MY FRIEND TOTALED MY CAR! Need advice on what to do...
[ALTHOUGH IRRELAVENT THIS IS A JAPANESE CAR! 2001 TOYOTA WILL CYPHA!]
Hello everyone, I'm just going to jump right into it....
So I went back to the states for vacation for about a month and I had my friend (let's call her that for now) take care of my car for me. The only true reason I let her use it is because
1. Every Wednesday if it snows you need to move your car out the parking lot so the snow plow ppl can clean the parking lot or it will be towed
2. She and her husband only had one car and she was always late for work due to dropping off her husband.
The story she told me is last week Tuesday when driving home from work through the concrete canyon the car jerked to the left due to the snow and ice and she tried to correct it and the car spun out, went over the sidewalk and hit the side of the canyon. Of course the first thing I was worried about is if she was okay and she told my she only strained her neck so I was really grateful for that but of course the next thing I was worried about is my car :(....
It took me two days to drag out of her the status of my car. She told me that the damage was not bad, nothing happened to the outside of the car (surprisingly) its just under the car, the axle was bent and my hub cap for both rear tires popped off. It took me another two days (so sunday) for me to drag more information out of her telling me they had to tow my car but it can't be towed till Monday. Okay whatever, so I told her please do what she could till I came back to Japan. I didn't like how she was giving me bits and pieces so I decided to investigate myself. I come back to japan the Tuesday (so yesterday Japan time, today state side time) so I would try to get the police report and call the tow guy who has my car.
So literally after getting off the plane I went to go get the police report but the guy in charge of that was out (plan on getting that today), so I went to work to talk to my friend and she told me the same story but this time she said the investigators are giving mixed answers on how the car is. The one thing that pissed me off is she asked if my tires were snow tires (yes they were btw), trying to some how switch the game on me. Anyway, I called the tow guy and he said he had to tow my car last week Thursday (she told me they wouldn't be able to tow the car till Monday but behold the car had been towed for 4 days now) and the under belly of the car was completely mangled and it would take 6-9 thousand dollars to fix, aka trash because the car is only worth 3,500.
So I spoke to her again regarding what the tow guy told me and she was ready to jump down my throat saying "He clearly said it would cost 2,000max to fix the damages." I was livid then because she told me she couldn't get a hold of him, then she decided to pull the "Hey, maybe your insurance could pay for it, I would pay but let's talk to your insurance first. It shouldn't go up since it was no ones fault ."
I called my legal office in regard to what to do but since I am American we would have to fly back to America to go to court and that is simply not worth it.....
I only have one year in Japan left so there is no point in getting another car.....
So questions:
1.) What do you think my insurance do? (Haven't spoke to them yet)
2.)Should she or her insurance pay?
3.) How do you think this situation should play out if it were you.....?
Sorry if this was so long....I just never been in this situation before and I don't know what to do.....my independent life is over thanks to her...
Please help....Thanks.
