My Brakes Went Out

My brakes went out. That was the line I got from the driver that hit my vehicle that was parked at work.

It was a slow Sunday morning as it usually is. I was inside the store finishing up my morning opening routine and waiting on the few customers I had when I noticed a car driving parallel to the store out of the corner of my eye. Next thing I knew, I heard a crunch of metal and broken plastic.

I ran out the front to see what happened when the driver was backing away from my vehicle that now had a broken hubcap and bent fender, from visual inspection. I didn’t notice if there was any damage on his vehicle.

“My brakes went out”, said the driver. I was flabbergasted. Why would you drive a vehicle with bad brakes? I was thinking. He offered to pay to replace the hubcap. Yeaaaa…. no. Just because the only apparent damage on my vehicle was a broken hubcap, I wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

I jumped in my vehicle and drove it around the parking lot. I didn’t hear any weird sounds at the time, mainly because I wasn’t going street or highway speed and thought it was okay. Boy, was I wrong at the time.

The driver didn’t waste any time leaving, but not before I got his tag number and ran it online to got the make and model of his vehicle. I called the local police and filed a report about the accident.

Driving home that evening, the steering is completely off kilter, and a horrible sound is coming from the passenger side, in which a couple months before, just replaced the brake, caliper, and rotor. Great, just what I needed, another repair bill.

I went online to my insurance company’s website and made a claim with them. I only have liability and uninsured driver on my vehicle which is state minimum in Mississippi and I wasn’t sure that anything would be done. After a couple days, a claims adjuster called and I found out the news I was expecting. Surprise, surprise… The other driver didn’t have insurance. Great. Of course not.

Why Mississippi not made it mandatory to have insurance on a vehicle or their registration would be revoked like in other states is beyond me. I have to be the responsible one and pay for insurance when ignorant drivers out there is: 1, driving a vehicle that has faulty brakes and is not safe to be on the road; 2, doesn’t have insurance.

The claims adjuster said that since I had uninsured motorist as part of my insurance policy, that would cover my vehicle repairs. I only have to pay a $200 deductible.

If indeed it was only a broken hubcap, that was fine, a set of hubcaps was cheaper than paying my insurance deductible but, since there seems to be more problems, I now have an out of pocket expense of a $200 deductible. Now, I just have to see if my favorite garage is listed on my insurance company’s website to get my vehicle repaired. Again.

This vehicle has been in the shop so much in the past. It was having injector issues every few days. The engine would die on it’s own going down the road, the instrument cluster would flash and you could hear relays click as if it wasn’t getting constant power. It has even left me stranded on the side of the road more times that I can count. I eventually learned, taking the battery cable off seemed to temporarily fix the problem. I went as far as spending $800 for a new ECM at the dealership to “fix” the issue. Which didn’t.

It’s not my vehicle’s fault nor Dodge, but it seems like my vehicle is cursed. When I get it fixed this time, I’m going to do everything in my power to get rid of it! Let it be someone else’s headache.