This has not been a good week.

[Familia323]

holy crap... I hope everything works out allright. It was the nicest sport20 on the boards.

 

[mazdadan]

How in the world did all the wires burn up? There must be fuses to prevent this from happening on our cars. Hope all works out ok for you.

Easy explanation. Any conductive metal piece on the entire car is ground (-). When his car was hit from behind, the battery slid and the positive (+) terminal shorted against the metal crossbar that holds the battery down. This in turn put positive voltage through the entire electrical system via the (-) terminal and fried quite a bit of things.

There are several solutions to this. The reason the battery slid is because it is an aftermarket battery that did not fit inside the tray properly. The tray will prevent the battery from sliding back and forth when it is properly secured. From the pictures of his car, you can see the block of wood the battery was sitting on. This did not prevent the battery from sliding. If the battery fit properly without the block of wood, this problem would not have occurred. Another solution would have been for Mazda to put a non-conductive (vinyl or rubber) coating on the metal cross bar that secures the battery. Then the terminal would not have shorted. Personally, I usually scuff the paint on the metal battery brackets and spray them with rubberized underbody coating. You could also have a Line-X dealer who does spray in truck bedliners do this for you.

 

[NegatiZE]

Insurance looks like they are going to go ahead and repair it. The only thing is, the mechanic won't know the extent of damage to the electrical system until he gets a new wiring harness installed.

For some reason State Farm wants to file the fire and rear end collision as two seperate accidents. The lady's insurance is paying for the damaged rear end and my comprehensive insurance is paying for the fire damage. Looks like I'm going to be keeping the car after all.

After thinking about it, it is kind of a good thing. I highly doubt State Farm would have given me any fair price if they did end up totalling it out. My Mazda3 will have to wait. Maybe in a few years I'll get one of those upcoming Mazdaspeed3's...hehe.

 

[hi-perf]

its not that bad.

does your trunk close properly?

 

[NegatiZE]

Yep, the trunk closes fine.

 

[hi-perf]

when i got rear ended (it was a truck though, AND i was on an incline so that made her hit me EVEN HIGHER), the trunk would not close properly, and escalated my insurance check up to like $3250 after all was said and done.

 

[NegatiZE]

Bah. I stopped by the dealer today because they said it'd be done today. Well, it is, but now I have to wait for the insurance adjuster to come out and discuss some "minor discrepancies" with the dealer. So I can't take it home.

Well, I asked to at least take a look at it. I was so happy to see it again. The only thing - it's filty. There's a layer of dust on the interior and it smelled like lemons for some reason. There seemed to be a problem with my power door locks too. If I hit UNLOCK it will unlock, but as soon as I let go of the button it locks back down. I let them know about that and they said they'd get on it. Now let's hope that's not a sign of future things to come.

 

[Familia323]

good luck. At least shes back together.

 

[NegatiZE]

I got my car back - woohoo!

Everything on it seems to be running like it always did. I can't find any problems with the repair. Except for the fact that I have a new set of stock brake lines, and now I have to get used to a mushy lack of confidence-inspiring brake pedal. I need to order some new SS brake lines again. Total fire damage - $2900

Now I have to get the rear bumper and front bumper repainted since Buzz Leonard Mazda doesn't have a body shop. Going to get an estimate tomorrow.

 

[hi-perf]

good to hear youre back up and running again