please put your feet in my shoes for 5 minutes.

[THAT318]

if you dont want to read the whole thing it can be summed up in this. 1. cousin wrecked my car (minor fender bender) 2. refuses to pay to fix damages keeps complaining about not having a job so i insist he sell his camaro to fix atleast her car, i think ill survive with a battle wound on my car. sunday, while at a sports bar i was talking to my cousins and they mentioned they were going to make a drive out to cali later that night and still needed to work on the car before they made a 6 hour drive... having a shop with any possible tool they can imagine i offered to help work on the car at my shop. its not about 7 pm and my younger cousin mentions he forgot his bags at his aunts house and needs to go get it because he flies back to chicago at 9 in the morning and wont have time to grab it in the morning. he's 15 i dont blame him for forgetting we all put fun before priorities at that age, but he was with his 25 year old cousin whose car i happened to be working on.we had just jb welded a small leak as a temporary fix for a long term problem so i offer the ti for him to take to pick up the luggage. we were almost done with the window and were waiting for the radiator to dry. i insisted he take the ti instead of his car since the jb weld would hold up to pressure of the radiator and the leak would come back if he started the car that quick. he insisted on taking dads 530 and after a million excuses he agreed to drive "my piece of ****". i had taken some pain killers so i was no where near fit to drive him to get the bag so i let him take the car while i was now just sitting at the shop waiting for them to get back. i was sitting in the office as the pain killers took effect he asked me to check the air pressure in his tires.. i didnt reply to the text, he ASSUMED i had. he calls me at about 8 30 telling my cousin he got in a minor fender bender.. my cousin suggested, since the damage was minimal, to not make a police report and settle it away from insurance to settle it on their own. my cousin gets back to the shop all giggly and stuff RIGHT AFTER HE DAMAGED MY CAR but whatever it didnt seem like much, all i had noticed was the side view mirror had a small crack i let it go. they head off i chill at the shop till im set to drive then i go home too. he calls me monday complaining about this and that, water pumps now leaking and cars making noise.. a chevy with 16x,xxx miles might be suspected to have problems right? tuesday rolls around and the victim in the accident come to the shop, and explains how he must not have seen her and merged into her lane and hit her. really nice older lady, calm about the situation. me and dad agreed we would fix the damages and the cousin would pay us back. now im not willing to take another hit on my insurance. i pride my self on my accident free record, i have quite a few tickets so i pay a pretty penny already every month for insurance. the cousin insists i claim it to my insurance and offers to pay the difference in my rates.. bad idea since its already so high. he agrees and insists on calling his insurance (hes covered to drive others car) they tell him that in arizona insurance follows vehicles not drivers so he was in my car which means my insurance should pay.. that sounds fair.. atleast to him. he didnt text me back the rest of the day. didnt text me all day wednesday. now its thursday and he texted asking "what we were going to do about this b****" apparently she deserves to be called names because she was in his way, idk how his brain works. we argue back and forth about the law and how he decided to settle with her and i give him my thoughts of the law and he doesnt reply again. the victim came to the shop today with an estimate from her insurance company for ~$2000 and me and dad know the car could be fixed for ~$600 with her having a rental car for a few days to get around. i texted him telling him i can have it fixed for about 600 and he starts complaining about how he doesnt have a job and i do and my insurance would cover it and blah blah blah.. sob stories never get me and him complaining about his job set me off. he quit his job to make websites... PLAN FAILED. all ill say about that. now we're stuck arguing about it and who should pay. his argument is i let him drive the car i should claim it to my insurance. my argument is that he got in a wreck in my car why should i suffer and pay more in insurance?

[spidertri]

Cousin was in the driver seat, he gets to open up his wallet. Situation sucks man, you'd think family wouldn't try to bone you...

[xxxJohnBoyxxx]

Cousin needs a smack in the head or in my family I would take him out back and roll around for a few rounds until someone pulled us apart. He needs to pay for it all Bro...

Only my opinion, even if we were real tight I'm sure he would understand my point and why i kicked his butt for this head ache...

[b.u.ti-ful]

The whole point of insuring your car is so that when you loan it to your bonehead friend it is covered so that you do not have to try to squeeze blood from a turnip.

[bimmerfun]

While I understand that insurance is for when stuff like this happens, one certainly does not expect this kind of treatment from a friend, let alone a relative...especially since you were doing him a FAVOR. When he called the person HE HIT a B!@#$...That spoke volumes about his lack of character. Unfortunately, I don;t know what you can do about this, other than to say I'd never do him a favor again.

[xxxJohnBoyxxx]

It's a great day to whip somebodys A$$ is what I would have thought and done. Insurance or not...

[bimmerfun]

John...I hear 'ya, but is it worth getting in that kind of trouble?

[THAT318]

me and dad tried came up with an agreement to were id pay to fix her car just to get this mess over with the the victim didnt allow if. she saw it from your point of view too. he was driving he should pay. he tried calling me cheap, selfish, and a bunch of names last night.. and calling her names is only the beggining of his character, ill let you know that much lol..

[b.u.ti-ful]

Put this in your window.

[THAT318]

Originally Posted by b.u.ti-ful

Put this in your window.

lmaoooooooo

[cooljess76]

I was gonna say, the sensible thing to do is to just bite the bullet and fix the lady's car asap so she's taken care of and out of the picture. It sounds like she's being pretty cooperative and understanding. Once she's squared away, fix your car as time/money permits. It's sad, but sometimes family members could be the biggest douchebags.

If your cousin doesn't value your relationship more than a few hundred bucks, let him be. It's just one less Christmas present you have to deal with every year. Deep inside, he knows he's a scumbag and that will eat away at him for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately it goes with the territory of being a nice person. Sometimes you go out of your way to help friends and family and every once in a while it backfires. When his radiator blows and he's stranded on the side of the road with nobody to call, he'll think about the time you stayed up late working on his car and loaned him your car.

[bimmerfun]

I do agree that that nice lady needs to be made whole. I've had to "eat" the screw-ups of others on more than a few occasions, but that doesn't make it right.Either way, that nice lady needs to be taken care of AND thanked for being so patient and understanding.How dare your cousin call her names...jackass...

[tiFreak]

definitely the cousin, make it clear that if he makes you cover his mistake that you won't be doing him any more favors. if you do get stuck with the bill just do what Jess said and forget about him

[chudzikb]

How does that go? You can pick your nose, you can pick your a$$, you can even pick your friends, but, you can't pick your relatives.

Fix the womans car, she deserves it, your relative is now dead to you. And that is that...sad, but, it is how it ends up. There is a reason you are upset, YOU SHOULD BE!!!

[dave45056]

Anyone who drives your car should be responsible for any damages they incur. The Law states this. Whether you have a job and they do not does not come into the equation. That you offered your car does not matter, too. A reasonable assumption is that your car would come back without damages. This is true because most driving can happen that way. Your relative does not respect that the woman who was hit sustained damages because of him and no one else. In addition you have also sustained a loss because of him and no one else, too. It is shameful for a person to shirk responsibility simply because you have more resourses than he does. That he doesn't have a jobe only means he can't pay now. By the way... you are doing the right thing taking care of the woman who was hit. You can only hope that your cousin sees things for what they are at some point.