting was not scary, but I felt a bubble of panic once I made it to the shoulder and thought about how expensive it would be to fix my precious car and contemplated how likely it would be that someone would hit my Sydney on the shoulder.

I pulled out my Crackberry, it hasn't worked quite right since it went through a few airport scanners in Europe but it served me well, and made some calls. I called 21st century, who promised me a tow truck in about an hour. I called my honey and convinced him that he wanted to come wait with me so I wouldn't have to sit in my hot car. Luckily, a friendly CHP officer pulled in behind me who commiserated with the suckiness of being stuck on a freeway, and called me a CHP tow truck that arrived just as my honey pulled up behind me. For 160 dollars, he towed me 10 minutes away in traffic to a very reputable body shop that made me feel comfortable and okay about my car repair. I thought everything would be okay.

Once I got back home, I called up my friendly 21st Century claims department and because of the one sentence description she had of my car "damage to the under carriage in the transmission area with a fluid leak", she said that Sydney was 1 point over their damage point system and they would try to total my car. This makes no sense. Syd only just hit 50,000 miles, her biggest accident was having her bumper bumped by a drunk neighbor, and there's no other substantial damage on her other than this hairline crack and dent in the transmission housing. Even if I needed my entire transmission replaced, a used tranny is what, 1-2k? Dealers are still selling my Syd with more miles than she has for 13k. I won't let them total her. They want to take her to some storage facility while they contemplate her fate.

I'm going to call my official claims person tomorrow and see if I can convince them to just fix her. I started saving for this car at 12 and I can't let her go.

EDIT 8/11/10: After finally talking to some people actually familiar with cars, my Sydney is officially on the mend. She's going to need a bit of work - new front bumper bottom, new transmission (the new housing was 6 grand but an entire used one was 1.5 grand, so we're going with the entire used one) and a few new power steering lines. I should have her back by Wednesday and since things falling off cars falls into the "Acts of God" category, I only have to pay my $250 deductible. Phew.

EDIT 8/21/10: So it turns out my Sydney is not on the mend. In fact, they ordered the wrong transmission and cannot find the correct one used. This means that not only have I been without a car for 11 days while she sat at the mechanic untouched, but they might be possibly trying to total her again. The insurance adjuster hasn't called me back so at the present moment I have no idea what's going on with my car.

EDIT 8/26/10: The insurance people have pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to order Sydney a new transmission. They still won't give me a rental car. I really really hope this is the last update before I get my car back.

EDIT 9/2/10: The new tranny is in! But the punctured power steering line is not -_- I'm hoping for next week...