Okay, so recently my friend borrowed my car to drive and pick up some ciggies. On the way there, he got caught up in an accident and completely fucked the front bumper up. Which is really annoying because I need my car for my job (I work in traffic control) so I was pretty much told him he needs to pay for a new bumper ASAP since I was going to start losing a lot of money on Ubers for work.
He said he’d get it fixed in a couple of days, which made me pretty happy because I wasn’t expecting it to be sorted out so quickly.
Anyway, fast forward two days later: he parks my car in my driveway and lo and behold, the bumper is fucking moss green on my silver car.
Initially, I just thought, Okay, it’s going to get repainted soon, so I asked him so when’s the bumper getting repainted and he pretty much said whenever you want so I replied does tomorrow work and he goes I don’t know, you can do it whenever you want to.
When he told me this it felt like he implying its up to me so I told him no dude you’re paying for the paint job and he called me an asshole, saying that’s bullshit because he already replaced the bumper and if I wanted it to match the rest of the car and that I should have told him so that he could have got it done while the bumper was getting fixed.
But I swear to God I feel like it’s assumed that the bumper color is going to match the car when you have to fix a car THAT YOU CRASHED but I don’t know if thats standard or not since I’ve never been in a car crash
NTA. It’s great that your mate was able to get the bumper fixed so quickly, but it shouldn’t need to be spelt out to him that the replacement bumper has to be the same colour as the rest of the car.
Yeah honestly I felt like I was talking to a child when I had to explain to him that obviously I wanted the bumper to match the rest of the car
Bumper wasn’t “fixed”. He went to the junkyard and pulled the first one he saw.
NTA
At this point possibly choose small claims court or your friendship. An insurance claim will just cost you cash in raised rates so not a good option.
You’re not unreasonable to assume an adult repairs the damage they caused. It is an unfortunate risk that you take when you loan out your car.
Thanks man it just seems so ridiculous that I would have to go to court with a friend over something like this when if the roles were reversed I wouldn’t even question replacing the bumper
He’s no friend. He doesn’t have enough working brain cells to make sure the bumper was the color of your car AND then blames that on you? Get an attorney to send a letter. Maybe that’ll smack some sense into him. Otherwise, small claims.
>At this point possibly choose small claims court or your friendship.
I would say it’s too late. The “friend” already chose convenience or saving money over friendship. There’s no way the friend thought a random color would be perfectly acceptable. It was either easier to get or cheaper — and that was considered more valuable than the friendship.
When a friend chooses to screw you over it is not standing up against that which would damage the friendship. Even going along with it completely without complaint wouldn’t mean the friendship is in good condition — that would just be denial of the fact that the other person has already damaged/ruined the friendship by acting in a way an actual friend wouldn’t.
I would even say that the only chance the friendship has of returning to health is by standing up against the friend who has done you wrong thereby giving them a chance to own up to it and make amends sincerely. Without that there is no real friendship.
NTA. If you manage to convince him to do it, make sure he doesn’t just use duct tape.
Believe me, you are not overacting. You said he was caught up in an accident looks to me like he had an accident. Did he hit a stationary object? since you don’t want to get your insurance company involved , I’d suggest getting as much as you can out of your friend and kick him to the curb.
Do not lend your car to anyone. This is exactly what happens. You’re getting off easy with this life lesson, he could have totaled your car.
NTA. Is your friend not too bright? Everybody knows you don’t just slap on a different color bumper and call it a day. Sheesh.
Never lend your car. It is all risk and the legal liabilities are vast.
NTA.
He messed up your car. It is HIS responsibility to restore it to exactly how it was before HE fcked it up.
NTA He’s trying his best to get away with spending as little as possible to repair your car to its former state. Get him to pay up for the paint job and then go get it done yourself.