Oh dear, not good...

[Nuclear Chicken]

Well, at 0700ish this morning, en route to collect my mother and continue on to a family friend's funeral, I bounced my LC off a very hard wall and pretty much destroyed the front N/S coner. The wheel is off, drive shaft broken, where ironically I was intending to fit a new oil seal this w/e. Outer wing, inner wing/ arch, suspension/ strut/ wish-bone bits and pieces, front bumper, headlight and all the miscelaneous bits and pieces of plastic that holds that lot together. 2 air bags deployed ( which means a new dashboard) and a serious dose of whiplash too. I was descending a small country lane, a short steep hill, not fast but obviously too fast, wheels locked and from then on I was pretty much a passenger. The wall of a bridge is at the bottom and the road runs sharpish right and the wall is stright ahead, more or less. I ended up going almost straight ahead and hit the corner hard, maybe about 25mphish. Snow was about 20cm I'd say. Managed to steer a bit to avoid frontal head-on but the N/S corner took the full brunt. N/S doors are a few (maybe 3mm) mm out. No roof or body wrinkles wrinkles but obviously something's amiss. Possibility of an economic write off. Has been lifted a few hours back and is en route to insurer's repairer, who I used before.

Hopefully not a write off as I simply cannot afford to change it. The whiplash aches and I am gutted and pissed off to a level I have never ever been.

I'll post a picture later when I'm not so annoyed about the whole thing. I shoulda just stayed in bed, as I almost decided not to go at all. Hindsight, eh?

 

[Andrew Prince]

Shoot - not good news at all! Glad you're ok (other than the whiplash), cars can be fixed or replaced at the end of the day. Hopefully when the metal doctor has inspected the patient, the diagnosis will not be too severe. Major bummer though! All the best for getting some good news on the truck

Cheers,

 

[Crispin]

Ahh bugger. That is not nice! Good you're ok though. Bummer about the LC.
I wonder if the glancing blow caused more cosmetic but less structural than a head on? Guessing the front chassis members missed the wall?

 

[ignat]

Really really sorry to hear that..

 

[Nuclear Chicken]

Yes, main legs onto which the bumber business is bolted missed the wall. Literally, just the wing area was sheared & damaged with a tiny bit of damage to the edge of the bonnet where it meets the headlight. Inner arch when the battery is mounted is bent rearward a bit but not much. lots of cosmetic damage and it remains to be seen what the hidden bits reveal when it is inspected and jigged. I'd say the wheel being driven rearward and stopping against the rear of the arch, absorbed a large amount of the energy. The tyre is flat and could be destroyed for all I know. The body misalignment is the bit that worries me.

 

[Chas]

Ooh dear, I know the feeling only too well, I'm pleased to hear you're not too badly hurt though. Maybe the Cruiser is not unrepairable, they're tough old beasts, mine survived a concrete wall head-on impact at about 20/25mph, so the Ins Co's decision may be favourable, have a word with Steff and Karl for some used bits and pieces, flingers crossed.

 

[AndyCook]

what horrible bad luck. at least no serious injury to yourself and passengers.
hope you can get it fixed economically.

 

[TonyP]

Oh no! Sorry about the smash.. hope you don't ache too much tomorrow. LC can be fixed replaced

 

[Crispin]

What I do find interesting though is that the airbags deployed. If you were doing 20-25 and it was a glancing blow, there could not have been that much deceleration. I would have thought the side curtain airbag would have deployed in a glancing impact rather than the front ones.

 

[Gary Stockton]

Sorry Paul - hope it gets sorted in your favour a d the whiplash stops hurting - get that x-rayed for stress fractures please!

 

[Nuclear Chicken]

What I do find interesting though is that the airbags deployed. If you were doing 20-25 and it was a glancing blow, there could not have been that much deceleration. I would have thought the side curtain airbag would have deployed in a glancing impact rather than the front ones.

No glancing blow Crispin. It went from 25mph to 0mph in about 2ms. It hurt. Good point about the curtain bags. They need quite a lot of side impact I believe.

Anyway, see below.

Note the trailing edge of the passenger door and the misalignment.

 

[Trevor]

Ouch indeed, small comfort to imagine what the situation would have been if you had been in a standard road car. Really hope it all works out in your favour.

 

[Nuclear Chicken]

You know, the 'funny' thing is, had the wall given way, there's a 4 or 5m drop into a small river below. Doesn't bear thinking about really.

 

[Lorin]

Sorry to hear. Looks like a fairly hefty whack - I agree with Gary, get yourself checked out. Hope it all works out okay.

 

[Bat21]

Bad news there NC

A stark reminder to us all that although a 4x4 will carry on through snow where a normal 2WD car would give up.... but when it comes to stopping they are no better and are probably worse (due to their weight) than a normal car...

 

[Crispin]

Bad news there NC

A stark reminder to us all that although a 4x4 will carry on through snow where a normal 2WD car would give up.... but when it comes to stopping they are no better and are probably worse (due to their weight) than a normal car...

That's the scary part - we can pull away and drive faster than normal cars but when it comes to stopping, we are actually worse off than them. 4 patches of rubber and twice the weight...

NC - seems you hit everything that is not strong. Might be ok to fix? Here's hoping...

 

[Nuclear Chicken]

Hope so too. The good news is that the engine still works perfectly so no radiator/ battery/ air con/ engine type issues there.

That said is was quite an impact and only when stripped a bit will the real damage be visible and it will invariably be worse than it looks. 20- 30 mph doesn't sound much but when 2.2 tonnes doing that speed hits a stone wall, and let's face it, LCs aren't exactly well known for their crumple zones, it's bound to do damage. If it was a head on the engine and drive train would have taken the impact. Thankfully that wasn't the case.

A regular monocoque motor would have been mush.

 

[Ecoman]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Hope its fixable. Glad your still here to tell the tale

 

[Bat21]

... and it will invariably be worse than it looks.

It's normally the opposite..... and looks worse than it is

Having said that, resetting an air bag isn't cheap so, if it goes through the insurance, it may end up a Cat D.

If you still have the LC then I would suggest hanging on to it and not let it go somewhere where it will incur a storage charge... if it does get written off and you get paid out for the value less salvage cost, you may be able to get it back on the road and have some cash left over for some toys

My daughter has a Peugeot 106 that was written off due to a dented rear o/s door and dented wheel arch after she was bumped by another driver. Her car was valued at £1,300 and the salvage value was £125 so, she had a £1,175 cheque and is still driving her car... I pulled the dent out of the door with a Ram mount suction cup the damage to the arch is almost unnoticeable.

 

[silvercruiser]

Ouch Glad your ok and ive got my flingers crossed for you

Joe