Yesterday my wife was waiting to pick up our kids at school when someone in a new ford diesel (company truck) drove by and clipped the drivers side mirror.

The fellow stopped and gave her his info. He then ran down to the bank machine and with drew $400 and gave it to her and told her to keep whatever change there was and if there was anything else to let him know...

I called the dealer that night and was told the mirror was to be $576 (plus tax)

I called the guy up and explained the short fall.... (he knew this as he had already called a dealer as well)

So he starts off on how he's flying out today, payday is next thursday, they just moved into a house etc. etc. etc...

So I tell him I really don't like the time line that's being presented to me. If I'm going to go through insurance I'll need to get moving on this pretty quick. If I wait a week insurance just might tell me to stuff it...
If I'm going to wait a week he had better come up with something that will cover the shortfall (collateral)
He brings his work truck around and I unload a gas chop saw, hilti drill and some one off manual hydraulic press thingy for crimping copper sleeves.

At the time he explains his girlfriend is a UPS driver and one of her stops is a chrysler dealer. I give him the last 9 digits of my VIN (dealer needs that to match up the mirror) and send him along on his way.

So then I'm left thinking..... what's the scam...... what's the scam.....



Well, I get a call just before noon, the guy was fairly walking on clouds. His girlfriend managed to pick up a mirror from the dealership for $320 and wanted to know if I was around tonight.

She dropped it off just before 7 and got the cash and tools back. It took me 20 minutes to install and the truck is back to normal again.

I'm happy the guy said what he was going to do and did what he said. They are starting to be a rare breed. I would peg this guy to be in his early 30's.

Although, he had a pretty good motivator in that I could have simply picked up the phone and called the thing into insurance. He would have ended up paying far, far, more than the cost of the mirror in jacked up insurance premiums.
Sometimes non optional government run auto insurance does have it's advantages.....

 

Wow, pretty rare to hear a story with a happy ending like that. Glad it worked out well.

 

Yep, good story, I just wish it wasn't me always breaking my mirrors......

 

$576 is ridiculous for a mirror actually so is $320 in my opinion. I bought a set of power heated 3rd gen tow mirrors from a dealer who was selling them on ebay and shipped to my house was like $300 or something for the pair. O well price dosen't matter as you wern't paying for it. It is good to here that everything worked out good for you, he could have just as easily drove off. Thats pretty good of him to be so easy to deal with.

 

I broke just the glass out of the one on the passenger side 2 days after I bought the trick. Took it to a local glass shop and he replaced it for $25. The mirror he put in is better than the factory one. These are the tow mirrors and he had to cut the glass to fit.