Deer update

Posted by jerry as Uncategorized

The bodyshop came and picked up the car the same day with a tow truck.  The driver said he had just left an accident where a lady hit a deer - a male deer and one of his antlers skewered the driver’s shoulder after it came through the windshield.  Yikes.

 I talked to the bodyshop a few days after they picked up the car to find out the story.  They estimate $6700 and 5 weeks to repair it.  Fortunately, I had just bought my wife a new Odessy, and we hadn’t sold our old one yet, so I have something to drive while they put around with my car.

 I have to day, I’m pretty skeptical that the car is going to be repaired adequately.  I hope I’m wrong, but the great things about the TL are it’s quiet ride, good performance and handling.  It’s always been my experience that rattles, vibrations and the like crop up after having a major repair like this.

So, the list of parts to replace looks like this:

• Driver front fender
• Plastic fender insert (protects the inside of the fender from road debris)
• Driver side headlamp assemby
• Driver side front turn signal light
• Driver side mirror
• Front bumper
• grill
• hood
• left and right hood mounts
• battery box
• 3 structural members under the fender

All-in-all, it could have been a lot worse.  On the one hand, $6700 seems really cheap - my wife clipped a drive-thru pole and did some minor sheet metal damage to a sliding door, and it was $2400, and on the other hand, it seems like if those are the only things that have to be replaced, 5 weeks is an awfully long time.

 Ah, well.  I can’t wait to have my XM radio back.  Driving an hour each way sucks without CNBC.