Still don’t have my car back after the 10 days promised by the bodyshop. Can’t blame them fully though, as the parts distributor they’ve been dealing with for Volkswagen parts doesn’t quite have a great reputation. They were told that the front bumper cover for my car was on backorder, my parts guy managed to find 3 OEM bumper covers within an hours drive of the shop. Hopefully they told Newton VW to piss off and got the parts elsewhere.
I’ve been driving a bit, of course my first drive was my mother’s Plymouth minivan which resulted in $125 worth of scratch damage to the drivers side when I backed through one of those driveway reflector posts. Good job.
Then drove my girlfriend’s Cavalier for a bit which was more comfortable as it was a small car like my VW. Still, the big complaint I have about the Cavalier in general (hasn’t changed in the past 10 years) is that they really lack any considerable road feel. As long as I’ve been driving I rely on feedback from the car while driving, the car may very well be able to take curves at a decent speed but the experience is knumb overall. I really hope they changed that in the Cobalt, because even the final generation Cavalier had absolutely no road feel.
Still, it is going to be awhile until I get back into my groove as far as driving my own car is concerned. I’ve hit plenty of deer but never actually lost control of a car and wrecked it before. I spun my first Intrepid at 15mph on a centimeter of snow in Harriman State Park a few years back, did a full 360 and proceeded exactly as I had been prior to the spin. I’ve also on occasion caught some of that loose gravel on the edge of the road in a curve and kicked the rear end of the car loose… Did that with both Intrepids and my Neon, and corrected on instinct. Difference this time was the decreased handling due to snow-tires. I won’t put all the blame on the tires, I did let my attention drift for a moment but every car I have ever owned has been a well-handling car. The VW by far has the best handling of any car I’ve ever owned, so an accident of this nature is an anomoly which I hope to avoid again in the future.
I’ve got a court date in late March to sort out the ticket, and won’t know the effect on my car insurance until my next policy renewal. Either way, I’ll be glad to put all of this behind me.