We called the police (Baltimore's finest <_< ), waited 30 minutes alongside of the road, and the only person who attended to us was some JHU special police who told us just to wait there for the cops. So we waited a little bit more, no one showed up, and my buddy who owns the Lexus got all *BLEEP*ed off and decided he wanted to leave. He did report the license plate number, description of the car of the guy who did it (who by the way was also driving around drinking obviously if he could get out and throw an open bottle of beer at my friend's car), etc. However, no one ever contacted him after that, which I find fishy as well.
The whole situation is fishy. I mean, I know it kind of IS my fault that the whole thing happened, but like you said, I shouldn't have any responsibility to pay for the car. I was drunk and offered to help pay for it in a drunken state and for the fact that I know nothing about cars. I just know that $1900 to fix this sounds COMPLETELY ridiculous and it's totally out of my price range for a long time. Do you know anything about how insurance covers vandalisms/assaults?
The car has to have "comprehensive" coverage to be reimbursed for vandalism. There is usually a deductible applied so the insured has to pay that amount and the insurance company pays the rest. If the party who damaged the car can be tracked down you might be able to get him to pay the deductible amount (or his insurance company).
This happened nearly a month ago. Do you think it would still be possible to track the guy down even though the police never responded to us at the time of the vandalism nor did they ever contact us back afterwards? I don't think any of us still have the license plate number but I know that it was reported to the police, along with a description of the car and the suspect, which I know at least I remember very well what both of those looked like.
I don't think your friend is trying to rip you off. $1900 sounds about right to me. Just getting a hood repainted will cost at least $800-900.
A good body shop will likely not even attempt to remove dents from the hood...they will just replace it. That would explain the other $1000.
So wouldn't it be more reasonable if around $1000 to just buy a new hood? Why re-paint a messed up one while you can just put another one on for $1000? Maybe I missed something. Sorry I'm a car newbie.
And thank you both for the advice. The guy called me tonight wanting to "settle the hood deal" and I figured I should ask some people who may know more about it than both of us before I agree to do anything. It's nice to hear that one person doesn't think my friend is trying to rip me off. If you can direct any friends or knowledgeable people to this thread, I would GREATLY appreciate it. I guess I should probably call him back and deal with this tomorrow as its getting kind of late on the east coast now. :(