One month old and someone smashed it

[1993Saturn]

I got a "New" '93 Ex Eddie Bauer. Maroon with clear coat peeling (why do they all do that except white).Had a sunroof that is nice to have to circulate air and a good interior. The A4LD was solid and better acceleration than any other I have driven. However, it did have some problems of course. So I dove in and replaced tie rods, 2 new tires and the 2 rims with good tires attached off of my '94 "driveway sculpture", so it now has 2 '94 rims and 2 - '93 rims. Had it aligned, replaced radius arm bushings. Swapped out the following items from our '94: radius arm bracket, the good gauge lens, the missing ash tray, glove box door, blower motor, missing parts of door panel so it would be trimmed and for the first time in who knows could be reattached, rear window strut, cracked L & R tail lights, MAF, washer motor and air filter. I then added new drivers door hinge pins, repaired stripped window motor and glued in the fallen rear window seal and flushed and re-A/T fluid in 4X4 hubs, thermostat and coolant. ALL I had left to do was swap out the exhaust from my '94.
THEN, one month after we get the vehicle with all the stuff happily repaired, someone on his cell phone slams our rear quarter panel. Now it is totaled. All that work to get the Ex happy and us happy, down the tubes. The only good thing is we get back far more than we had in it, so we can get another one and start all over again. Maybe try to find a White Limited Edition. I kind of enjoyed doing all that work and now I will reclaim some of the stuff I stole from my '94, before it gets hauled away.
So the cycle of life, eh?

Have any of you had this kind of bad luck?

 

[Roadrunner777]

Oh, where to begin...

But first, if nobody was hurt or killed, then I might suggest your luck isn't all bad. And, as you are already beginning to think, there may be a silver lining if you can find an even better Explorer and enjoy a new rehabilitation effort. That said...

A long time ago, I was in an accidents of sorts. It involved 3 cars. The first caused the accident by making a very badly timed right turn, but didn't actually get hit. It did cause a car coming the other way to lose control and hit my vehicle, which was parked while I was helping another motorist in a fourth uninvolved vehicle. The car that lost control was a new Toyota driven by a salesman, it was literally brand new, never sold, I think it had less than 50 miles on it. It was totalled. My car, a '73 Cadillac Sedan DeVille was also totalled, though still drivable... the market value of it was very low. So, you almost have to look for silver linings, or wait for them sometimes. In this accident, there were two silver linings. The first one was the driver of the car I was trying to help. She was standing right where the impact occurred, and we spent most of the evening trying to understand how she was not killed. She just... there's just no way she could have gotten out of the way, but in an instant she moved 4 feet to one side, and we never could figure that out. She didn't have time to do that, she was facing away... it is one of a small handful of miracles I have witnessed. The second was that the Cadillac totalled for more than twice what I paid for it, and ultimately put me in a better car.

Or, the weird coincidence of vehicle break-downs we have been going through this week, both of our daily drivers broke down, one last week, and the other which we needed for Christmas, broke down with hydrolock early Christmas Eve morning. It really caused some problems for us! For that, the silver lining has yet to appear. The vehicle that hydrolocked has been a money-sink, and I don't even know for sure what outcome I want. If it's too expensive to repair, then good riddance... although I have had over $2k in repairs not counting almost 100 hours of my own labor, all in the last 3 months.

Anyway, the number of times I had bad luck with a better outcome overall.... too many to count. If nobody was hurt, I'd be grateful for that, and then you just have to keep on truckin' until the luck coin flips for you... IMHO

 

[Josh P]

The van in my profile picture was in an accident. The A4LD went out, I spent an entire summer working on swapping a manual transmission in, I drove it 1 day and a lady pulled out in front of me. The impact sent her car flying and spinning 270 degrees up on the sidewalk that was 6 feet away from the road, knocking over a 9 months pregnant woman and her boyfriend that was crossing a driveway. As Roadrunner777 said, there was a silver lining. No one was seriously injured, the pedestrians were thrown clear, they were in the direct path of the car crossing me. I got paid $600 more than I bought the car for, I bought it back for $50 and put all the parts on a different van. When I was buying the replacement van, the guy closed his business and started a new job. It was going to be 3 weeks before he got a check. His wife walked out of the house with a baby in her arms to greet me. I remember her telling me the amount I offered to buy the van for was enough to pay the mortgage and buy food for the 3 weeks. The replacement van was rear ended 10 months later.

 

[1993Saturn]

Wow! Those are amazing stories. To witness a miracle of a person suddenly not being in the line of impact is well, I lack words to express. The same with the other accident of Josh P. Amazing isn't it! I hope guardian angels get overtime pay.

 

[Josh P]

Wow! Those are amazing stories. To witness a miracle of a person suddenly not being in the line of impact is well, I lack words to express. The same with the other accident of Josh P. Amazing isn't it! I hope guardian angels get overtime pay.

Initially I was extremely mad, but I realized it was just a car, and cars can be replaced, lives cannot. What got to me was the fact that I was the only car on the road and she expected me to yield to her when she had a stop sign. I never noticed her car until it was too late, it was like a deer running in front of the car on a country road late at night.

 

[1993Saturn]

Yes, I was ticked when it happened and I was thinking what an idiot! But after getting over it, I too realized it could have been far worse. The guy really should have hit square in the drivers door and my wife would have been seriously injured on top of other injuries she has never recovered from. But instead he just shaved our rear fender and the Ex didn't even jump to the side from it. The little things that dont happen that could have we can so easily not notice that we should be thankful for.

 

[Roadrunner777]

'Could have been worse' got a new meaning for me last summer. I was out on open country highway when I started getting passed by every emergency vehicle from the previous town. I honestly didn't know fire trucks could go so fast. Then I saw the reason, a school bus on it's side in the middle divide. Everyone in a uniform was all over the bus like a mass of ants getting kids out that didn't get out on their own. This bus (full of students heading for an event) left the left side of the highway, down a shoulder, and rolled on it's left side... 65 MPH, and I learned from the news later, there were no major injuries.

That, folks, is 'Could have been worse'.