Death of a Volvo, birth of a hearse

buick hearse.....sweet...casket bbq grill time!!!! surely stick's wife can help you make that! or...on a more morbid note...get a coffin for that mid trip nap.

i really hope you can get some satisfaction here. you can't replace memories!

 

Stickman, thanks for filling us in.

Sarah, Sorry to see you lost the car and especially sorry to hear about the lost heirlooms. I had a similar situation happen years ago. Last trip with the irreplacable stuff. Totally stinks.

From the pictures I am amazed it was able to move under it's own power after the impact.

As far as the insurance claim goes, good luck. In our state, in the case of a rearend crash, the driver who rearended gets a citation no mater what (if the authorities arrive on the scene) I've been on both ends of that deal. I rearended a pickup once in my Buick. I had just put a new radiator in it and the guys hitch went right through it. Ticked me off. It was a low speed crash, the guys brake lights werent working. I still got a ticket though. Had to go to traffic court to fight the dern thing.

I agree with KK, let your company deal with the other guy. Again, from past experience when my wife was rearended. They are pros and deal with this stuff all the time. They'll handle it for you.

Congrats on the new hearse.

 

Allstate, huh, their "good hands" in your pockets. Lawyer up. See a doctor too.
I got smacked like that years ago, totaled a Coupe DeVille. I was young and stupid so more worried about the settlement for my precious car than injury. A jolt like that deserves an examination.
RE the hearse,
Is that a Cadillac wreath surrounding a Buick shield on the rear door??

 

Unfortunately, she's got to deal with Allstate. She doesn't have collision coverage on her Volvo.

 

I had to deal with Allstate back in 2010. Ruthless bastards. Still having to deal with them on the injury part.
Now, as for your coach/opera lights. I'm not an afficionado but I am a funeral coach fanatic. As far as I can remember you have to remove the interior pillar paneling to access the coach/opera lamp if there isn't an external access via screws which I assume there isn't. I would need to see some pictures before I could know for sure. Some have bulbs and some are fibre optic. I don't think your's is new enough for the fibre optics but I have heard of some that have it. I am a member of The Chariots Of The Dead Hearse Club and if I can't help I know plenty of people who would be able to help.

-X

 

Assuming your hearse is set up the same as mine, take the 2 screws out that hold the fixture in place. When you do that, the whole thing might fall off, but will hang by the single wire going through the side into the interior. If replacing the bulb (mine is a NAPA 194) doesn't work, it is probably a bad ground or the wire is corroded. You may need to drill out the pop-rivet holding the bulb fixture to the stainless piece and either replace it or scour the rust off, re-rivet, and reinstall. If that doesn't work, you might have a broken wire, which might be a challenge!

 

Allstate moved the car without authorization OR telling me to a scrap yard six hours away from where I live, and then called me saying I needed to take all the property that was destroyed by the accident out of the car & keep it in my apartment for when they decide to send someone to look at it, which won't happen for months. They wanted to cut me a check for the car and crush the car immediately instead of having it sit around costing them lot fees.

This wouldn't have been a problem, and while I was still in NY I actually asked about this and was never told it had to be done or that it had to be done by a certain date. They literally waited until three days after I went home to tell me that I needed to get all that stuff out of the car. $150 in gas and an entire wasted day of my life later, we get all the damaged stuff back [except for about $120 in stuff which is completely missing from the car, but was still in the car while it was at the tow yard!!!]. The scrap yard had what was probably the most disgusting bathroom I have ever seen, which says something.

So hopefully by this time next week I'll have the money from the volvo and have that part of this nightmare over with.

--

The hearse opera lights on this car have a lens which is held on by a couple dabs of adhesive. With the lens out there are two really small light sockets held together by rivets using 4721 bulbs [or was it 2147? I can't remember anything right since the accident].

 

At first I thought this was going to be a Volvo turned into a hearse. Either way a Buick hearse is infinitely more cool than a Volvo.

 

I guess its time for another update to this story.

Allstate [who insures the guy who hit me] paid for the car and some of the contents in the car destroyed in the accident. But for the high dollar items, like the artwork & antiques they won't pay on it without me getting the stuff apprised.

This would not be a problem, except that I can't find a single art or antiques appraiser within 3 states [NY, PA, NJ] that is knowledgeable enough to do my stuff because its all so unique. That's for the ones I can get a hold of. It seems like 99% of the people out there who advertise doing appraisals for insurance purposes won't ever answer their phones or return emails. I am starting to wonder if all these antique shows like pawn stars/pickers are scripted and done with actors because if my experience so far is anything to go by, you can't seem to FIND people who will do proper antique appraisals for oddball items. They must alternate hiding spots that Cheney gave up after he stopped needing all those undisclosed locations. :banghead3: Will I ever be paid for the thousands of dollars in artwork & antiques?

I am really starting to dislike this concept of "no fault" insurance. Since the accident happened in NY my insurance company [Progressive] has to pay for my medical costs [incl transportation costs related to medical appointments] and lost wages.

The accident happened back in the middle of Nov. It's the middle of May now and I still can't work. With my continuing brain problems I can't even remember what I had for dinner the night before, and I can't fill out forms anymore. Also my short term memory is gone. I hadn't been fully employed before the accident because I was only able to find a part time job after leaving school, and then after that I had to take many months off from working to deal with my family emergency that started this whole thing. The accident happened towards the end of this family emergency, so i was not working at all at the time. Well I can't even look for work right now, let alone work but since I wasn't working at the time I can't prove that I have "lost" any wages. So that means I have no income.

I can't go on disability, because I don't have the "work credits" they require [since I was under employed before this happened]. My policy would give me up to $20/day in lost wages, but I don't see how I could prove I qualify for it given my employment history.

To make matters worse, my insurer hasn't been paying some of my medical bills. My medical claims rep told me that whenever I get a bill I should mail it with a note with my claim info to a certain address and they'd take care of it from there.

I was in PT for months, until the rehab place actually [I didn't know they could even do this] gave up on me when even the electro shock wasn't making a notable improvement & sent me home after not being able to figure out what to do to help my back problems. When I am awake, I spend my most of my days laying in my bed next to my computer since I can't do much of anything right now. AFAIK Progressive paid for PT no problem. I had to ask for it, but they paid me part of my gas costs from going there all those visits. Thankfully I had been having the secretary there write my appointments on those little business cards so I could keep track of when I had gone, otherwise I'd have been unable to fill out the milage log book they sent me [which more accurately could be called a single side of a single piece of paper, the amount of visits was more than twice the amount of spaces on the paper they sent me].

Yet there is a single physician visit for my back & brain probs from way back in early February. My doctor's office would send me bills for it, and I'd forward them to Progressive. Assuming they were paying them. Apparently they were not and I was mailed a notice from my doctor's office today taht they are going to send the bill to collections if I don't pay in a week because no one has paid it. If this "no-fault" junk wasn't involved I could simply go after the other insurance company for the few hundred dollars involved, but if Progressive continues to not do what they're supposed to do this "no fault" scheme will force me to get a lawyer to go after my OWN insurer for a rather insignificant [in the grand scheme of auto accident costs] doctor's visit. I think they should be paying to hire someone devoted to just medical related bills & paperwork, since I have no idea what's going on. If I do have to get a lawyer just to get progressive to pay a single little bill, I'd have to take a road trip into NY to do it since the case is a "New York" case and would need a lawyer who practices NY insurance law. The cost of the road trip would be more than the cost of the doctor's visit.

Glad the accident was within a day's drive away, can't imagine what would happen if I had traveled to the west coast and had this happen there.

 

Btw I found another picture of the wrecked volvo on an SD card I had forgotten about [a regular occurrence anymore]. It was taken at the car auction site Allstate had transported the car to, without telling me, before they even owned the car yet!

I had to drive all the way up to almost the Canadian boarder to get the damaged stuff out of the car & take it home [can you all tell how annoyed I am right now with insurance companies?].

Anyway this shot is interesting in that it shows just how devastated the structural integrity of the Volvo was by the impact. This guy must have been going FAST when he made contact.



The whole rear chassis & drivetrain [??] was buckled into the 3rd & 2nd row seating area, you can't even see where the bumper would have mounted on the passenger side.





I really don't know how that rear passenger cargo area window didn't pop.

And not only is the driver who did this still on the roads, but he didn't even get any "points" on his license for it.

Also: Supertrapp doesn't care.

 

wow...that super sucks. no fault sucks. all it does is keep things from getting done makes rates go up.

btw...how is stick? we havent heard from him in a while.

 

whys it look liek the exaust is blocked off?:confused:

 

Supertrapp muffler with baffles.

 

He's doing ok, still hasn't gotten the black wagon or the hauler back running again.

The 454 in the hauler went on the way back in taking a pile of stuff home. Lifters backed out or something like that. It still ran. Slowly. No idea how badly the engine is damaged from the experience, he has a newer 454 to throw in it but needs help getting the truck apart & swapping them and hasn't been well enough to get involved with it.

Then, within a month or two from my accident the audi wagon had to go. Was leaking every kind of fluid it has [oil, trans, coolant, diff, etc] and industrial grease [i.e. diff fluid] is a major migraine trigger so it wasn't a repair he could do.

Then within weeks after that, the subaru wagon went. Some kind of engine blow by issue was causing gas to escape through the spark plugs or spark plug threads in the heads, and this would keep popping off the spark plug wires. We'd be driving along and all of a sudden one or two of the cylinders would stop working, open the hood and find the boots off. Guess its a known problem with those cars?

So four cars either disabled or destroyed in a three month period.

 

Geeze...if you guys didn't have any bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all. I hope you guys pull out of these problems with flying colors. My best to Stick, too. I have missed him here. Good luck to you both.