another 5 rear ended...

[X10James]

My poor just over a year old 5 is about to go into the shop

I coasted to a stop to let the driver a couple of cars ahead of me make a right hand turn and the guy behind me didn't notice. I saw him coming and had time to turn my wheel so I wouldn't hit the car ahead of me if he hit me and lay on my horn. Perhaps he heard it or perhaps not, I dont know because immediately after slamming into me he took off! But the guy behind him got his license number so it's only a matter of time before the police catch up with him.

In any case, he hit me really hard! So hard that the cover on the bottom of the moonroof slid half way open. Here are some pictures of the carnage.

You can see the bumper has popped it's connectors and the gate no longer closes.

closeup of the bumper falling off showing how far the gate wants to stick open.

The cosmetic damage to the plastic of the bumper really isn't all that bad, but I know that structurally it's toasted. The car that hit me was a GMC Jimmy and he was really going a good clip.

The right side tail light has popped off too and will not let itself be pushed back onto it's posts in there.

and lastly inside the bottom of the gate. I fear that it may have deformed some of the car structural elements which is what is keeping the light and gate form going back to where they were. If a crumple zone started to crumple then I'm afraid it's totaled isn't it? They can't fix that can they? But if it just needs a new bumper and a little buffing, thats OK with me too.

My insurance is hilarious. My deductible for collision is high but my deductible for uninsured motorists hitting me is much lower. So if they track the guy down and find out that he is uninsured (a good bet since he took off, or he's wanted for something else in either case I'm happy not to have to have been hanging out with him waiting for the police to show up) then I get more money than if they never find him in which case they just assume the other.

Oh well. A moment of silence for my bumper...

 

[5phreak]

wow, bummer. hope they get the loser who hit you and took off. keep us posted.

 

[autoxes]

nice socks.

 

[X10James]

nice socks.

I knew somebody would mention my socks Had to run to take the pictures when the whim struck me to go and look at my poor car. If I had taken the time to put on shoes the motivation would have dissolved again and I'd have just slunk back to bed

So I left them in the picture to give a bit of comedy to this tragedy...

 

[autoxes]

That works. I run around with bare feet all the time anyway, so I don't have much room to talk. I hope they catch the dude that did that to your car, I didn't initially like the 5's, but I am gradually becoming less revolted. They just remind me a lot of a minivan

 

[X10James]

I have looked at it in more detail and I do fear that it's totaled. Or should be, we'll see what the insurance guy has to say if they ever get around to coming by to see it.

I removed (or rather finished removing as the accident removed half of it) the piece of black plastic that runs under the gate, on either side of the latch on the deck of the car. The gate latch is pushed up which is why it wont close, it's actually hitting the top of the latch in the gate.

If you get in the car and look at it you can easily see that the metal on the side that he hit is more curved than the metal on the other side. This is why the gate latch has moved and why the tail light no longer will snap into it's mountings.

Once the crumble zones start to crumble thats it isn't it? I knew he hit me darned hard!

 

[X10James]

OK, time for more pictures. Here you can plainly see that the metal is bent out of shape on one side. Here is what the left side looks like:

and now compare to the right side which took the brunt of the damage:

and then from the inside it's even more obvious:

lastly the latch you can see has moved up so that it will no longer clear the top of the door latch by a quarter inch or more.

fun huh? Did I mention that he hit me really hard?

Does anybody know if they can just pound that out? or is this totaled because the crumple pieces are crumpled?

 

[antlind]

Nah....It's not totalled.
The body shop can unsweat the welds and replace the damaged parts.
A few years ago our MPV got rear-ended with similar damage and the body shop replaced all of these parts. I wouldn't worry too much...You should be okay.
Regards,
Anthony

 

[fam]

Worked at a frame repair\body shop...
Def not totalled. They can pull it out where it needs to be with a (its so thin they wont even have to use a torch to heat it up)....or they can just drill out the spot welds and replace the pieces that are bent. Either way you have to remove a bunch of stuff, but if I wanted a car to be hit that I owned, it would be back there. Dont worry about it so much. Atleast youll have some new paint on a new back bumper.

 

[Rocket]

I've seen harder hits look like new. You'll be fine.

 

[bmman93]

its gona be around 5g to fix! just a guess from experience! but u will lose it for 2 weeks and it will be brand new!

did the 1/4 panels cave in any wear and how is the gap from tge 1/4 to the door!

 

[bmman93]

? how was the other guys car! with a hit like that i cant believe it just rolled out! what kind of car was it!

 

[X10James]

thanks for all the info and encouragement folks! I'm really glad to hear the car probably isn't totaled. I have a friend who was really adamant on the info that if it's crumpled it's toast so it's good to know that isn't necessarily true.

The guy that hit me was in a GMC Jimmy. So a smallish truck. He did have some significant damage to his front end, and left a few pieces of it behind but the engine was still running so he took off. I hope I at least punctured his radiator so he was stranded a few miles away with a siezed up engine (pissed)

I still haven't heard from the insurance company when they are sending someone around to have a look at it and I still can't latch the gate. But a swift kick will get it to stick closed anyway. Ugg, feels so wrong to do that but I still have to drive!

I'm going to go have a real close look at the panels and other bits here in a little bit. Could it have knocked my heater blower out of alignment or something? Thats been buzzing also since the drive home whenever I run it... While I didn't notice right away if the side panels were buckled or bent at all, the fact that the side tail light doesn't fit anymore makes me suspect that the warping is more than just that little bump in the picture. I'll be sure to let you all know what the final report it.

Thanks again!

 

[Rocket]

I find a buzzing fan is usually a leaf that somehow got inside.