Faith Restored (in Humankind?)

[markben]

So: yesterday I parked my precious & immaculate 18 year old S320 neatly in our narrow local high street whilst I went for my Covid Booster Jab. So far, so good.

All seemed well when I returned… except for a note on the windscreen saying: “Unfortunately I scufffed your car when parking… please call me on (mobile no)”. A massive Volvo XC90 was parked in neatly in front. So I looked at my O/S front valance and, to my horror, noticed some ugly black scuffs & surface grazing on the valance, and a piece of trim sprung-out (the one with the corner parking sensor in it). Yikes - Mega £££ to fix at a pro Bodyshop?! (see pic 1).

So I called him, thanked him for his honesty and he immediately offered to pay for the damage. I replied that I would inspect things over the weekend and let him know the cost - without taking advantage of the situation. He explained apologetically that, when parking in front of me, he had to turn-in sharply due a Drunk falling out of the Pub opposite - and directly into his path.

Today: with a little elbow grease / valeting know-how, strong solvent & some touch-up spray, in approx 1 hour I managed to make the superficial damage virtually invisible from 1 Metre away. And... the valance looks even better than before - Result! And far quicker / cheaper than a visit to a Bodyshop (See pic 2).

So I left a voice message for the guy to say thanks for his honesty and 'no costs involved / let’s call it Quits’.

The Moral of the Story? You might have guessed it already….

MB

 

[peterws1957]

Great to see honesty from both parties. Our daily drivers have been damaged in car parks many times by drivers who think it's perfectly ok to sneak off without admitting responsibility.

 

[markben]

Great to see honesty from both parties. Our daily drivers have been damaged in car parks many times by drivers who think it's perfectly ok to sneak off without admitting responsibility.

Yes peter, if I'd taken it to a bodyshop the bill would probably have been £200 and that didn't seem fair on the other guy. Plus.. car off the road for a day or two, so a happy ending for us both.

I know what you mean about drivers (often) sneaking off after causing damage. A couple of years ago I had my O/S rear light cluster smashed + valance scraped the same way. No way that the driver didn't know what they'd done.....

 

[rorywquin]

My son once dinged a car in a car park. He had no pen or paper so went into the Supermarket there to buy a pen & paper so he could leave a note.

When he came out the car was gone.

A few weeks later the po po contacted him (someone had reported him for not leaving his details). When he explained what had happened and that he was happy to pay for the repairs they put the owner of the other car in touch who had not even noticed the damage and was not bothered.