Requiem for a Golf

I turned over the title for my 2019 Volkswagen eGolf to the salvage yard today. It is my second car to be declared a total loss in 3 years. The last one, our 2011 Subaru Outback, was lost when a high schooler pulled out in front of me as I drove down a two lane divided road during the morning commute hours. I remain haunted by that one and whether I reacted the wrong way, turning a near miss into a collision, but having gone through this twice in recent years I can tell you that my ability to make solid, forensically useful memories during a car crash is very poor. I find myself left with just a small handful of sense impressions and my observations of the post-accident scene. I find it easy to come up with scenarios in which I’m at fault. The police and the insurance companies were all very satisfied that I was not. I went through the same round of self-recrimination after the crash on May 30th which claimed my Volkswagen but it’s tougher to come up with any plausible ways I might have caused this one. I was driving down W Broad Street, 3 lanes in each direction, when a full size Ford pickup came (I think based on my scant impressions) across two lanes and attempted to make a last minute right turn onto a side street. What I remember thinking is “oh I hope they’re going to stay in that middle lane but it kinda doesn’t look like it” and then the adrenaline rush as the truck filled my space. Some part of the truck, I’d dearly love to know which part, made contact with my car towards the rear half of the driver’s side door. My mirror got pushed in. I heard the window, which was rolled down, break inside the door and a couple pieces of the exposed tip of the window fell in my lap. I was forced onto the road that I think the truck was trying to turn onto. As soon as I’d come to a stop I heard the truck’s motor racing and looked up to see it turn back onto Broad and race off. As far as I can tell all of this happened about 6-8 seconds after I pulled out of the lot of the grocery store. A quick thinking bystander gave me the license plate and I gave it to the police and they said they were going to go see if they could find the driver at their home address. That’s the last I heard of it.

The driver’s side door was crumpled, with a big streak of white paint across it. The rear door took a bit of damage at the very front of it. The cap had popped off the mirror. That was the damage I saw in my addled state, from my immediate inspection, to a couple hours later when I taped some bags over the window to keep the rain and bugs out. I figured cosmetic damage that could be repaired. The insurance company’s initial estimate, based on the photos I sent them, was just north of $5k. A week later I got back the supplemental request from the body shop and it totaled over $12k with pictures showing all the additional damage I had refused to take a close look at. The door sill was bent, the hinge panel was bent, the window frame was bent in two different places. It was this last one that spooked me, a couple weeks after I’d processed the initial emotions from the crash. During the accident that truck would have filled at least my side view (and my best guess at the mechanics would mean it filled a lot of my front view too) and it bent metal that was just a few inches from my left arm. I looked into what it would take to keep the car, just like I did with the Outback, and indications are that it’s a hard road to travel, and a lot more expensive, even assuming the $12k estimate stuck and they didn’t find a single additional piece of damage. The shop it’s at right now wouldn’t do the work for liability reasons and there are few shops certified to work on electric cars. In order to get it back on the road there’s a bunch of bureaucratic hassle and fees to get it legal to drive again and it would keep a salvage title, causing it to be harder to insure. So, just like with the Subaru, I let go of a car that seemed like it would still drive if it just got some care. I happen to know that someone did rebuild the Subaru and it got back on the road. I hope that will be true for the VW too.

I’m kind of heartsick today. More than I expected to be. It was a good car, my 3rd Golf, arguably not as nice as the 2013 TDI I bought new, but close, and one I endlessly enjoyed being in. Like all my Golfs it was nimble and you could really lean it into a corner, with that steering and suspension that are just the right amount of firm, and just enough torque at just the right time to push you back out of turns or off the line. The interior was understated and clean and most of the controls seemed well thought out for actual humans in a way that no other car, including newer Volkswagens, ever seems to recreate. And the smoothness of the electric powertrain spoiled me. All gas cars feel like caveman cars to me now. It was a real roll down the windows, put your sunglasses on, crank the music, and put your foot down kind of car, and while it was far from perfect it was easy to forgive its faults. The kids and I spent a lot of time in this car going back and forth to school, listening to and talking about music, enjoying little rituals like commenting on how the river looked every morning as we crossed it. I loved this car and I also loved it because it was a bridge back to a time before car companies started messing with time tested interface designs, prioritizing dollar savings over driver experience and safety. It didn’t have a dumb dial to shift gears, it had a proper shifter. It had single purpose buttons and dials for all the things that needed them rather than a giant touchscreen or a single big multi-purpose knob. And it was an all electric car with plenty of capacity which charged plenty fast for my needs that I could buy for low 20s in 2023 rather than paying twice that to get into any of the other electric car options that I could see myself liking. It gave me a surprising hurt to say goodbye to it there where it sat in the body shop parking lot, partially disassembled. It was a good car, I’m going to miss it.