Pranged Aurion

[skyhigh]

Hi All.

A young bloke ran a red light and took me out and so now I have a wrecked 07 Aurion SX6 (well, its in a holding yard somewhere). Fully insured, and some CCTV evidence to confirm my claim so no worries there. Question I have is, will they write it off. In all honesty, I don't want it back as I have a few friends/family members have got cars back after significant front-end damage, and they've never been the same...

Description of the damage:

- Drivers door difficult to open (Not sure why as the impact is LHS). Had to really stick my shoulder into it to open. I suspect the front of the car is skewed off center and the front right quarter panel was catching the drivers door.

- The obvious main impact damage is in the photos. The other car (small to medium size four door hatch) is a complete wreck. Air bags deployed in the other car and front windscreen totally smashed.

- Rear left quarter also crushed (not clear in crappy mobile phone piccies).

- Rear left wheel is pointing slightly off - so i'm guessing the strut/arms are bent.

- Front left wheel is just in the wrong place. I think the lower arms are broken - but not entirely sure...

- Radiator and air-con (or is it oil cooler??) also damaged so I'd imagine the front cross members are toast...

At the end of the day, everyone walked away without injury (apart from being sore) and its just a car. I'll let the insurance deal with the rest... So I could be p....d off about it, or I can just accept that it is a risk you take when you choose to take to the roads. I'm choosing the latter.

Cheers,

SH.

[DJKOR]

Sorry to hear about the damage mate. I guess the usual thing to say would be at least the car kept you safe from harm... but depending on your connection with the car, that statement may not be an accurate reflection of your thoughts.

I'm not so good with guessing how much things cost to repair, but I'm fairly certain that it would be a fair bit less than your Agreed Value or Market Value (whichever your policy states). I'd be leaning more towards them taking the option to repair it, but I guess at the end of the day, it's up to them which route they will take. I understand your thoughts though. It's definitely not something you feel confident with getting back after a repair.

[Steven]

I'm no expert either, but my theory is that due to the close proximity (and factory bracing) of the strut tower to the firewall, I think there's a chance the firewall transferred some of the impact to the RHS of the car, which manifested itself as a stuck driver's door.

If that's happened then there would be significant body damage all over the front end, and as modern car body's are sort of integrated with the chassis in a way only an engineer could explain, I'd be wondering whether the car could be repaired at all regardless of cost.

As DJKOR said though, it did a good job protecting you and that's the most important thing. Let us know how the insurance works out.

[william777]

Sorry to hear about the accident, Skyhigh. But, thank God that you did not sustain any injury.

I am no expert, but I do hope for you that it would be a write-off.

[Ronnyboy]

Have you got a pic of underneath the bonnet?

From what i see in the pic its repairable. The damage looks close to the 6K-10K mark. So depending on the insurance company it may be a Repairable Write off...

Hopfully you have agreed value insurance as the market value for 07 sx6 ranges around the 13K-20K mark (as per carsales)..

[Noodle Boy]

i doubt it will be a write off judging by what i saw. the way you described the damage made me think that it will cost quite a bit, but not over the value of the car. glad to hear that everyone walked away not injured (aurion provides pretty good safety :) )

[skyhigh]

i doubt it will be a write off judging by what i saw. the way you described the damage made me think that it will cost quite a bit, but not over the value of the car. glad to hear that everyone walked away not injured (aurion provides pretty good safety :) )

Hi All.

I too feel it will unfortunately be fixed... Living in hope however. And as everyone has pointed out, it serves as a safe platform to get around in! If it were written off, I do have what I would determine as a fair agreed value (my Insurer's preferred option), but it will probably make it harder to write off unfortunately...

Thanks for your concern and feedback guys!

Cheers,

SH.

[sx6er]

Buddy, i just want to say one thing and one thing only.

You have a great attitude!

Hope it all works out for you

:)

[Electrician]

Buddy, i just want to say one thing and one thing only.

You have a great attitude!

Hope it all works out for you

:)

+1, Glad your in better shape than the car.

[Ronnyboy]

Glad your in better shape than the car.

+1 I agree... :)

[skyhigh]

They wrote it off. I wasn't expecting that...

Short description over the phone from the assessor (spelling?) is that the body is twisted, and there is significant mechanical damage... along with all suspension down left side.

I guess I'm off shopping for a car... not quite what I had planned for the holidays, but it could be worse!

SH.

[Mole]

You'll be amazed what sort of hidden damage there is after a crash. After I totaled my celica the guys at the shop showed me just how bad the damage was, sure the front was mashed in, but they told me to take a close look at the roof, which had bowed under the pressure! That and I cracked my transmission eh heh...

[Vijith555]

They wrote it off. I wasn't expecting that...

Short description over the phone from the assessor (spelling?) is that the body is twisted, and there is significant mechanical damage... along with all suspension down left side.

I guess I'm off shopping for a car... not quite what I had planned for the holidays, but it could be worse!

SH.

Thats good news Skyhigh..happy shopping :)

[DJKOR]

Good to hear (in the broad view of everything) that your Aurion was written off. So thinking of changing ship?

[skyhigh]

Looking for something different. I've never owned the same type of car twice. I'm thinking Mazda 6... (or maybe my wife is thinking that for me....) I'll miss the extra power that's on tap when you need it. You know what they say. A change is as good as a holiday!

[Ronnyboy]

They wrote it off. I wasn't expecting that...

Short description over the phone from the assessor (spelling?) is that the body is twisted, and there is significant mechanical damage... along with all suspension down left side.

I guess I'm off shopping for a car... not quite what I had planned for the holidays, but it could be worse!

SH.

Congrats man, im guessing you kinda wanted it to be a write off rather then having it fixed.

Hopefully you get pretty decent money for the write off.

The main thing is you didnt get hurt in the accident.

If it was my car that was involved in an accident, id be pretty cut about it :(

[fl00d]

Although the repair cost could be lower than the insured value of the car, remember they could still sell the wreck as is or as parts. Also, most insurers give lifetime warranty on the repairs these days, for major damages it would probably cost them more in the long run to provide that warranty.

Merry Christmas and happy shopping!

[DeafDave76]

Sorry to hear about the write off but when I had my magna and it got written off by a bogan hot uni chick driving a holden commodore (her fault as she admitted she didn't see me stop), it looked repairable until I had a phone call saying it was a write off as I had body zone crumbled and transmission cracked right in the middle (that's how hard the impact was when being rear ended)

But it was a cataylst for me to save up for my current car which is only now 2 months since I purchased the aurion :)

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. I wish you luck in your next purchase, be it another Toyota Aurion or any other car brands.

[Beep Beep]

Sorry to hear about the write off but when I had my magna and it got written off by a bogan hot uni chick driving a holden commodore (her fault as she admitted she didn't see me stop), it looked repairable until I had a phone call saying it was a write off as I had body zone crumbled and transmission cracked right in the middle (that's how hard the impact was when being rear ended)

But it was a cataylst for me to save up for my current car which is only now 2 months since I purchased the aurion :)

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. I wish you luck in your next purchase, be it another Toyota Aurion or any other car brands.

As a general rule, cars with monocoque frames are more likely to be written off in moderate/severe impacts because of the way they are constructed. Compared to similar sized cars with a separate chassis and body bolted on top, monocoques are much lighter and yet are equal in structural strength, if not greater. The downside of the monocoque is because of the way loads are distributed throughout the whole frame, strong impact loads end up being distributed throughout the frame (as designed), and catastrophic failure is usually seen in areas away from the impact zone. This makes it far too hard to repair, and it would never be possible (or at least too hard to) return the chassis back to it's original strength and integrity.

In other words, the monocoque chassis is friggin awesome for deflecting the crash energy AROUND the occupants, but the downside is if the crash energy is high enough, you get multiple catastrophic failures distributed all around you (hence the twisting and warped doors etc). This then makes it no longer feasible to repair.

I think in this instance the car did exactly what it was designed to do; Protect the occupants.

Cheers,

BB

Edited December 22, 2010 by Beep Beep

[DeafDave76]

Sorry to hear about the write off but when I had my magna and it got written off by a bogan hot uni chick driving a holden commodore (her fault as she admitted she didn't see me stop), it looked repairable until I had a phone call saying it was a write off as I had body zone crumbled and transmission cracked right in the middle (that's how hard the impact was when being rear ended)

But it was a cataylst for me to save up for my current car which is only now 2 months since I purchased the aurion :)

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. I wish you luck in your next purchase, be it another Toyota Aurion or any other car brands.

As a general rule, cars with monocoque frames are more likely to be written off in moderate/severe impacts because of the way they are constructed. Compared to similar sized cars with a separate chassis and body bolted on top, monocoques are much lighter and yet are equal in structural strength, if not greater. The downside of the monocoque is because of the way loads are distributed throughout the whole frame, strong impact loads end up being distributed throughout the frame (as designed), and catastrophic failure is usually seen in areas away from the impact zone. This makes it far too hard to repair, and it would never be possible (or at least too hard to) return the chassis back to it's original strength and integrity.

In other words, the monocoque chassis is friggin awesome for deflecting the crash energy AROUND the occupants, but the downside is if the crash energy is high enough, you get multiple catastrophic failures distributed all around you (hence the twisting and warped doors etc). This then makes it no longer feasible to repair.

I think in this instance the car did exactly what it was designed to do; Protect the occupants.

Cheers,

BB

BeepBeep is right. I had to look online straight after the phone call to find out why my old car was written off. It was to do with body crumble zone, in other words what BeepBeep just said. See attached the pictures of my old car. It did look repairable and you can even see the intact tail lights and rear window. But you can see the rear doors were bent in.

[Ronnyboy]

See attached the pictures of my old car. It did look repairable and you can even see the intact tail lights and rear window. But you can see the rear doors were bent in.

That looks painful........

Atleast u were alright after the accident :)

[DeafDave76]

That looks painful........

Atleast u were alright after the accident :)

Thanks ronny but I did get injured in that accident. I got lower back injury as result of being rear ended that hard which caused the driver's seat to snap back, throwing me right onto the back seat. Yes I am walking around but at slower pace than i am used to. My old car only had front air bags but nothing else like side or rear air bags. The girl's commodore had both of her air bags fully deployed.