Well, to make a long story short, I hit a deer today while driving my 300SD. The impact sent the deer flying into the air and landing hard on the ground about 30 feet away. I was doing 55 mph when I saw it right in front of me and started to brake. Can't quite say what my speed was upon impact.

Two things make me really angry right now but I'll just have to live with them because I can't change anything:

1) At the end of my 6-month insurance policy last month, I decided to switch to just liability on the car for a while. Now this has happened.
2) Just last week I sold my '84 500SEL with a bad transmission for nearly nothing. The car had all the parts I'd need to fix this car in perfect shape. Now this has happened.
3) This happened in broad daylight. I've heard of many people hitting deers at night and as a result I've always avoided highways that have bushes on both sides at night. Never heard of anyone hitting a deer during the day. Apparently I was just uninformed as my brother said it happens as frequently than the night impacts. This was exactly 1.1 miles from my house!!

I've learned to not worry about things I can't control, but this is still hard to swallow. I took some pics of the car at the scene of the accident but they're still in my digital camera so I'll post them later. I had the car towed to an independent body shop where the guy will look at it in about two hours' time and give me an idea of how much I'm about to waste - if I waste it that is. Rough estimate by the tow truck driver (who is a certified body tech) is about $4,000.

I was just wondering, if it will cost that much should I fix it or just sell it? The car's interior is perfect, the exterior is just fair as the clearcoat is peeling from the rear. Engine is perfect. Transmission has firm shifts that I know can be fixed by some vacuum work. The car has just 163K miles. I'm not really sure of what the car is worth, but I've done quite a lot of work to bring it up to speed on maintenance - transmission fluid, cooling system flush, differential fluid, new master cylinder, brake fluid flush, new rotors and pads all around, etc. If the car isn't worth $4,000, I'm still not sure if I want to hunt around for an MB diesel that I'd buy and then have to spend time and money working on to bring up to speed on maintenance.

Well, let me hear from you good folks first. All suggestions/advice will be greatly appreciated. I'll post an update once I get an exact estimate from the body shop guy. THANKS!!

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1999 Mercedes-Benz S600, 103K miles - garage queen
1988 Mercedes-Benz 560SEL, 89K miles - daily driver
2007 Hyundai Sonata Limited, 31K - daily driver