PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

My son who has had his license for 4 months decided to give
me a gift yesterday.






Kids make your life so much fun. Why didn't I have six of them?

Did he keep the receipt? I'd take it back or exchange it if I were you...

I knew, JUST KNEW, reading the title of this thread that pictures of ugliness would be contained herein.

:(

How long is he grounded for?

Of course he ran into the back of an Acura MDX so
that will be a nice large insurance claim. The lady
demanded a rent-a-car even though hers was drivable.

The only other personal insurance claim I have ever made
was hail damage to the SSEi about 10 years ago. Otherwise
my wife and I have had nothing home or auto in 25 years.
With two teenage drivers my rates will probably now go crazy high.

gonna fix'er up and get her right again?

Ouch.

Hope you get it fixed. Looks like some hefty damage.

Obviously no one was injured?

I sure hope you do this yourself. I'll bet the insurance will total it if they can, and that would be a shame! - BC

Sorry to both hear about and see this. As far as the insurance goes, every agent I've ever spoken to has said that a property claim is a property claim, amount really is of no consequence. When I say this I mean that whether he hit a bus bench and the municipality made a claim for damage or a high-end Mercedes the final dollar value doesn't factor in to determining a new rate or risk category. This just makes it much more difficult to settle outside of insurance... which insurers also really dislike.

Working insurance claims, I suspect there may be a threshold before a claim causes a surcharge, but if there is, it's less than $1000 from what I can tell, which doesn't apply here.

It also sounds like the boys may not be listed on the insurance policy, which will likely have to change, assuming the insurance company doesn't want to try and bail out of it. Insurance is going to kill you now, between adding them on, and one of them having an at fault accident.

Sorry bud, reminds me of when I was 18. I was paying more for state minimum liability then (in 2005 dollars) than I am paying for full coverage now with 2 cars (even in 2015 dollars). I never had any marks on my driving record either.

That just sucks, Steve.

And that's why my kids all got to drive a 63 Starchief for the first year (at least) behind the wheel. After kid #1 crinkled the whole right side of the 'Chief it was no longer worth restoring (our original plan), so it became the learning tank. When the heater core went out on it for kid #3, I let her drive our 93 SSE to school and she gave me a present similar to the one your son gave you. Only she nailed the car in front of her, knocked it into the car in front of him, got tagged in the rear from the car behind, and set off all the air bags. 30 MPH wreck and she totaled 2 cars in it - mine and the car she hit.

So, yeah, I know what you're feeling right now.

Insurance called and stated it was a total loss. Estimated damage is $7800.
I am checking into buying it back from them, but I haven't seen under
the hood to see how bad everything is. I know the radiator/condenser
is smashed in and probably toast.

I'm not sure if I want to mess with this or not. I'll go by the shop
and do some more digging into it's condition, meanwhile, any advice
as to how difficult or expensive it might be to get it rolling again
would be appreciated.

Sorry to hear about this. These are fine cars! Hard to guess about cost without knowing exactly what's required. Perhaps post a list of what the estimate shows for required items. Obviously you're looking at:

Fascia.
Hood.
Hood latch.
Headlamp.
Grille(s).
Radiator.
Condenser.
Probably the fiberglass panel that the headlamps bolt to.
Probably the tie bar across the top of the radiator/condenser.
Some of the sheet metal other than the hood will need some repair but probably not replacement (fender. etc).
Hood liners are no longer available but this isn't a significant problem.
May require some repairs to the forward lamp wiring harness.
Other miscellaneous support brackets/structures.
Bumper impact bar and/or bumper shocks.

It's going to be a few bucks.

And the scary part is that is probably just enough visible damage to blow the total loss threshold, not even counting other damage under the hood.

Costs explode when airbags go.

Not to be negative, but I am also curious what the part out yield would be on this, if you are up for that sort of thing...

I didn't see anywhere that the airbags did inflate. I'd be interested to hear for sure. I'm not sure there's enough damage (or in the right location) that they would necessarily have been activated.

Oh no!!! Just reading this thread, that SUCKS!! That was such a good looking car! Hopefully you'll be able to buy it back and put her back up to snuff. Good luck and glad everyone's alright.

The air bags didn't deploy. The insurance company says I can buy back the car
for $300. That sounds like a no brainer for me.
If I can't fix it to my satisfaction, I will get rid of it (hey Andrew, here's another one for ya)
and hopefully get back anything I put into it.

The insurance guy did say the title must be changed to a salvage title.

You might be able to get a lot of the stuff you need (like the stuff Darcy listed) from Andrew (or a junkyard if you can find a similar car) since much of it isn't GXP-specific. If the paint is good on the rest of the car, you could get away with just painting the front clip and not worry quite so much about a perfect paint match. Might be worth considering repair.

Regardless of the extent of damage and quality of repair, a salvaged title will drastically reduce the resale value of the car - it did on my G8 - but I suspect you're not likely to be selling it any time soon so that's probably not an issue for you.

Or you could buy it back, sell it to someone who thinks he can fix it, and go find yourself a nice black G8.

Two weeks ago I put a new hub, ball joint, tie rod and front
brakes on that car. I also have spark plugs, intake and throttle
gaskets in boxes waiting to install.
It was the car I own with the least mileage. My SSEi and Tahoe
both have over 230K on them.
"Why does it always rain on me?"

I think I will force my 16 year old to help me fix it as punishment, and
not let him drive any of the other vehicles until this one is back on the road.

That sucks buddy. I do know you've had a lot of problems with the car, but hopefully you guys can get it fixed up to your satisfaction.