The Mustang Source - Ford Mustang Forums - Aaand.... that may be all she writes for Awesome. :|

I can certainly relate.

5 weeks ago, my 54K mile 2006 Pony was killed by a Polish grandmother in nearby Sun City - the original Arizona retirement city. Unlike you, I did not have the option of going a bit cross country - to my left was a deep open concrete storm drain culvert. I was traveling northbound on a 4 lane 40 mph street (with the center storm culvert) when Grandma decided to "scoot" completely across my path from left to right. The problem is that THERE IS A 2nd STOP SIGN in the median of said road. Besides the oversized stop sign, the median had a flashing red light to warn of oncoming traffic and STOP painted on the asphalt. I have no idea of what she was thinking, but she actually seemed to accelerate when approaching my side of the road.

Seeing her coming, I buried my brake pedal - but t-boned her Buick SUV regardless. The front end completely caved in and the air bags deployed. There was no visible damage on the car from the bottom of the windshield back (including both doors). It was still running as I got out, but I shut it off as coolant was spilling out.

I have spent the past couple of weeks doing everything in my power to get my beloved V6 back on the road. The Sheriff's deputies cited the other driver for blowing the stop sign and her insurance company quickly assumed all blame. But the system is just too rigged. After a decent offer from her insurance company to total my Mustang, I approached my insurance company to see if we could proceed with repairing the car even though the repairs would exceed the determined value.

After my insurance company developed the repair estimate, it initially looked like there would not be that much of an "out of pocket" for repairs. But then the "rules" came into play. Besides my small deductible, I would have to forfeit something called "salvage value" to the insurance company. And then they tacked on a "contingency" factor to the damage estimate because there was no way to determine if the car was technically repairable without taking it apart. The motion of the other vehicle was at a complete right angle to mine and figured a tweaked front frame was an excellent possibility. I would have to buy my car back and then I would be completely on my own for repairs AND the risk that it was not actually repairable.

In the end, the money I would receive for my Mustang ended up being less that half of the repair estimate. With an extremely heavy heart, I went down to the insurance yard and removed all my belongings from my car. 19 years of care, tasteful mods, and pampering down the drain. There wasn't a ding in the car and you could shave in the reflection from the dark Vista Blue paint.

I am still quite sick about it. Lucky I can take some solace in my Boss 302.