A Minor Disaster Strikes

[swalker]

Well, it is a minor disaster, in the whole scope of things.

My wife's car needs some minor work, so she took the wheelchair van to run some errands today. One of those errands involved parking in an underground garage. I bet you can see where this is going.

Unfortunately, the wheelchair van is a bit taller than the entrance to said underground garage.

We managed to spend quite a bit of this evening discussing this with our insurance company and sealing the damaged roof against the foul weather that is expected over the next week (with the help of our neighbor).

It looks like we will have a few trips to Denver to get this taken care of. I am anticipating the insurance company will total the van.

In the meantime, the van is not really fit for use. I am limited to taking the wheelchair to the places I can go on our local bus system. The local bus system is great, but services just our small community.

I can hardly wait until the van is repaired and/or a replacement is secured! I feel somewhat marooned.

Steve

 

[affected]

OUCH!

I bet your wife is kicking herself.

I hope you get mobile again very soon!!

 

[laurel]

Steve,
You need a car joke about now.

An elderly man was driving his Buick down the freeway when his cell phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 280. Please be careful!"
"It's not just one car," said Herman. "It's hundreds of them!"

Sorry for your trouble there. Your wife experienced one of my nightmare scenarios. Hope your van gets fixed quickly or a new one appears asap.

Laurel

 

[Nuts]

Wow. That sounds like a Becky story.

My first thought is about how long and hard you searched to find the right van. If it's totaled, what will you replace it with?

Matt is looking at the Ford Transit for our next one. He wants to be mobile and I need to stand up to care for him if we are going to be on the road a lot. Today our contractor comes back to see if it's feasible to raise the door on the garage to accomodate it, because it's GOT to go in the garage (that's the only flat spot on our property). If we do this, I may just rule out underground parking garages...
Becky

 

[bigmark1954]

That really SUCKS Steve......hope they will handle this issue expeditiously, but with your luck it could be a while. I hope you have good INS, so many companies penalize drivers for even a traffic violation.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[swalker]

Initially, the insurance folks wanted us to drive it 60 miles to one of their authorized repair shops to get an estimate. That shop said they could not handle our kind of vehicle.

Then the insurance company wanted us to drive the 100 miles to Denver to get an estimate.

Fortunately, we were able to suggest to the insurance company that they send an adjuster to our house to do the estimate. They agreed to do this without any fight. I would have been much more satisfied if they suggested it instead of waiting for us to suggest it.

The adjuster will be here tomorrow and we will get some insight into the cost of repairs.

I received an email this morning from the insurance company saying that the van will possibly be regarded as a total loss. If that is the case, we will attempt to buy the van back and have the repairs done ourselves.

My objective is to get the van back in service as soon as possible. I think repairing this one will be faster than finding a replacement.

Steve

 

[faithandlove]

I hope it all works out for you, Steve. Your wife must feel horrible. I don't know why they make those underground parking places so low. If i's for parking, it should accommodate handicap vans.

Hugs,
Deb

 

[scaredwifetx]

Wishing you both good luck tomorrow and a speedy repair.

 

[Green Queen]

Oh wow, that's not good news!

I'm sure Lori feels wretched, but I know that you are too nice Steve to bust her chops too much!

 

[frankb]

Bummer, Steve. No one hurt, so all is semi-good.

 

[swalker]

The insurance adjuster looked at the van today and did not think it would be totalled. We should have his estimate to repair the vehicle sometime tomorrow.

Hopefully we will be able to get it in to be repaired soon.

Steve

 

[affected]

I hope it will be made a priority by the repair shop since it is critical equipment!