My 1992 400E

Yesterday my 1992 400E was rear ended while I was driving to drop off a friend at the airport, in my frustration over this whole ordeal I have decided to start a blog to document the repair process. To begin I will attempt to recount the details of the accident. It was a beautiful Wednesday morning and I was driving along St. Charles Avenue thinking about the day ahead. I had gotten up early to drive a friend to the airport, a decision I was quickly regretting as I sat in the horrendous early morning traffic. The street was much the same as it always is at high traffic times, cars as far as the eye could see rolling along at fifteen miles per hour stopping every few seconds. I had made it down to the front of the park when traffic stopped ahead of me as it had countless times before. I brought the car to a stop, but the crazed woman behind me clearly had other plans. She never once touched the brakes, she just plowed into me like I wasn't even there. My precious car vaulted forward into the car in front of me, and there I was in the middle of a steel sandwich. I quickly put the car in park and got out to examine the damage.

The front of the car caught my attention first. I cringed as I noticed that both of my--custom made 1994 W124--headlights had been shattered. My custom cut grill was mangled beyond recognition, and my face lifted hood hadn't done much better. My Blinder laser diffusers were chalked up to a loss at first glance, but I was still optimistic because aside from the cosmetic damage the engine bay seemed fine. I began to walk towards the back of my car to examine the damage it had taken in the hit, my bumper had been pushed into my trunk but my euro taillights were still intact. At this point I began speaking with the women who were involved.

The woman in front of me was the first to get out of her car, she examined the damage to the rear of her car and quickly dismissed it as nothing telling me that she was going to go to work. Before I could think to ask her for her contact information she was gone. I then began to speak with the woman at fault, she quickly glances at her car and decides that she is not worried about the damage to her car and begins to try and leave. I asked her for her information several times and each time she tried to explain to me that in Louisiana the person who does the rear ending is at fault. I politely pointed out that the offending person, the rear ending person, and the idiot parked in my rear bumper were all one in the same HER. She then decides to leave without saying another word. Luckily I had just gotten my phone out and was about to document the damage when she tried to drive off. As she was attempting to weave into traffic I walked up to within inches of her rear bumper and snapped a picture of her license plate.

I got in my car and sighed, I knew this was going to be a headache to take care of. I was fairly certain that all of the damage was cosmetic though, apart from the headlights which may very well not work anymore. I continued to try and take my friend to the airport, but as we were driving I started to see steam coming from under the hood. I quickly checked all of the gauges and took note of their positions. Within minutes my coolant temperature was on its way to indicating an overheating motor. I knew we were not going to make it to the airport so I turned the car around and began to drive home. I called him a cab and limped the car back to my driveway, by the time we made it to my house the car had purged itself of all of its coolant through a puncture in the radiator.

I left the car in my driveway and went about my day on foot. Later when I returned, I did a more detailed inspection of the damage and found that the right rear quarter panel had a crease in it from the compression near the gas door. I will be sure to update the blog as the car makes its way to the shop and a further assessment of the damage is done. I will also be posting pictures in the near future, but for now I need to focus on figuring out who the woman who hit me was and how to file a claim on her insurance.