A tale of woe...with a happy ending!

(a long story, but bear with it)

About 8 weeks ago, myself and my girlfriend picked up our brand-new S2000 (silver/black/red) from Greenacre Honda in Clitheroe. The car had been on order for about 6 weeks and needless to say we were a little impatient to get our greasy mits on it. We collected the car on Saturday morning (13th Sep) and it was awesome! Shiny, sleek and the envy of everyone in the dealership, who had put the car in the showroom overnight for safekeeping Well aware of our obligations to "break-in" the new car, we set out on a mad flurry of driving to get up to the magical 1000 miles so I could give the car some wellie!

(Jump back 12 hours at this point. I had been up all night with very bad stomach cramps and, not to put to fine a point on it, had spent a good part of the night in "the smallest room")

We drove to my parents on Saturday afternoon, where I immediately took to the sofa feeling particularily grotty. 2 hours later, with no more miles on the clock, we decided to make a break for home and got as far as Menwith Hill before I had to stop and be sick, wherein I promptly passed out in the verge. 20 minutes later, I was ambulanced to Harrogate General and informed that my last 24 hours of illness had resulted in me being dehydrated, which had caused me to pass out. They have me some medication to allow me to keep fluids down and sent me home, which I reached 2 hours later (with a couple of stops along the way). I then took to my bed and (apart from a visit to the docs) didn't leave the house for 8 days

So much for my first week with an S2000

"At least it can't get any worse, thought I..."

You're kidding, aren't you... (part 2 coming up very shortly...)

Come on, the suspense is killing me .

I use Greenacre for my servicing and find them very good . I always deal with Graham, the service manager.

Dave

What colour are / were your seats?

Dealer Survey????????????????????

Ok, part 2.

Skip to Saturday, one week after we picked up the car. The S2000 now has a piffling 400 miles on it, all from my girlfriend (Mel) commuting to and from work in Skipton. By Saturday morning I was feeling nearly human and had managed to regain control of those vital bodily systems that make people acceptable in other's company

Saturday dawned wet and chilly, but we decided "what the hell" and went out for a nice trundle around the Yorkshire Dales, heading to Clitheroe, then north cutting across to Ribblehead then turning east and heading to Hawes. It rained most of the way, but I wasn't bothered as I was finally getting to drive our new car

(Tourist bit: We went to the Forbidden Corner, nr. Middleham. My fourth visit, but Mel's first. Thoroughly enjoyable, even in the drizzle! Can also recommend Brymor's lovely ice cream parlour, which is a few miles down the road)

Anyway, we headed to Boroughbridge to see my parents, who weren't in, but a quick phone call revealed that they were heading to a Fish 'n' Chip restaurant, on the A59 between York and Harrogate. Only a few miles away, so we agreed to head down and see them. Oh dear...

Picture the scene: A busy, single lane "A" class road, 40 limit (as it's an accident blackspot) with a petrol station on the RHS (in my direction of travel) and the chip shop next door, in the old Happy Eater building. There is a hashed area in the center of the road, which provides some protection to cars turning right into the petrol station, but is not large enough to allow large cars to sneak around a car turning right. It was dusk and raining and the area was illuminated with streetlamps.

We were sat, waiting to turn right into the petrol station, with our o/s wheel just sitting inside the hashed area. I had intentionally not left enough room for cars to sneak through, as I was buggered if anyone was going to take a wing mirror from my week old car. There was heavy traffic coming in the opposite direction, so we were forced to wait for a few seconds. The car behind me (a Fiesta) considered the gap for a moment, then decided to wait. Unfortunately, the car behind them was a large, 'E' plated, 7 series BMW, which was travelling too fast and had not seen our stationary S2000, or the Fiesta behind and, realising that they could not stop, they swerved out into the oncoming traffic.

The BMW managed to get past the Fiesta and nearly made it past us, when it collided, head-on, with a Renault Kangoo, the collision with which, forced the BMW into the rear o/s quarter of the S2000, where it came to a halt, wedged against the driver's door. All I had seen of this was the BMW in my mirror ("what's that doing there?") and I remember telling Mel to "hang on to something".

After the initial shock, we started to look around to try and work out what had happened. This didn't take too long...

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Fortunately, the family of four in the Renault were uninjured (apart, perhaps, from whiplash). They were exceedingly fortunate to be so as their car was well and truly McTrashed. The chap in the BMW was disabled (not by this accident!) and was using hand controls. He was also smoking and I have a strong suspicion that he was lighting up as he came to the stationary cars and could not get to the hand brake in time, hence the swerve and collision.

My parents were already at the restaurant and came out within a few minutes. My dad (who has a Stag and loves his cars) went ballistic at the man in the BMW and, I think, terrified him so much that he refused to get out. When the cars were finally recovered some 4 hours later, he was lifted onto the back of the flatbed, still sat in the car and driven off!

After a brief disagreement with the insurance company, who didn't seem to realise that the S2000 needed a flatbed to be recovered, we agreed to tow it (using a jig so that all wheels were off the ground) back to my parents house a few miles away, there to await a flatbed on Sunday morning. More pics on my parents drive:

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By now, we had started to look at the damage to the car, to try and work out how badly it was damaged. The first thing we noticed was that the rear o/s wheel was hanging off, which was due to all of the suspension links being fractured. As luck would have it, this was the best thing that could have happened and the lightweight aluminium linkage clearly prevented any of the impact from reaching the mounts and therefore the chassis.

There was panel damage to the rear o/s quarter, and the drivers door as well as the bumper and a small scratch on the rear light.

The car was collected at 8.30 on Sunday morning and taken back to Greenacre in Clitheroe where it spent a night in their workshop before being tranferred to James Alpe's workshops on Monday AM.

....last part coming up soon and it's the happy ending

The car was with James Alpe for nearly 3 weeks (I was in Florida for two of them) and I went to collect it, feeling a little nervous.

I needn't have worried. The car is immaculate!

James Alpe have done me proud and have put a huge amount of effort into the repair of my car. The panel alignment is perfect, the paintwork is incredible (I even re-waxed it myself, but couldn't find a single blemish) and the quality of the repair is first class.

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Yes, I know that these photos don't show the damaged panels (because the light was wrong) but take it from me, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!

My solicitors are confident of a full recovery claim (which is good, as it is over £5000) and I expect it to all be sorted in the next few weeks.

The car feels and drives as good as it did on the one day I drove it for () and I have since put nearly 1000 miles on it. It's lovely!!

(The end)

Worst nightmare!
But as someone else said they're good at putting things back together!
Waiting on pt 3.

EDIT: sigh of relief

Blimey - what a tale!
Nice to see someone happy with the repairs though - did you check that they aligned the wheels again properly?

(BTW - I come from very close to Brymor's - top ice cream and I'd agree about the Forbidden Corner, bben there twice and i'm sure I haven't seen it all.....)

Yes, they did four-wheel alignment (the other three were unaffected). the accident, though obviously bad from my point of view, was almost entirely superficial. All they did was replace suspension bits and some panel work. There was no impact on the superstructure of the car and therefore no problems with alignment on the chassis (woohoo!).

Mmmmm, ice cream. I'm starving!

Excellent read first thing this morning:) Glad it all worked out in the end.

Glad it all worked out for you Daern, hope mine comes back in equally as good a state - if you don't mind I would like to use this as an example of the workmanship Honda can achieve and compare with my little baby.

Happy to hear about the ending

Now go &

Bharat:)

Great story, glad you are pleased with the repair.

Did you not notice the tree the honda garage implanted into your bonnet as per your last pic?

I hope your luck gets better and you didn't pick a cursed S

Nice reading for a friday


PS Chesh does this count as number 5?

So was this 8 weeks ago? (The crash?) I`m trying to guage where you sit on the Winter charts.......you could be our new number one.

Number one, I hope not!

Surely that dubious honour should go to someone who wasn't arse-reamed by a BMW when stationary!!!

The repair to my car was carried out by a "Honda approved bodyshop", which is basically the biggest in the area, repairing most makes and models of cars (including most of east Lancs' police cars, judging by the number in the workshop)

They couldn't have been more professional, even offering me a tour of the facility when I first turned up to chat about what they intended to do. I was shown the bodyshop (with a stripped down X-type), the paint shop (with a newly painted Polo) and the repair shop, which was full of cop cars.

The only niggle I had was that the steering alignment was slightly out (corrected by putting some air in the new back tyre - how glad I am that I didn't take it back for them to sort!). There is also a small nick in the driver's side carpet, which they are going to sort for me, probably by replacing the carpet.

It's ok, it's a lightweight aluminium / carbon fibre composite tree, with kevlar leaves. Looks pretty cool on the road, especially in autumn when the kevlar turns golden.

Hmm, can you be counted as having a winter driving accident if in fact you are stationary at the time? I am thinking that as our cars have such a reputation for being tail happy, it should in fact be only those driving with 1mm of tread on their Bridgstones that qualify for the chart..

Hear, hear! I was even facing in the right direction

How did you manage to keep your hands off the Beemer driver, I'd have ripped his head off. Anyway glad it all turned out all right, did you get your fish and chips by the way!!

ruddy bimmer boys

Just lucky no one was hurt, those pictures are pretty scary

We were lucky. The car came off nearly undamaged (relatively speaking - the others were written off) and everyone walked away. I was astounded by the fact that the Renault protected 4 people (a complete family) from a head on with a 7 series beemer...if I had a family, I'd take that as the best complement you can pay a car.

I called him something rude, but then calmed down as I realised that it could have all been much worse and left the shouting to my dad

BTW, when I called on Monday AM to inform the insurance company, they asked me if I had any points ("just the three", I honestly replied). "Oh, we don't have any record of that here". Eeek!

They had to check that I had informed them, by contacting my broker, before they would authorise the repair. Fortunately, they had it on record, otherwise I would have been stuffed! I am so glad I told them...

This almost had me in tears when I saw your poor car, but am so pleased that all is back to normal!

Ar$e hole BMW drivers!

Disabled driver, yet lighting a fag whilst driving?!

With just three points, it's got to always be worth telling them (well in fact with however many) but 3 is not going to make much difference until something like this happens....

Prompted by this, I just called Tesco to declare my 3 recently-received points. No change to premium - but it could affect my renewal

Glad to hear everything has been put right, Daern