Otocan

hey everyone... hats off to lady luck shining down on me oh so britely.... as you all know my car got nailed in the parking lot outside of my work causing over three grand in damages... no note left behind... nothing - had to call insurance in on that and went without my tC for a week and a half... and it got fixed so well even the mechanics at my dealer didn't believe it got hit since almost everything was replaced with new parts.... that was like a month ago, about a month after I got my tC.

well..

got off work a little later than usual tonight because damn customers wouldn't get out of my store at midnight, ended up getting them out at 12:20 because of problems, and ended up closing at about 12:45, driving home slow because it's late, and lucky for me because I passed a cop car on a road I usually speed down since it's fun and I said to myself *wow, glad I wasn't screwing around... that woulda been bad* and about 5 minutes from my house I'm turning around these swervy roads here in Maryland on Bartholows road and WHADDYA KNOW??? a deer decides it's not worth living anymore and throws itself infront of my car... I was doing about 45 in a 40 with my high-beams on and I slammed on my brakes and swerved but it was probably less than 50 feet in front of my car, ABS kicked in and BAM I hit the deer... I'm like "f*ck I just killed a poor deer dam*it" well, it definately didn't sound like a bad hit, was probably doing 30mph by the time I hit it and it was just a *thud* and the deer slid probably 15 feet in front of my car with my foot slammed on the pedal and it stopped about 15 feet from my car, so I shut off the car, put on my hazards and get out and as soon as I shut my door the deer hops up, looks around and runs off.... I was like "wtf?? you're DEAD!?" so I walk around to look at my car and the front of my bumper is broken in on each side above the grille, the grill is pushed in and hanging behind my bumper and about 2 inches long and 6 inches wide of my hood on one side is bent downward like 90 degrees, my headlights are intact, rest of bumper's intact, and the little circle for towing in the bumper was dangling. so I said that sucks and drove it home, no driving problems at all, pull it in the driveway at about 1:30 and start looking at it more... popped the hood (which still works actually) and it doesn't look like there's internal damage aside of the clips/screws that hold the grille on that's attatched to the bumper (I think) are broken, the paint is chipped badly where the hood got bent down and the plastic bumper is broken in two places not so cleanly, one on each side of the bumper above the grill. The grill is fine, the radiator cooler behind the bumper looked fine, bottom grille is fine... but now I don't know what I'm going to do... I've been driving for years, why the hell does all this have to happen to my tC??? I've had the car for just about 2 months now with 1950 miles on it and it's been in two accidents... I've never been close to an accident in my life....

anyways, I need advice - there's no way this is going to be over my deductable for my insurance unless it's a whole lot worse than I think, even an aftermarket hood for like $500 and front bumper at $500 would just meet my $1000 deductable, and when they replaced my rear stock bumper the price on paper was $220. I'm going to have to spend my day off tomorrow taking the damn thing into a shop and everything and I'm wondering what you think would be a better idea since I'll probably be paying this out of pocket anyways... get the stock hood repaired and painted and buy a new stock bumper, or go for an aftermarket hood and front bumper and have them installed or install them myself?

It really looks like those are the only two things that got damaged, maybe the top grille needs to be replaced because it doesn't really attatch with screws anymore, but that's about it I would assume, but I'm no mechanic.

I'l get pics up tomorrow.... my rear damage is on www.wreckedscions.com and I feel SO awesome that I have more pictures to send in..... YAY FOR ME EVERYONE - please don't feel bad for me though, everybody hits deer and I'm sure it was bound to happen sometime, least the damn thing lived, I see dead deer almost every day especially now it's mating season and it could've been worse, but I need to know if anyone knows the price of a stock tC hood and front bumper, I'm sure it's more expensive than the rear bumper, and the hood is probably like $400 or so but I'm not sure, thinking front bumper is probably $300-350 and hood is $300-400 but anyone know for sure?

god this sucks... I don't have the kind of money for this crap - everybody do me a favor and don't drive like a jackass, these cars cost too damn much to fix, I just wish there was more I could've done to avoid the friggin dow, by the time I hit the brakes and tried to turn I already hit it head on

English

First of all, sorry to hear about your misfortune.

I once hit a big dog going like 45 in my F-150 and boy that was messy, you're lucky you didn't have bits of brain matter stuck in your grille with a huge blood splatter, and a guilty conscience. I was fortunate that I just had to replace the unpainted lower bumper part as the SOLID METAL bumper was unscathed! It was awkward explaining to my parents though... ANYWAYS

As for the damage, you could probably replace the hood and bumper cover yourself (with a buddy of course) if that's all that's damaged and you're halfway mechanically inclined.

About replacing the hood with a stock one, don't bother as you'll have to buy a new hood and have it painted, might as well go for a CF hood which doesn't need to be painted and is way cooler.

I'm not sure how much the front bumper cover is.

Hope this helps,

English

mancide

I am not sure, but I thought deer accidents didn't have a deductible, or had a lower one. Or maybe it's they don't raise your premium. I know there is something special about a deer accident.

matt_a

Everyday that you don't hit a deer, thank a hunter.

TleahciM

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. I had a similar thing happen to me right before Christas. Are you sure your insurance company doesn't have some sort of "uninsured driver" deductible for situations like this? I don't know if it varies from state to state but in Georgia, but deductible was only $200 bucks since it was a hit and run.

Otocan

well, here's the update so far....

I have an appointment at the same collision center at 7:30am Jan 12th, it's the same place I took my car to the first time I had a hit and run because they do great work and they're preferred from my insurance company. The accident was filed under "Comprehensive liability" which is the same insurance for floods, weather related damage, tree falling on my car or striking a moving animal. My deductible is $500 for comprehensive. I called my dealership and they said the price on the stock UNPAINTED hood is $336.29 and the front bumper UNPAINTED is $251.35. painting and mounting of the new parts would be at least $300 labor included. I called my insurance company to see what they would say if I could get an aftermarket carbon fiber hood since it wouldn't need painting it would be much less expensive and they liked the idea. Also I was recommended by the parts manager at my dealership when I called for prices to get an aftermarket carbon fiber hood, because it would be cheaper for a better part.

I contacted Steve at www.bbist.com and I'm going to tell the claims adjuster about their hoods, they look like the best in the business, true double-sided carbon fiber with rolled edges and frame support for $400 + shipping mounting hardware included. without painting it's much cheaper than the stock hood. here's two pics I uploaded, I have many more of different pics, but I don't want to use up all the bandwidth on the imagehosting site I have so I'm just uploading two - I kept them big so you can see the details of the damage. sorry if they're too big on lower resolution monitors. The top of the bumper is nearly broken off, all the screws holding on the top grill are broken off aside of the clips on the bottom holding it on, and I tried to press the bumper back to shape so it actually looks a little better, my grille was hanging off in front of my radiator grille and the bumper was shoved in at least 4 inches along with the hood. notice the poor deer fur above my license plate. The tagline for the license plate covers is "Nearly Indestructible!" I got a laugh when I looked at the completely mangled front of my car and the license plate cover was completely intact and pinching deer fur like saying "is that all you got punk??" BTW, the deer lived, trust me unless they're insta-road kill that thing's probably munching away on grass planning his next accident. It got up and bolted after I hit it going about 30-35mph.





I'll tell you how it goes when I get to the collision center. Hopefully I won't get stuck with a POS dodge stratus base model for a week and a half this time....

EDIT: - the link to the pics doesn't seem to be working, so just highlight the lines and put them in your browser, or you can just click these links below if they don't work

http://www.imagehosting.us/imagehost...jpg/?id=131879
http://www.imagehosting.us/imagehost...jpg/?id=131880

Otocan

well, I got to the collision center today alright, a few hours late because I sure as hell didn't feel like getting up at 6am for this crap, but I got there regardless. It didn't go well. the claims adjuster/manager at the collision center didn't want to hear a thing about anything aftermarket. period. even though the woman in the service department when I took my car there today to pick up an unrelated part for my car said it would be better, the parts department manager at my dealership said it would be cheaper and a better final product, and my insurance company said the near thousand dollars that would be saved buying a better aftermarket part was a great idea and they were going to send the information to the claims adjuster. I got into an arguement with him because he kept feeding me BS about how "what they like to do is restore it back to it's original state before the damage was done" and how they have a "limited lifetime guarantee on repairs" and that they couldn't put that guarantee on repairs involving aftermarket parts. All I kept seeing was "no, we would make more money going through the trouble getting it back to stock" and I called my insurance company again and they said if they can't put a guarantee on the repairs involving aftermarket parts rather than the original parts and are willing to do the work to restore it rather than replace it with the same outcome, my insurance company is willing to pay the difference. After a couple minutes he started treating me like I'm an idiot and don't know what I was talking about so I just said whatever. but if the repairs aren't 110% better than they were before all this crap happened I'm going to raise holy hell and put that "guarantee" of theirs to work.

and not to mention when I got to the rental car place all they had on the lot was mini-vans and they "would give me the free upgrade from a standard sedan to a van if I'd like" no I don't want to drive a van..... jesus. but it was all they had and again, the insurance company is paying for it. So I get to pimp a hoopdie dodge van for a while. yay for me. they told me to call some time and they'll "let me" drive all the way back there to switch out the "upgraded price" of a van back down to a sedan if I preferred it which I do, but I work like most people. I don't have time to drive an hour each direction to switch out a rental I didn't want in the first place.

whatever... at least I'm not dead or didn't kill anybody - and I drove back down the road I hit the deer on, nice open area, no fences or trees on a big incline right at the start of the base of a huge hill, that's the reason I didn't see it coming, not to mention it was 1am. no dead deer to be seen anywhere. that bastard put me through this by tossing himself in front of my car and he didn't even die.

everybody learn from this and drive these cars at the speed limit or below and watch what you're doing... this is such BS that I have to spend $500 for my deductable to get my car back to the way it was two days ago because of an accident physics stopped me from avoidling. and I wasn't even DOING the speed limit damnit... 45 in a 50... next time I'll do 30...

and can somebody tell me why the link to the pics isn't showing in the forum? the same link in a different post worked fine and I don't know why.