Had an accident - time for upgrades, Was a sulk thread - now an upgrade log ;) Options

[Mangozac]

Hi everybody,

I haven't been active here much lately due to too many other things going on but I'm back in dire need of some help!

So a week and a half ago the weather turned wet overnight and on Friday week ago I was headed to work pretty early in the morning. Now I'll admit that I'm a relatively aggressive driver but if I'm not concentrating I will drive pretty normally. Anyway that fateful Friday morning I was about 2km from home and going round a roundabout (I don't know what you guys in the US call them - it's a donut shaped piece of road instead of traffic lights) when I lost traction and slid sideways into the gutter and a railing

The damage list is as follows:
- Front bar smashed up on left side
- Front lip broken
- Front side panel dinged (repairable)
- Front left low beam headlight mounting brackets broken off (can be glued back on)
- Front left control arm mangled badly
- Front left wheel shattered and tyre damaged (irrepairable)
- Front left steering arm bent

It was low speed but the angle at which the wheel hit the gutter (side on) is what caused the damage. It was the stupid guard rail that did all of the cosmetic damage (and I didn't even leave a scratch on it! ). Anyway here's a pic of the cosmetic damage:


This next one shows how badly bent up the control arm is:



Anyway I've got everything under control - the new control arm should be arriving early next week. I spent today disassembling the whole front left drive/suspension system. The inner CV boots on both sides have split so I'm replacing them at the same time as all of this other stuff.

Edit: Control arm replacement was discussed further and the solution provided by wannabeGT4 here: http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=60620

On a side note this isn't all bad news - because I'll be getting these few panels resprayed I'm likely going to just drive around with primed panels for a little while whilst I save up to get the whole car resprayed (the same colour though). There's a bunch of small dings and scratches that drive me insane so I'd love to get it all fresh paint. I pulled off the wing while stuffing around today and think I'll definitely be joining the wingless club

Thanks! Zac

This post has been edited by Mangozac: Aug 4, 2008 - 12:37 AM

[Mangozac]

Well,at least it's repairable and you didn't get hurt or have your airbags go off. Do you have insurance?

No hurts and no comprehensive insurance. Sports car + under 25 = massive premiums and rediculous excess, i.e. it will be cheaper to fix myself. No airbags either so that's something else I don't have to deal with.

that sucks man but it coulda been a lot worse.
is your lip repairable or are you going to have to get a new one? i had a small experience with a roundabout a few weeks ago (was going a little fast into it and the sprinklers were going on the island causing me to do a little fish tailing because the road was wet) but luckily i didn't damage anything.

The lip is def repairable but to be honest I'm thinking of just selling it as is and hacking what's left of the bumper into a piece of custom work. My Dad is pretty handy with fibreglass and I do a lot of making custom scale models of sci fi mecha and stuff so I think it could be a cool exercise

This post has been edited by Mangozac: Jul 12, 2008 - 5:49 PM