Back in August, I was on my way home from work when an elderly man pulled out of a side road and smashed straight into the side of me. He then did a 3 point turn in the middle of the busy road, almost reversing into a railing, then drove off back down the side road he had come out from. The car in front of him stopped him and asked where he was going and told him that he'd just smashed into me. The elderly man said he thought he was following the car that he had hit.
After getting his details, it turns out this man was 97 years old.
Luckily it was just a dented driver's wing and a scuff on the bumper but as I turned the wheels to get out of the road the dented wing cut up my tyre, so I had to wait for recovery. My golf was then taken away in an old carzoo van and held in storage.
As I was not at fault at all and had multiple witnesses, my insurance managed to wangle me a 24 plate Mercedes E Class 220d as my courtesy car. All very nice and modern, super comfy and smooth ride, had a bit of oomph to it but my god did I hate all the bells and whistles that I had to turn off everytime i started the engine. Lane assist, brake assist, don't go ding when i speed, all had to be turned off every time. Settings did not stick. I ended up driving it for 6 weeks, and I much prefer something simpler.
I waited 4 weeks to be told the golf was a write off, category N. The car was estimated at £3k ish and the work was apparently going to cost £4,500. At first I was furious but then I just (obviously) retained the car for £250 salvage and took an almost 3k cheque.
So I then ordered 2 new pre-painted wings, 2 new tyres, decided to just buff out the scrapes on the bumper and a headlight as it snapped a lug/bracket.
With the rest of the ‘out of thin air’ money I thought I'd redo the suspension. It was all looking very crusty down there and most of the bushings were well past their best at nearly 20 years old. I had already bought Bilstein B4 front shocks not even a couple of weeks before the accident and fitted Lemförder rear track rods recently as well.
Then while i'm down there i thought id give the rear subframe a new lease of life and try and deal with any rust on the chassis, and by then i might as well drop the fuel tank and do it semi properly. Next thing I know it's accidentally turned into a somewhat project car.
So now it's almost Christmas and I'm still not done. Mainly due to working full time and the weather not being great. Slowly getting there and i'll add more details as to what i've actually done to it parts wise and underseal and that. So more posts to come soonish.
Also since the courtesy car went back to enterprise i've been driving my missus corsa, it gets me from a to b. But about 3 weeks ago it was also written off as it was smashed into the side, whilst parked, in a supermarket car park by an ELDERLY man. She’s not quite as worried as I was about the golf, so we took the check and ran. That can pay for the Christmas presents!
