Explorer Before & After

So about a week before we left our old daycare, I was backing out after dropping Drew off. As I was backing up, I saw the car parked to my rear flip their reverse lights meaning they would back up as soon as I was done. The next 3 seconds were SUPER slow motion as I saw the driver back up like a bat out of hell and completely slam into the rear side of my Explorer. It was so fast I couldn't even get my gear back into drive to get out of her way. We both got out of our cars and the driver came over apologizing heavily, definitely distraught by something else going on in her life.

Fast forward a couple weeks later after we spoke to insurance and got the ball rolling on our claim. The bad news, however, is that parking lot 'faults' are often 50/50 regardless of the story since there's generally not compelling evidence either way. I was fuming thinking back to her constant apologizing (admission of guilt) and obvious "fault" that were weighing on her shoulders. Ultimately, after visiting a collision center for a quote, we decided that we would rather not pay the $500 insurance deductible and fight such small marks.

The main reason for this decision was the AWESOME staff at a local collision center. They said just swing it by after ordering our matching paint colors and they would patch it all up FOR FREE!! We did just that, except we tipped the guy of course, and below are the below and after pictures. It's really hard to see all of the dings so I tried to point out a few of the bigger ones. Obviously if you get close, you can see it's been buffed out and painted, but overall we feel it was definitely not worth the money or the claim through insurance.

Now if we could just get all drivers to SLOW down in parking lots and watch where they are backing up, we wouldn't have these issues!! ESPECIALLY in daycare parking lots people... there could have been a child walking!!