Well, it was raining today and I was on my way to work which is about 4 blocks from my house when the unthinkable happened. I was turning into the shopping mall area where I work when it happened. THere was a truck in front of me and another car in front of the truck. The car in front of the truck in front of me slammed on her brakes, the truck in front of me slammed on his brakes, and I slammed on mine. THe truck driver was fortunate not to hit the lady in front of him, but me-not so fortunate. SINCE, I dont' have ABS and since it was wet, when i braked, they locked up and I went right into his tow **** thing. He had absolutely ZERO damage. I got screwed. He was really cool about it and was actually more concerned about my car. I was not tailgatiing him either. My brakes just locked up.
Heres my question. The damage to exterior parts is VERY minimal. My bumper basically got untouched except for a few scrapes and my headlamps and fog lights are fine. The tow **** thing literally pearced through my grill and throuh my radiator and crushed my radiator support back into my engine
My car still starts fine so far, but my radiator assembly is most deffinately gone. I'm wondering if I can just get a whole new front metal radiator support thing (that metal part that goes between the 2 fenders that has the hood latch attatched to it) and a new radiator. Radiator is not leaking that I know of...Going to look at it more in depth tomorrow morning. I DID not report this to the cops or insurance yet. I don't know if that was good or bad? MY bumper support was UNTOUCHED.
Anyways, exterior wise all that happened was a smashed jdmshit ctr grill that I JUST painted yesterday , a cracked bodykits nw cf hood with a broken hood latch, and a messed up hoodltatch and radiator support and metal piece that holds the radiator supports and hoodlatch that connects the 2 front fenders together. It loooks like that can be swapped out with a new one by taking off a few bolts. Visually, it doesn't look that bad at all unless you look at it straight on through the grill area into the hood. My hood still lays straight and everything. My airbags DID NOT deploy.
I don't know if I'm lucky that it just pearced through my grill into my radiator area and left everything else in decent shape or if I'm unlucky that it got the radiator and not the bumper support.
Sorry for the long post, but I had to vent and get some ideas at how much I'm looking at. Again here's what I'm thinking:
bodykits nw cf hood-435 shipped.
jdmshit ctr grill-49 shipped.
whole radiator area that got smashed back with the hoodlatch-??
emotional distress: priceless. j/k.
I hope I can just replace the radiator stuff and that metal peice that the hood latch is on. Damn this sucks. But she will return better than ever, I promise and swear by that.

Here's the Pics -I put in the stock grill so it looks halfway decent since my jdmshit one is smahsed in the radiator






Broken Hood latch




Modified by slvrcivic97 at 10:11 PM 12/25/2003

 

Sucks man =\
Good luck rebuilding

 

Maybe I can get a whole new radiator support and the rest of the parts from my dealer and do it myself?I do autopaint so I'll save $$$ there.

 

Sorry to hear about that bro....doesnt sound bad. Good luck.

 

sorry to hear. the radiator support is tack welded on. so if you have any experiece with welding, then it should be cake. hard part is getting the old one off. if you're planning on doing it yourself, have a friend or two there to hold it in place.,

 

yea its kinda fun removing the radiator support...just drill out the spot welds and pry it off little by little and then get the new one and get clamps to hold it in place and weld where all the little holes you drilled were...

lets see some pictures

 

thanks for the support guys. Here is what I'm going to order tonight most likely:
I'll have pics of the crash tomorrow hopefully.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...56450

 

thanks.

 

sorry to hear about the accident,...and well i might just be a good thing that you didnt report it,..i mean from the sound of the story,..it would have been your fault and you would get ticketed with "unassured clear distance" even though you wasnt tailgating the truck,...but if you ever get into a accident,..always have the cops show up on scene,..because say the accident wasnt your fault,...if you dont report,..the other parties involved could always turn around and say it is your fault and what not

okay back to the car,..the damage sounds very minimal,...thats a good price for the rad support,...new hood latch from honda is only 30 bucks,..grilles are cheap,..and JDMshit.com hoods arent priced badly,...good luck,..and if you have any questions PM me,..ive done plenty of those rad supports,..many friends get into accidents,..and they turn to me and my shop to fix them

 

yo that support from honda cost like 300 brand new
and u dont even have to weld it
u can just bolt it back on . me and my boy did his whole del sol in liek 4 hours put on whole support fenders hood and bumper.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by civicrida3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yo that support from honda cost like 300 brand new
and u dont even have to weld it
u can just bolt it back on . me and my boy did his whole del sol in liek 4 hours put on whole support fenders hood and bumper.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Weld it on. dont halfass bodywork.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rewsnaeht &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Weld it on. dont halfass bodywork.</TD></TR></TABLE>

But him and his boy did it on their del sol y0

 

not that hard to do.....dont expect all the stuff to line up like stock though.....rad support from dealer is gonna be expensive....u can ge tafter market but if u do dont ever expect to be able to jack your car up but the lower rad support....if u do get after market and your lower rad support is str8 or mostly str8 try to leave it on if slightly bent chain the car and pull it out with a come along.....this will also rip the support if u dont feel like drillin all the welds out but u will have to go back and gring all the spots flat so the support sits flat

 

thanks again for the support guys. Here's where I'll probably get my radiator from:
http://www.discount-auto-radia....html
So, I guess I'm looking at:
-90.00 for the radiator support
-102.00 for the radiator (5.00 only to ship ) + anything else that I might need to replace like new radiator hoses and crap...
-49.00 for jdmshit ctr grill
-435.00 Bodykits NW hood
-100.00 for jdmshit mugen style lip
-New front bumper-70.00
plus the ppg paint I'll need to repaint everything.

So that's about 1,000 to repair everthing. And there could be more damage than I think there is too, but I don't think so. If I told insurance about it, would they pay for anything?Thanks.


Modified by slvrcivic97 at 5:31 PM 12/23/2003

 

sorry for your lose...

i have a question. Assuming you have a garage, why are you driving to work. hehe. less chance of it getting stolen in your garage.

good luck!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by filthyCREX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sorry for your lose...

i have a question. Assuming you have a garage, why are you driving to work. hehe. less chance of it getting stolen in your garage.

good luck!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks. The reason I don't walk to work is that it's too cold. Plus, the shopping center has 3 security trucks that drive around the parking lots. Good thought though.

 

does anyone think I should report it to my insurance company?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slvrcivic97 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> If I told insurance about it, would they pay for anything?Thanks.


Modified by slvrcivic97 at 5:31 PM 12/23/2003</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, if you told the insurance, YOU would pay for it.. over and over. They are the DEVIL! It's best to have a clean record and repair it yourself since the damage in minimal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slvrcivic97 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">does anyone think I should report it to my insurance company?</TD></TR></TABLE>

No! You were at fault so it would be points against you. Besides you would have to have full coverage for them to do anything and you most likely have some sort of deductible. So you would have to pay the first $250-$500, plus increases in your insurance for the next 3-5yrs. You are probably better off doing what you are doing.

 

awesome. I'm glad I did/doing the right thing. I guess I'll just dish up the 1 grand and get everything fixed and replaced since it doesn't seem too hard...thanks for the help.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slvrcivic97 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">awesome. I'm glad I did/doing the right thing. I guess I'll just dish up the 1 grand and get everything fixed and replaced since it doesn't seem too hard...thanks for the help.</TD></TR></TABLE>

mos def a good idea to fix yourself. i should've let insurance fix my damages; 4 cracked rims, cracked front lca, smashed FR fender from the wheel hitting it, repaint front lip, yada yada yada. cause a cop showed up and filled out an accident report and my insurance found out about it anyways. now my rates went up $200 every 6 months. i fixed it on my own to upgrade everything i broke, cause insurance wouldn't have done that. i got double fucked, keep it quiet man.... keep it quiet. &lt;moment of silence&gt;

 

Yeah the $1000 seems like a lot but compared to higher insurance rates and the deductible that you will have to pay $1000 is a great deal Good luck on the rebuild

 

ouch, good luck on the repair process

 

Well I guess its true that most accidents occur within 10 miles of your house. Good luck with your repairs.

 

damn sorry to hear about that andrew....not that bad though. just fix it yourself. good luck