New driver and owner :( need advice on 3 issues

welcome to priuschat! congrats on your new C. sorry about the accidents, i'm sure you'll do better, just try to be more careful. $650. sounds okay, but do you really need heated seats in dc? all the best!

 

You will be lucky if your accidents cost less than a grand, good luck.

 

Replacing the bumper cover on a 07 cost $1500 including paint for instance. That's the part or parts (may need absorber too if collapsed. Its sacrificial) paint and labor.

Body work on a new car is Expensive!

The wheel will be pretty cheap as its not a mag. Call around to junkyard. Get the tire size off the tire first.

 

we had two children in school down there and a sister in virginia. i always thought we had the worst drivers in the world until i spent time driving in dc and cali.

 

Sorry to hear about the mishaps. Always expensive! I'm an old driver. Have driven all over the contiguous states, Canada and Europe. The DC area is up near the number one most nerve testing/fraying places I have ever encountered as a driver.

Because it's so much fun (not!) when I drive south from Maine... I start at 6 pm to make sure that most drivers from Boston to DC (through the "Megalopolis") are not out commuting!

Makes that part of the trip easy and quick. Once down south of Richmond everything changes, and for the most part becomes somewhat sane.

The few times I've stayed in DC (love the city), I've come away amazed that people can take the daily stress of the commutes. All I can suggest is to be extremely careful and always aware of what's happening well ahead of your car, use your signal indicators to let other drivers know where you're going, and look twice before you change lanes or cross streets even though you may have a green light. Running red lights is getting to be epidemic just about everywhere and causing plenty of bad crashes.

By the way, we have heated seats in our Prius, live in Maine year round and have yet to switch them on! Dress for the weather. Hope your luck changes for the much better.

 

That's funny, I also hit a curb on a winding road when I lived in D.C. (not in a Prius though). I was cutting through rock creek park at night in the rain in winter, hit some black ice and that was it. I had to walk out of there. A cop picked me up and gave me a ride home at 90mph too! Never backed into a tree though, but there's still time!

Actually how did you back into a tree? Were you off-roading in your C?

 

Must have been one of those stealth trees... they seem to come out of thin air.

Maybe an investment in one of those echo sensor backup systems would be a good investment? You'll find that the money it saves in repair bills more than justifies the expense.

SCH-I535

 

ouch, I'd hate to be in your path

 

I backed into a tree once. I was at the end of a trail in my 4wd truck. I backed up to the right, carefully looking into the left and right mirrors. BAM! Should have been looking in the rearview mirror, as well. Trucks have bumpers, so no problems.

No idea about the costs to fix your car, OP. But I might say that if you plan on continuing to bash things you might want to consider this your training vehicle and write it off in a few years if things continue as they have been. Or, you can put on your war face and start paying attention when you drive. I know you are new, and a city driver, but you'll have to get with the program or take streets with less traffic or the same streets earlier to beat the traffic.

Good luck however you do it. Remember, war face...

 

$800 to repaint and replace the bumper cover, .. probably invest in a backup camera since you have a C3, also the wheel and tire can be bought online cheap.

 

Try as Toyota might....the harmony between man, nature and machine continues to be assaulted.

Teacher says, every time a Prius backs into a tree, an angel get's it's wings.