So here's what happened. My friend was driving out early last Saturday morning in a deserted suburb around 7a when a 70yo jackas.s in a POS white volvo came head on, swerved, and hit his M35 on the driver side. According to my friend, the drunk fishtailed just before hitting the M and then drove off. My friend says he was driving around 30mph but the Volvo was going much faster. Amazingly, the drunkard, after hitting the M, continued driving off. My friend, now stopped in the middle of the road, immediately gunned it after the Volvo, which, by then, pulled over.

The drunk tried to talk my friend from calling the cops and offered to settle it for cash but my friend just took pictures of the whole scene, the drunkard himself (in case he tried to run away), and of the drunk's insurance card. When the police arrived, they did the whole sobriety thing and arrested the idiot on the spot.

Now, for my question: The car is leased and is owned by Infiniti Financial Services. How does the accident affect the lease and when my friend turns it in 2010? For me, I've always bought my cars and have never leased, so this is all new to me (as well as my friend). I'm concerned because with my other friend, when she turned in her Nissan, the inspector was writing up for all of these dings and small dents and called it in "excess" of normal wear and tear. So how does an accident come into play with a lease?

The other reason I ask this question is because for cars that have been in an accident, there's this thing called "diminshed value" that you normally don't get reimbursed for by the insurance company. So, say in my friend's case, before the accident, a similar '07 M35 with X miles is worth today $32,000.00, but because the car's been in an accident, reported to Carfax, blah-blah-blah, even if the car's been fixed up at a cost of $6,000.00 to "like-new" condition, the after-repaired value of the car is say, $29,000.00, if he were to sell the car immediately after it's been repaired. Now I know this is somewhat moot since the car is leased, but the insurance company won't give you any $ for the $3,000.00 in "diminished value."

Can IFS go after you, as a lessee, for the diminished value or something related to that, just because the car's been in an accident, even if it's not your (the lessee's) fault and the car's been fixed up to "like new" condition?

As far as the car's damage, it's all restricted to the driver's side. The front fender's got a huge gash in it, right through the driver's door and an ugly knick on the rear door. As bad and as ugly as it is, it could've been significantly worse had my friend or the drunk been a few inches in the other lane (my friend was fully within his lane when the drunkard fishtailed him). Or, had this been perhaps an hour later in the morning when there are more pedestrians out on the street. Plus, none of the car's airbags (head/side/curtain/steering wheel, etc.) went off.

I'll try and post up pix tomorrow. TIA.

 

take it all up with insurance; they're responsible for the damage to the car, not you.