What have you done to your Mazda5 today?

Ordered some PF01 Enkei 18x7.5 +48, SRI Corksport and H&R Lowering springs for the wifes 5, Ill post pics as soon as I can
 
So today, my wife, who's usually a pretty careful driver and who hasn't ever done much damage to her cars, managed to hook the right edge of the front bumper on a very low, very small very firmly mounted sign, and pull the entire front bumper cover off of the 5! Unfortunately, this tore the bumper cover at every clip along the bottom, and cracked it at the corner of the grill, and driving home on the highway with no bumper cover holding the fender liners in place caused them to blow back against the tires, shredding both fender liners.

I did a quick look-up online to see what the parts might cost me, to see if I could do the repair myself, and without paint, the bumper cover alone is over $500. The fender liners are $121 each, and I need both sides replaced. So, while I'd love to do it myself to save a bunch of money, and the removal and replacement of the parts is well within my skill set, the parts alone are going to be way more than our insurance deductible, never mind paint. So, I guess we're going to have to just make the claim. Who knows how many hundreds of additional dollars it will cost us in premiums over the coming years, though!

Ugh. Anyway, pictures:

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^^^ Outch! It sucks that with all we pay for insurance, we all live in fear of making a claim.

Installed my summers finally. Time for oil and filter, brake service, and a full detail this weekend.
 
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I dont think that will increase your premium unless you have a few things on there already. If you have a clean record and it wasn't a collision with another vehicle you shouldn't have to worry. Talk to your agent, see what they think about it.
 
Yeah. It sucks. The timing and circumstance around this is kind of interesting, though. I'm driving the P5 to GA for the weekend, then my wife is out of town all next week, so she'll just have to drive the MPV for the weekend, then I can get the 5 into the body shop next week while no one needs it. Of course, I tried to drive the MPV this morning and found that the battery is dead, so, ugh again. Now, along with packing everything for the weekend out of town, I also need to jump-start the MPV and see if will hold a charge.
 
Where did this incident occur? Unless she was off-roading, then the company who's sign that belonged to is liable. All signage has mounting height and placement restrictions and this one sounded like it didn't conform. Was she doing something illegal to cause this?
 
Ouch... yea I agree with flcruising. I wonder if this is a good excuse to go to an Autoexe bumper... ;)
 
That last picture reminds me, gotta replace that WIMPY horn, looks like it would be a good time to for you to take that on too. I'm afraid that the wife will bring ours home like that one day.
 
My fiancee does things like this. At first I was mad at her, very mad in fact. Then I was mad at women in general. Now I'm resigned to the fact that having my nice things destroyed is part of being a man with a wife. It took years to calm down about it though.

Sorry for ya dude. Good luck.
 
Where did this incident occur? Unless she was off-roading, then the company who's sign that belonged to is liable. All signage has mounting height and placement restrictions and this one sounded like it didn't conform. Was she doing something illegal to cause this?

Marine base. Notgonnahappen.gov
 
Went out to the driveway and took the busted bits of 5 apart. The only damage appears to be to the bumper cover itself and the fender liners. Because of the utter disintegration of the liners against the ground/front tires, we lost a few clips/screws, etc. but not too many.

I'm buying a painted, aftermarket, guaranteed-to-fit front bumper cover from an Ebay vendor for quite a bit less than an unpainted O.E. one from Mazda. I'm ordering fender liners from onlinemazdaparts.com, as they want $94 each instead of $122 at my local Mazda dealer, and they ship for free. I'll put it all back together myself. It's not the fastest way of getting the car fixed, but by not going through my insurance at all, they can't hike my rates up any higher, and in the end, I'll be out about $200 more than my deductible. An amount that will definitely pay for itself in not having my rates go up!
 
Ordered the Bumper cover, $462, painted and shipped. Hopefully, it arrives in good shape, and fits well!
 
So, the 2008 5 just hit 35000 miles. Yeah, not much on it since the wife works only 3 days a week. So, i brought it in to the dealer to get an oil change, have my winter wheels taken off, and summers put back on. Also, since the bumper to bumper warranty is done at 36000 miles, i wanted them to check things out thoroughly, especially the rear shocks.... just in case.

So, i was just hanging out with my salesman when the shop guy comes out and tells me there is something i need to see. That is always a good sign right?

So he shows me the rear shocks... they have some oil residue. They arent blown, but are leaking, so they are going to replace them. Thats cool. Then he goes up to the front, passenger wheel. He grabs it and moves it side to side... yeah not suppose to do that. The bearing is shot. They are going to replace that too, but didnt have time to do it that day. So, i have to go back monday for that.

I kind of expected the rear shocks to maybe need it, but i didnt notice a problem with them. The wheel bearing was a surprise though. Well, hopefully everything will be better now. Maybe that strange clunk will go away now with that fixed. Havent noticed any wobble at speed though... well... until the stock wheel and tires were put on. They are so much noisier. I think i will be replacing them soon, but I'm going to wait till they fix the bearing. Maybe that is part of the noise too, but it was really quiet with the winter wheels and snow tires on.
 
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