(Hopefully) minor accident
 

So, I was running late to work and had a low tire in my regular car. No worries, I thought to myself, its a nice day and I just got the S out from under its winter cover last weekend, I'll drive it today. Well, on the way home, about 3 blocks from the parking garage, on a multi-lane one-way street, the kid about half a car-length in front of me and on the right decided he REALLY REALLY needed to turn left and tried to whip it around the corner, across my lane. I stood on the brakes but nailed him right between the doors. I am really hoping it's fixable. The body shop seems confident (and they do excellent work, they've fixed multiple cars for me after accidents or deer encounters), but what worries me was the right front wheel was hanging lose. They managed to get it up on the flatbed without doing hopefully too much more damage, but they can't even start to look until the adjuster gets out there "sometime in the next day or two."
You in the first picture, the undamaged side you can't see, the wheel is pointed straight ahead. The damaged wheel is tilted in and back and the caliper is rotated down towards the bottom of the wheel.

I'm not sure if I'm more sad about the accident in total, or the loss of my matching VIN tags.




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Hopefully insurance will deem its his fault

Well yes, matching VIN tags are gone but try and be positive. It could have been much worse and you could have been hurt. Beautiful car BTW and I'm sure you will have it back near perfect in no time.

I would be more concerned about having the car repaired to my satisfaction than how many VIN tags are still intact. I would be sure to take plenty of photos documenting the damage and the repairs if possible. I get the concern about the VIN tags, especially if you were planning on selling the car soon. But if you were planning on hanging on to the car then the VIN tags aren’t nearly as important and this all just becomes part of your car’s story. The biggest news here is that you should be able to keep this car out on the road where you will once again be able to enjoy it.

Did the cops see this for what it was, and cite the kid? I've seen too many cases where cops make a judgement based on what parts of each car touched, that was way off of reality, despite what each driver story was (his assessment didn't match either drivers story.)

Its like they make up their mind as they walk up to the scene, and no amount of explaining or reason will alter their initial impression.

I agree the body damage doesn't look that bad. But what concerns me is the suspension damage. If it was a car to car impact only (no curb, etc), and it was severe enough to reach the suspension and sever ball joints, etc, that must have been a harder impact than body damage implies.

I'm having trouble seeing how the suspension damage occurred based on how little body damage there is.

Could be strut, lower control arm and/or outer tie rod damage. Wouldn't be too concerned. Fixable. Sucks but at least you weren't hurt. Could always be worse....

Yeah, he got a "improper lane usage" citation. Although I haven't gotten a copy of the police report yet, just saw the ticket he had to sign. I'm waiting for my insurance company to pull it, I refuse to pay the state of IL for anything I don't have to.

His story to the cops was "I was on the phone and noticed at the last minute that I needed to turn there, and turned across the inside lane without looking." Not much wiggle room there for him.

Yeah.... thats where the hidden damage is going to be....

Nope, no curb. I was in the left-most lane of a multi-lane one-way street, he was one lane to my right. The nearest curb would be to my left, the next nearest curb was three lanes to my right. The impact was with my front right corner into the middle of his back drivers door, sliding forward to the middle of his front drivers door.

I don't have any pictures of his car, but both driver's side doors are pretty well caved in and wouldn't open.



I really wasn't going all that fast. It's a downtown environment, I was a block from leaving a red light, second gear, 30mph in a 30 zone, getting ready to turn in a couple blocks. When I saw him start to come across my lane I stood on the brake and clutch, I have no idea how much I slowed before impact, but probably not a whole lot as he was literally feet in front of me....


You're right..... It's not like I plan on selling anytime in the near future, or anytime really. It's not the sole reason that I bought that car. But it was a consideration, that I could say "and it still has all its VIN tags."

Yes, no one was hurt, thankfully. I told him while he was waiting for his father to show up, "its only bent metal, and that can be fixed."

Thanks. I try and keep it looking nice. It's a car that deserves to look good.

I recall Billman said that the knuckle joints or something like that (been some time ago) and was designed to be the "sacrificial lamb" for such impacts.

Good to know, maybe that saved other components and the suspension damage isn't as bad as I feared.

Still waiting on the adjuster to make it out.

impatient drivers, that chaps my ass

Shocked cop didn't cite him for being on the phone. Thats illegal in most places, and cause of many distracted driving incidents. You'd think cops would make that enforcement a priority.

Customer just hydro locked a motor when it was raining a couple days ago. 2006 AP2 complete insurance job was quoted at $9200. Insurance company has authorized work and did not total the car. You should be good.

It is here. Illinois is a handsfree state. And lots of people ignore it, as I'm sure they ignore it everywhere. I'm assuming the cop cut him a break. The improper lane usage should establish fault. He's a kid and kids sometime make bad choices. I can't be really mad at him, who didn't do something stupid when they were 20? I've got a whole list of my mistakes.

I guess I never said what year my car is. Its a 2008 with just over 50k miles. The closest auto trader has within 250 mines of me is a 2005 with 40k miles for $24,900. Lots of '01-04 with 100k plus for 9-10k. But thats not what I have/want. I am assuming that the lady that owned it before me never drove it in snow/bad weather, and I sure never have. Had it aligned before i put it up for the winter and the mechanic commented on how clean and rust-free the underside was.

I talked to my agent yesterday afternoon and state farm still hasn't made any movement on my claim. The body shop owner said they'd made room inside the shop and moved it inside so it didn't have to sit outside in their fenced storage lot, which made me happy...

250 miles from your location? I live near Sacramento and found my 2009 in Phoenix. When I search and actually find something close to what I have (bought it at 30K miles, now have 69K) It is north of $24K.

I don't think distance is all that important for a search of a relatively rare car, especially like yours and mine which are stock and in pretty nice shape.

You should be able to get a rent a car and explain to them that you don't have time for your car to be held up like this. If they plan to take longer you will need to get a rent a car at there expense

Yeah, I. live in central Illinois - Peoria. There's not a lot around here. Always several in the Chicago area, but usually higher milage AP1s.
When I bought mine three years and a month ago, it was between this 08 in Indy at a Honda dealer, and a private sale 09 in Pittsburg, also NFR. After a couple weeks of talking to the dealer via text and telephone I drove to Indy to see it in person (had to wait for them to havre a new top installed). After three hours of negotiating, we were $1,500 above what I had set as my top limit, and still $1,000 apart. Decided to abandon it and drive home. Made a pit stop on my way out of the dealer before the three hour drive home and when I came out the sales lady said I "HAD to come meet the general manager, he needed to talk to me." He said "It's the last day of the month and I need to make the goal for the month, I'll flip a quarter and if you call it, I'll give you the $1,000"

I drove it home.....

No, but in the quick auto trader search I ran the other night, I think 250 miles is the farthest they let you search. Beyond that I have to start using random cities as the base. I don't think I'm to that point yet. I am still hoping that the insurance company will get it fixed.

I have rental coverage. Not sure what they'd say about it, since I still have the daily driver. I was supposed to take a road trip in two weeks with my fellow "Old Guyz with Convertibles" but I don't think my CRV is going to be able to keep up with the BMW Z3 and Jag XK8 on the corners. I may need to see about recouping my expenses for a trip I'm not going to be able to make.....

Other than choosing Hagerty to insure the S2000 I've had State Farm Insurance for everything else for decades now. There might be cheaper options out there but on those occasions when State Farm has been needed for a claim (auto, home, etc.) they've always done right by me. I hope when all is said and done that they do right by you and that your S is fixed to your satisfaction. By the way, I grew up about 70 miles from Peoria in the small town of Pontiac.

If someone hasn't mentioned it already ........diminished value.

I know Pontiac well, we head up that way at least once a year to drive Route 66 from Pontiac to Springfield. A fun little drive seeing all the 50's style road-side attractions in the little towns along the way and a nice day drive.

So, insurance finally today decided to proceed with the repair. However, one of the things that was specified was the "front right knee assembly." Which I guess is pretty much the entire front right suspension, control arms, etc. Body shop says that the insurance adjuster specified used parts, and the only one they could find was from a 2005 with 130,000 miles. I am not wild about this. That strikes me as worn out. Also, is the part the same across the all the AP2 years? I understood Honda made suspension adjustments pretty much each year..... I confirmed with the dealer that they can get new pretty much any suspension parts needed, the only reason to use used is to save the insurer money. Would there be an issue (aside from me not wanting high milage used parts) using this part?

Yeah, well, it would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath as hard as I've had to fight to get to this point......

Just an update. The repairs are coming along. The wheel has been refinished and looks good. The suspension has all been replaced. He's waiting until the fender is painted and installed along with the bumper cover to align it and check for any signs of things not being straight. Apparently the weight of the missing parts is enough to matter. The new headlight hasn't come in yet but is expected any day. If all goes ideally the painting of the fender will be finished Thursday and everything could be back together by as soon as Friday, but more realistically the beginning of the week.

The door wasn't damaged, but he's removed the mirror and handle to sand and re clear coat the door so it matches the fender better, so I'm told. Also getting a couple paint defects from someone else's bad touchups on the hood fixed that are pretty minor but bug me....

Seeing my car without all its parts on is both interesting and sad at the same time....

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Did you end up getting new suspension components?

Would be nice if they can straighten the original fender and bumper cover.

-- Chuck

Not as such. The insurance company was very obstinate. Got a lot of talk about how salvage parts are "the industry standard. Every insurance repair in the country uses salvage parts." And my favorite "using salvage parts is good for the environment, very green." Then they trotted out their customer satisfaction guarantee and pointed out the section that says my satisfaction is guaranteed. That the final choice in parts used to repair my car rest solely with me, the customer. If I am not happy with any parts used to repair my car, I just have to notify them and select the parts of my choosing. Asterisk, very fine print at the bottom of the page, the customer will be responsible for any increase in costs over what was specified. I will be completely satisfied, so long as I pay for that satisfaction. However the body shop deemed the parts not up to their standards and replaced all bushings, ball joint, wheel bearing and strut. As he put it, basically, now all you have left is the cast metal parts, and if they're straight, theres not much else that could be wrong with it." And i suppose I can't really argue with that. The proof will be when he puts it on his alignment rack. And from there it will go straight to my regular mechanic's alignment rack to compare it to the alignment from just about a year ago.

The bumper cover has been saved, probably. I'll know for sure when he gets done and see if he can get the scuff marks out. He seems confident, but some of those felt pretty deep to me, but he's the expert. The fender on the other hand, I wouldn't expect that to be salvageable, some of those wrinkles were pretty deep and the bends pretty sharp. I really doubt it could be straightened without access to the original machine that formed it.... So, bottom line, I am only losing one VIN tag it looks like.

The front tire sidewall was gouged. Insurance replaced the tire with the same brand and model of tire. Falken ZE950's. I'm not really crazy about them, but I guess they've been pretty OK. So, I have a left front tire that is about half worn and a new right front tire. What do you all think about that? I was planning on replacing them with some summer tires next year possibly. Was looking at Firestone S04's last fall. I can't really afford to drop that money today, but if its going to be an issue for regular around town and highway driving, I'll find a way.

If it was the rear, one new tire, one worn, you'd definitely have handling issues (due to how sensitive our diff is to rear tire diameter). On the front, eh, not much of a big deal.

Interestingly, for situations like this, Tire Rack will save a new tire down to match the existing tire. You just have to tell them tread depth of tire you are matching to.

If its me, I'd probably get a new tire for the other side on my own nickle, or maybe just get a set of summer tires, (probably Firestone Indy 500 because they are good, and cheap). Tires are huge with this car.

I think your car is going to end up great.

Do you plan on replacing the driver side headlight with a brand new one so that it will match with the passenger side? Also, since you're getting new paint on the bumper, fender, part of the hood, and new headlight, have you consider having 3M Clear Bra or Expel applied to the front? Now's the best time to protect the paint going forward.

Ever thought of running dedicated summer performance tires?
I had all seasons on mine when I bought it and felt the handling was suffering. I threw on some new Michelin PSS tires and wow what a difference that made... not trying to bash, just curious why the all season tires?

Also - just curious. What is the reservoir behind the passenger tire for?

Washer fluid.

Oh yeah - LOL. Duh. I've never topped mine off in the 2.5 years I've had the car now... forgot it's over on that side.

:D I almost said blinker fluid

No, the blinkers don't have a reservoir for fluids, you can use a spray can of silicone spray directly on the light. Works perfectly.

I think you got lucky, little further back and you would have been here stripping the interior to remove the soft top rear moulding to repaint/blendthe quarter with a new door

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I wish I could. But at almost $800 it's not in the cards right now. I paid out of pocket to have the rear wheel refinished with the accident-damaged front one. It had a bit of minor curb rash. And the hood touchup is out of pocket too. I am going to have to make do with having the left headlight polished and hope it matches pretty closely. It's barely got some clouding on the top part of the lens, not bad.
I have. Considered it, I mean. I have no idea off the top of my head where to get that done around here, or how much. (I'm lucky to get a screen protector on myself without bubbles). A fellow member of the "Old Guyz with Convertiblez" (who are returning today from their bourbon trail run that I had to skip out on (another $500 down the drain), given that my car had only three wheels at the time) has one on his XK8. It might be clear, but you can still see it. At least the edges.

Yep. Sure have. Seeing as the car is stored from November to at least March if not later (depending on the weather) I don't need all seasons. As to why, thats what the dealer had put on it when I bought it three years ago. They were new, and I couldn't see throwing away new tires and buy new. Either this year or next spring when it comes out of winter hibernation there will be a new set of tires in the works.
Why not the S04s? Those seem to be the top of the line, and pretty well recommended. The plan was to get through this year (lots of unexpected expenses already this year) and replace the tires in the spring.

I don't envy you. I've been telling myself the last three weeks that I got off lucky. It could have been a whole lot worse.

To make it worse, I did all the repairs myself..

about 65hours of labor, $1100 in parts, $400 in materials.

I didn't trust a shop enough to properly do the repairs...

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Hope yours turns out great.

You did all that work yourself? I'm impressed. I don't have that kind of skill or talent. That's why I took it where I took it. To a small body shop, where the guy who owns it does the work, and takes the time and care to make sure it's done right.

It should be ready to pick up sometime the first of the week.

I picked up my car the other day. At first glance in their shop I thought there was an awful lot of texture in the new paint. But in retrospect maybe it isn't any worse than the the original areas.... (ignore the fast that it was raining out)

Newly painted fender:
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Fender and original hood:
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I took it in this morning to check the alignment, even though the body shop had aligned it. Glad I did, it was apparently off:
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Now all I have to do is resist the urge to wax it for the next three months. But I need to do something to get the water spots out from driving in the rain today. Any suggestions that won't mess up the new paint curing?

Oh, and while they managed to save the bumper cover, they painted over the VIN tag, so I guess I lost two :mad:

A good paint job is worth the effort! Or in my case worth the expense.

Earlier this month I had the thousand stone chips removed from my front bumper cover by a local paint and body shop. They removed the complete bumper cover from the car, removed all the scoop covers and grill fittings, and sanded it all down to Baby-Bottom-Smooth(tm) before painting. Even though the owner told me they would not paint over the VIN tag I personally taped over it and wrote "Do Not Paint" in the tape. Didn't leave that to chance. They also installed the NOS OEM Honda front spoiler I still had in the original box since 2015 when I declined to mount it myself because of all the stone chips.

Paint on plastic rarely perfectly matches paint on metal even from the factory but this looks good to me. Also freed up a lot of storage space in my shed where the boxed front spoiler had resided for 4 years. Not a 100-Point restoration. The repaint matches the factory painted body and OEM spoiler to my satisfaction. Will do this again as necessary.

-- Chuck

Let it be. 3 months from now, clay out the impurities polish and seal it. ;)

I sure wish I had thought of that. Too late. I had mentioned "oh, that sure would be nice if you end up being able to save the bumper and its VIN tag" But I guess that wasn't enough :)

Pretty much my plan, although I'm more of a carnauba wax person... It's just gonna be a challenge -- how else will I spend a Sunday afternoon if I can't wax the car? I'll be jonesing for the smell of wax by then :). In fact I just volunteered to wash, clay, polish and wax the car of the elderly lady that lives across the alley.......

i use Pinnacle souveron, I love carnauba too, But I

- Clay, Polish, Glaze, Seal, Wax. Then wax every other week at the end of a wash, every 6mo-1yr ill redo the first 4