Ugh, hit a fucking chair while going 80mph

[Buddy_Christ]

I was on my way back home from making funeral arrangements today and spending some time with family. I was on the interstate with the cruise control set at 84mph and making good time. I'm in the left lane, minding my own business, and it's dark as hell. There was a car in the right lane that I was passing. No cars within about 400 yards in front of me.

All of the sudden I see something in the roadway, on the left side of my lane. I didn't have much time to react and swerving was not really an option, and I probably would've nailed the car in the right lane. I might have been past him enough that I would've missed him, but there wasn't any time to check. In those last 2 seconds I realized it was a chair laying on it's side.

I plowed right through it. I did hit the brakes a little but didn't slow down very much, so I was going at least 75, probably 80. I heard and felt it crunch and then I started getting over to the right lane and slowing down pretty hard.

Pulled onto the shoulder and got out to assess any damage. I found one leg of the chair sticking out of the lower part of my bumper. I saw fluid leaking and it was my windsheild washer fluid resivoir. It's really deep and is in front of the wheel well.

Bumper has a nasty indent on the driver's side and is cracked in the center. It looks like my fender is knocked out a little too, at least it doens't line up with the driver's door perfectly anymore. No structural damage as far as I can tell, but it was dark as hell and I can't check til monring.

Made the rest of the drive home without incident, another 60 miles or so. I'll get pics in the morning, and I'll probably head over to a body shop to get an estimate and make sure everything on the car is okay.

This fucking sucks. I have a $500 deductable but don't have that cash to spare at the moment. I should be able to pay for the damage by the end of the month. If it's not going to be much more than $500, I'll just pay it out of pocket to keep it off my insurance. I don't think it'll cost too much to fix. I had quite a bit of damage done to the car when I was rearended and it only cost $3400 to get fixed (other guy's insurance company paid for it all). If the body shop knows I'm paying out of pocket, they'll try to keep the cost low.

Fucking ugh.

 

[pitbullstl]

You have the worst luck with vehicles.........

Did you at least give the chair a flying elbow drop from off the roof of the car...???..???

 

[chesty]

Wow! Sorry to hear that man! I hit a dead cow once in my lowered (front end for racing) Duster doing about 70-80. Got air borne. Had my wife and kids in the car. Scared the shit out of me. Stopped and looked and I had flesh/hide/hair all over the under side.

 

[1_more_rep]

damn crak i'm sorry bro...this isn't your best week huh? sorry to hear about it hope you have some GOOD luck soon

 

[Buddy_Christ]

Pitbulll, the chair was demolished by the bumper. I had to pull one of the legs out of the bumper. I have it in the back of the car.


This is a bit better than what happened 3 years ago when my aunt died. We took off at night to make a 500 mile drive to Detroit. Less than 200 miles into the trip I nailed a deer at 75mph. There was a shitload of cosmetic damage...hood, bumper, fender, headlight, windsheild, and even the roof from where the hood folded over onto it. After assessing the car on the side of the road, we found that mechanically it was sound and we continued on with the drive, then drove it back like that a few days later.

I'll take a wooden chair over a deer anyday.

 

[evansteve]

well thats good that at least it was just a wooden chair and not like a big ol lazy boy or nothing (thats what i was first thinking when i read the thread)

At least nothing important got damaged. When you think about it, the washer fluid resevoir isnt one of those vital things, if it wasnt a car that you really cared about, you could just leave it, lol.

 

[Mr. dB]

Stopped and looked and I had flesh/hide/hair all over the under side.

I bet that smelled good for the rest of the trip...

 

[Mr. dB]

What happened to the guy sitting in the chair?

 

[hotzie]

damn crak that sucks bro

 

[Buddy_Christ]

well thats good that at least it was just a wooden chair and not like a big ol lazy boy or nothing (thats what i was first thinking when i read the thread)

At least nothing important got damaged. When you think about it, the washer fluid resevoir isnt one of those vital things, if it wasnt a car that you really cared about, you could just leave it, lol.

It's a 2003 Civic...I kinda care about the car. Once I know how much it's gonna cost I'll figure out if I'll do it myself or pay a bodyshop....or if I'll put in an insurance claim.

I'm just glad I pulverized that chair. I would've hated to have the air bags deploy at that speed.

 

[JayC9]

You did the right thing by not swerving and trying to slow down. Don't know how many times I've nearly been killed by a woman swerving for some animal on the road.

Wrote off a Ford Falcon station wagon in Oz hitting a kangaroo. Hitting a kangaroo or an emu will make a real mess of your car.

 

[Cutiebaby]

wow sorry to hear about it..it sucks..luckilly i have never had that prob..i am usually the female that swerves instead of hitting animals.lol

 

[Buddy_Christ]

Pics -

The hole had a leg of the chair in it, and that's how the windsheild washer fluid resivoir got punctured.

The driver's fender and door...I can tell the fender got knocked out of place a little bit when comparing each side.

Passenger's side

Probably go to the body shop later on today and see how much this is going to cost.

 

[BUBBLES]

ouch ouch... better luck next time

 

[Cutiebaby]

car looks nice....got a blue civic...gotta love the damn bumpers....crack so easily.....hope all goes well fixing it up

 

[theoak01]

make buddy christ do the estimate,and post pictures, we need a good buddy christ thread.

also, Im glad your ok bro.

 

[Buddy_Christ]

car looks nice....got a blue civic...gotta love the damn bumpers....crack so easily.....hope all goes well fixing it up

I like the dark blue ones. The 06 Si Coupe is pretty nice looking too, plus it has a 6spd and 200hp. I won't be buying one, but I wouldn't mind beating on one.


Oak - I'd do a Buddy Christ thread but I'm not feeling up to it. Sorry.

 

[GoldenDelicious]

on the bright side, there isnt a paraplegic jammed in your radiator

sorry to hear about the crash.

 

[Buddy_Christ]

$732. Not worth paying my $500 deductable for and then paying the increase in insurance rates over the next 3 years. I'd end up paying more than $732 total for this if I filed a claim.

Just need to shit the $$$ to get this done. Hopefully I can do it next month.

 

[Mr. dB]

$732. Not worth paying my $500 deductable for and then paying the increase in insurance rates over the next 3 years. I'd end up paying more than $732 total for this if I filed a claim.

Just need to shit the $$$ to get this done. Hopefully I can do it next month.

el mucho sucko

 

[1_more_rep]

we got in an accident where our back bumper was dinged up ALOT like yours here. The estimates at the dealer, etc. were about 900$ (rip off ). Anyways, since the accident wasn't our fault at all we sent the most expensive estimate in to get money from the other guy's insurance n got a 900$ check and we went and fixed it up for 78$ at a local mexican shop nearby my ghetto school! This place made the dent almost disappear completely! and for 80 bucks instead of a 900$ job that the dealer could fix it PERFECTLY you can't go wrong. If i was you i'd do what we did and fix it at a local CHEAP usually immigrant-owned mechanic and he'll do a NEAR perfect job for less than 1/3 of any pro can fix it. Just an idea you might want to consider. (KEEP IN MIND it won't look like new. But you will hardly be able to notice it and save loads of cash)

 

[Buddy_Christ]

Well, I've been looking online and I can get brand new OEM bumper covers shipped for under $150. They're primered and ready to go. I found one that wouldn't even be $100 shipped. I'm capable of replacing the bumper myself as well as the winsheild washer resivoir. I can probably get all the parts and then just take them the car with the old bumper off, hand them the new one, and say "make sure the paint matches." I might just have them paint it and hand it back, install it myself. The guy knows I want to do this as cheap as possible, but I want my car to look good too.

In the first pic, you can see an area in the lower part of the bumper that's solid black. I am going to tell them to not even bother masking it off, paint the area to match the rest of the car. I had to replace the bumper cover on my gf's car after a pretty nasty fender bender and the guy that I bought prepainted parts from didn't mask off a similar area on her car. It looks great painted.

I'll probably get a new grille as well. Some asshole backed into my car about 8 months ago and took a little gouge out of it and put a scratch in my hood. Of course it wasn't a small car, no small car is that high. It was a truck or SUV, and the asshole that did it took off. They probably didn't even notice they backed into my car. Most idiots driving trucks and SUVs are just that...idiots.


Oh, Mr.db, I dropped to 87 octane and I lost a few mpg on the highway. I should be pulling 37-38mpg on the highway but I'm only getting 34. I got 34mpg on the first tank with a mix of highway/city driving, which is what I was getting with 89 octane. It's a small difference, but if my mix driving milage drops, I'll probably go back up to 89.

 

[Lestat]

that sucks man, but it looks like you've got a handle on pretty much everything.

 

[Buddy_Christ]

that sucks man, but it looks like you've got a handle on pretty much everything.

Yeah, my family is always amazed at how much shit happens to me at once to fuck my day up and how I just seem to keep on going. In the past few years I'm suprised I havn't lost my sanity.