I Got T-boned Today

[steveorama]

After not being involved in an accident since 2011 before the August incident, I now have accident number 2 in just short of three months. This time in ironically the rental car the body shop was providing.

Yesterday headed out to have dinner with my parents, we were traveling on Hwy 32 east of Blanco, coming up a blind hill at highway speed a Suburban was stopped to turn left onto a side street. It’s a two lane highway with no shoulder and had two options, slam on the brakes and most likely rear end him, or go into the ditch. Go into the ditch made sense at the moment so that’s what I did.

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[cranbiz]

Ok, you are officially NOT on the list of people who can drive my Gladiator.

I hope everyone was OK. Better to damage the car than other. I probably would have opted for the ditch too.

 

[GeneralMaximus]

Oof. Apparently, when it rains, it pours.

 

[steveorama]

Ok, you are officially NOT on the list of people who can drive my Gladiator.

I hope everyone was OK. Better to damage the car than other. I probably would have opted for the ditch too.

LOL, I don't think I want myself to be driving anything for a while. I'm not sure if I have bad luck or good luck. Two accidents in three months, but walked away from both of them with just some soreness.

My wife, son, and niece were in the car on Saturday and all are fine as well. just some bumps and bruises, mostly from the seatbelts, and some minor cuts from the passenger side windows getting broken from a tree branch. Everyone keeps saying I did the right thing and my wife says I probably saved everyone's life with quick thinking and not panicking and overcorrecting, but it weighs pretty heavy on me for not seeing the Suburban sooner. I'm still running through my head what I could of done differently, but I'm not sure what I could of done.

 

[Hootbro]

Glad to hear everyone is OK.

How is this incident being handled insurance wise? Insurance companies start to get weird and brand people internally that are in multiple accidents in a short time span even if not at fault.

They start to consider you "risk adjacent" or some other term

 

[Swordfish44]

This morning I was just making a quick run to Home Depot and got T-boned by a Mustang that ran through a stop sign.

Did it feel any different driving afterwards? You may have gotten lucky! Then again jeeps actually have a real frame and the best axels in the business.

 

[steveorama]

Glad to hear everyone is OK.

How is this incident being handled insurance wise? Insurance companies start to get weird and brand people internally that are in multiple accidents in a short time span even if not at fault.

They start to consider you "risk adjacent" or some other term

So far insurance handled it no different than if it was claim on my own vehicle. Hopefully I don't run into any issues going forward especially considering other than a replacement windshield and some minor paint work, I haven't had a major claim in 12 years. I would prefer not to be in any accidents for a long time to come, but unfortunately these last two were simply unavoidable.

 

[steveorama]

Did it feel any different driving afterwards? You may have gotten lucky! Then again jeeps actually have a real frame and the best axels in the business.

My gladiator felt a little crab-walking going home after the t-bone so I knew something was up other than just some cosmetic issues. Ironically the axle and frame have been the largest areas of damage in the whole incident. I probably could of fixed the cosmetic issues in my driveway from parts off of marketplace.

 

[Swordfish44]

My gladiator felt a little crab-walking going home after the t-bone so I knew something was up other than just some cosmetic issues. Ironically the axle and frame have been the largest areas of damage in the whole incident. I probably could of fixed the cosmetic issues in my driveway from parts off of marketplace.

It would have been much worse if it was a unibody design where the frame and body of the car are made as one piece. Hopefully whatever damage was done to the frame can be repaired.

 

[steveorama]

It would have been much worse if it was a unibody design where the frame and body of the car are made as one piece. Hopefully whatever damage was done to the frame can be repaired.

They're swapping over everything to a new frame now. Hopefully, I will be able to report back later this week that it's all done and everything is the way it should be.

 

[steveorama]

Of course it took a little longer than expected, but Friday night I got my Jeep back. After almost 4 months and lots of back and forth between insurance and the shop, it feels good to have it back.

To no surprise though it does come with some caveats. They made it clear on Friday that they were having issues getting the correct rivnuts to install the front skid plate (apparently the local Jeep dealership parts department is having difficulties figuring it out, according to the body shop). If I was ok with coming back this week for them to install it was ready to go. It was getting dark and I did a once around and agreed, but said I would do a better punch list when I got home and could see. They said that was also fine and any issues just let them know via email so they had documentation.

Getting home, I made some disappointing finds,

1. The center console around the shifter was all scratched up from where it appears they were trying to separate the trim pieces to get to the shifter linkage for the frame swap.
   
2. Likewise the parking brake handle was gouged probably from the same tool.
   
3. The new take off Rubi steel bumper that I had just installed a week before the accident was scratched across the face of the bumper. I'm guessing they slid it around on the shop floor from the looks of it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. The rear axle bump stops are missing. I had Sumospring bumpstops and hopefully they're still on the old frame and can be popped off in a couple of seconds.
   
5. They replaced the battery, I'm not complaining for the new battery, but they didn't reinstall the battery insulation shield and lost the battery retaining bracket so it's just loose in there.
   
6. The hood insulation was damaged above the brake fluid reservoir. This one is interesting, I'm not really sure how they did this.
   
   
7. The hood and above the windshield have matching scuffs. The tell tale sign they leaned the hood against the windshield while they were working and it rubbed.
   
8. Even though the final bill shows they replaced the lug nuts that were damaged from the impact. They still found there way back on the Jeep. This time on the passenger side front. 3 of them are dented so I marked them with a sharpie.
   
9. This one I'm not 100% sure, but there is a small scratch on the top of the passenger front fender near the battery. It's been so long I can't remember if it was there or not, but it certainly looks like it could of came from the battery R&R
   
10. The brake pedal was very soft. Again it's been 4 months since I drove it so I couldn't remember what it should feel like, but it just felt way to soft. I went ahead and did a brake bleed and did get some bubbles out of 2 of the 4 brakes. The pedal feels a lot better now

I took plenty of pictures and sent all of this over in an email along with the correct part numbers for the rivnuts for the skid plate bracket. They responded this morning they would like me to come by the shop to formally document and I stopped by so they could see for themselves. At the moment they said they will get it all fixed and will let me know when they are ready to have me come by so they can do it all at once. Fingers crossed this is the end of it, but I appreciate their willingness to make it right and not give any excuses. I've had enough of those through the whole thing. Honestly what's bothering me the most still is if I didn't know to look for this stuff or be willing to push to get it done right, they would just wash their hands of all of this. I fully understand these things can happen, I work for a contracting company and have done plenty of QC and punch walks over the years. There just doesn't appear to be any internal QC on their side before hand. The customer shouldn't catch this many punch items at time of delivery.

Besides the above stated issues, I'm happy. The new axle and frame are shiny and new. I crawled around under the vehicle and I can't find any issues. It drives just like a remember, but a small pull to the right, but they also replaced that tire with a new one and there is about 20k mile difference in tread depth between the driver and passenger side so I may need to just replace the passenger side to correct this. I ran it though the gears as well as 4H and 4L with no problems there. Hopefully once the above items are fixed everything can go back to normal and have years of no issues!

Thanks to everyone who has followed along with this. I obviously didn't anticipate this would be the direction everything would go when I made my first post about the wreck, but it's nice to have this group to share this experience with and I appreciate everyone's feedback and support. It's certainly helped me get through this and look forward to seeing some of you down the road (hopefully some them dirt!)

 

[Hootbro]

Not excusing it, but that is about what I would expect coming out of what you had done at the body shop.

Nobody cares about your stuff more than you do. Hopefully you get some of that resolved but be prepared for more push back and/or waffling on them getting those things fixed.

Back in the day I had a Saturn that went in for some major accident damage repair and came out with a lot of the same BS trim and handling scrapes. Took me over 4 months to get all that stuff resolved to some basic level of satisfaction but it was never 100%.

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