Back in Sept. I had a run in with a curb. Odd onramp to the freeway. 45 degree turn to the onramp. This allows the crossing road to the right to have access to the ramp without going into the intersection. Unfortunately to give them this access, they moved the signal pole INTO the intersection. There is of course a small surronding curb at its base.

The two right lanes on the street I was on can both enter the freeway at the 45 degree angle, except the far right lane which must first clear the signal, then turn.

I was in the outside lane and the car to my left also (legally) wanted to make a turn. Whet they did not realize was that I needed to clear the signal pole before I could angle on to the freeway. He squeezed me and trying to avoid him, I just clipped the curb with my right front wheel.

He never stopped, but I pulled over and noticed a good size chunk of material was missing from both my wheel and tire. I was relieved that there appeared to be so little damage. It looked like there was absolutely no body damage. Not even to the spoiler lip on the bumper. I was doing 15-20 MPH and hit the corner of the curb.

I drove to my insurance agent who was less than a mile away and went in to get him. When I got back the right rear was flat. Looking closely we noticed that the right front wheel seemed to be pushed back about 2 ".

Inspecting the rear tire, there was a horizontal cut in the sidewall. We thought it might be from the right front wheel's center cap flying back as it was missing.

Had it towed to the dealer and they started work immediately. After they replaced the entire right front wheel assembly, we noticed it was still about 1" toward the rear. They were afraid the frame might be slightly bent. Off to the body shop. They were busy and a weekend came so they had it for almost a week and reported the frame was absolutely straight.

I have been traveling a lot this fall and did not request a rental car (even though my policy covers one for 20 days). But now I had a week of no out of state travel but needed my car. At this point it was about 3 weeks. After a week of final touches, I got it back. While I was cleaning it up, I noticed the corner of the hood by the windshield was not aligned. It appeared to be pushed back about 1/8-1/4". Looking closer the gap between the right door and front fender was non existent. the fender/hood alignment by the headlamp was also off. Checking under the hood, I could see the fender had moved back and up about 1/4" (the bolts showed a little bare metal on one side. Closer inspectionshowed that the fender wall to the side of the battery had buckled slightly (part of the front crush design I suppose). So back to the dealer/body shop. They discovered although the frame was straight, the fender had indeed been pushed up and back 1/4". Nearly invisible to anyone but the nut who owns the banged up baby.

What was so painfully obvious to me suddenly became visible to everyone else including the insurance adjuster. I had more travel to do so the SRT sat in the car "hospital" for another couple weeks while they got it back to normal.

I had a $500 deductible on my policy. Because I didn't use a rental, the insurance company reimbursed me half of what it would have cost them. So I got a check back for $250. My tires were about 70% worn (PS2s with only 12K miles) so when the adjuster offered to replace them through the dealer (two tires $780) I asked if I could arrange for the tires. I told him I did not like the idea of two new tires on one side of the car and two mostly worn out tires on the other. He agreed and canceled the dealer order and gave me the check for $780. During the final checking the body shop found a scratch on my windshiled cover where the hood came back and hit it. Plus the top grille mount had a crack in the plastic. The adjuster OFFERED to have the pillar redone (he saw it was custom with the CF finish) and the grille replaced. He also saw that the grille had the same CF finish and asked what it would take to redo it. Bottom line, he said the company wants to make sure I get the car back in the same condition it was before the accident.

I paid $500 for the deductible. I paid $1,050 for the tires (including tax and a 100% replacement road hazzard warranty) for the 4 tires.

The insurance company paid me $250 for not using a rental car. $780 for the two tires and $500 for the grille and CF touch up. As a result the cost came down to a wash.

One heckuva way to get a new set of tires. DEFINITELY not recommended...