Haven’t made a post here in a while, been really busy between running a business and fighting my car situation

So on Friday, October 6th 2023, literally 2 days before I was to take this car to its first racing event with my friends, I came home from work, and the plan was to order from our favorite asian fusion restaurant for the first time in ages. So we call and they say there’s no delivery today. No problem, back in the car and I go pick up the food. On this particular evening I noticed people on the road were particularly bad, blowing stop signs, narrowly avoiding pedestrians etc. I adjusted my driving style accordingly, instead of hooning on it like I usually do, I’ll make my full stops, count 3-mississippi, and be really careful. Already that its dark, and raining a bit, but the street lights work relatively well. I was back on my own street when I approached the last stop sign of my short journey. The first car blew right through, but the second stopped. I stopped too about the same time, and I waved him through. As he took off and I verified there was nobody else in the intersection, I took off from my stop only to get the absolute shit T-boned out of me on the passenger side. Right in the B pillar.

So after my car spins clockwise 90 degrees I let it roll into the curb and then got out to inspect the damage. At the same time this young woman was exiting her car apologizing profusely whining that she didn’t see the stop sign, she was fooling around with her wipers etc. The police and fire came and inspected the scene with us, she admitted fault immediately so they didn’t want to see my dashcam video, which I will probably submit to whambam eventually. In the video you can’t see her car at all, not even her headlights, which means she was driving at night in the rain with no lights like a genius. She even asked me to call her phone so she can find it, the airbag sent it flying to the back seat. Which.. yeah. I was livid with the situation. Even as we were standing there in the rain people were blowing the stop sign narrowly avoiding us, which made me lose my shit. The police show up and were suspicious that I was so angry and she was so calm, so they took me aside to breathalyze me. It was actually exciting, I never been breathalyzed before. But to their disappointment, I was totally legal so sorry, this ditz doesn’t get a free pass. The firefighters were amazed at how little damage there was to my car considering her front end was completely obliterated. They quipped that its been a looooong time since someone died in a volvo, and I replied that my car has one of the best SIPS available. The car did its job, I didn’t feel a thing.

I drove the car the rest of the way down the street just fine and parked it in my driveway just fine. And so began the 3 months of arguing with my insurance company. At first they said it will be 8 weeks to receive the police report, until I sent them the dashcam video and they declared me fully covered the next day. But they lowballed me HARD. First they said it would cost $13,000 to fix, and the car ‘is only worth $6,000’. I argued that my owning this vehicle isn’t for the sole purpose of maintaining its value for possible resale, who cares what ‘its worth’. Its a rare model, and considering how much money I’ve paid over the years for coverage and no claims, they can either fix it or pay me enough to get another one, which this configuration in this region go for $10,000 easy. Which is a bit less than half of what I put into this car already ffs. After many, many back-and-forths, and leaving me hanging, and my adjuster losing his job and them forgetting to assign someone else to my case, they decided to give me the 10k, with me keeping the car to repair myself. BUT in the process, the fuckers marked it permanently unfit for the road, it can never be driven again unless it passes an extremely thorough, detailed, and expensive inspection process. My project car just became a much, much bigger project because some dumb fuck couldn’t be bothered to drive like anything less than a total fucking dipshit.

At the same moment I was fuming over the fact I probably wont be able to drive my car again for a couple years, I saw a V70R pop up on marketplace. I still had my notifications on from when I was helping a friend look for a volvo a few months earlier. This one is about 2 hours away, for a ridiculously low price, but needs a lot of work. The decision was made, I would get this wagon, and swap in all the parts from the S60R, so my car will live on in a new body! Lots and lots of work, but a rewarding project for sure. I messaged the guy and offered $500 more than he was asking, to tell those who most certainly beat me to it to fuck off. He initially thought I was a scammer, but messaged me back. I told him the story, and said I’m coming Saturday, cash in hand, to pick it up. Done deal. With the uhaul truck and trailer, plus the car itself, gas, registration, food etc. I have a V70R in my driveway for $3,500.

And so begins the V70R project.

PS. After the accident I made a PSA on the local community facebook group begging people to be careful. If I had been a pedestrian or on a scooter or something, that would be the end of me. The woman driving the car that hit me, whose name I never learned until this moment, saw this post and messaged me demanding I take down the post, and began an onslaught of insults and name-calling, at one point even getting her karen friends to join in, making wild baseless claims like ‘you probably didnt stop either’. Yeah karen, your friend admitted fault and my dashcam and police report says I stopped, but you, who weren’t there, knows better. I found the whole thing amusing to say the least, having myself done nothing wrong, and some of my friends and coworkers admitting ‘oh I know her, she’s one of the coked-up waitresses at the casino’. Thats nice. Would explain why she was completely unphased by taking an airbag to the face. I suspect the car wasn’t hers, maybe a parent or boyfriend, and she sold them a story about how it wasn’t her fault, and my post threatened that. In any case, the karens retreated after a couple days of self-humiliation.