Sarge
January 2nd, 2006, 07:04
Some background first. My wife drives a 2003 Eclipse, sweet little handling car. Her pride and joy. Well about 6-7 weeks ago my son was rear ended while sitting at a red light on the 30 down in Fenton. We get the car back two days before Christmas, looking good. Christmas night he goes to the movies and the car gets smacked on the right front quarterpanel. Screwed the alignment up and rippled the panel. Crap.
New Years Eve day the wife and I are headed to one of the local casinos for lunch and fun. Up the 270 and over to the 70. This is an accident rich area so I usually try to avoid it but that day due to other things we had to do we had to use it. As we come up on the interchange (a overpass that goes up and sweeps left, angled nicely) I slow down and get at least 4 seconds distance. Some one always freaks on this overpass and does it at a crawl. It's drizzling, roads are wet. In front of me is a blue Grand with Colorado plates. I've got my foot still on the brakes and I see about 4-5 cars up hammer their brakes. Time slows down, I think "ANTILOCKS, DON'T PUMP". So I push the peddle the rest of the way down and start looking to go left into the clear area. Then it hits me, I feel nothing from the brakes at all. Just as I realize that, all four lock up and we start to slide, rear going to the right. Speed was around 40, maybe less.
Let me tell ya, that Grand had some good brakes. He got stopped fast. We didn't. Hammered right into his rear end, bumper under his and his trailer hitch chomping on the hood. Buckled the hood up into an upside down V, shattered the left front headlight. No air bag deployment, thankfully. Get pulled off. The Grand has no visible damage, a few pieces of the Mizti hanging off his trailer hitch. Car was driveable and we went ahead and finished our plans. The radiator or a hose gave out just as we pulled into the apartment parking lot. Back to the shop she goes.
Good part? The front end needed repainted thanks to some minor scrapes from the kid a year or so ago. Not the way I wanted to get it done but oh well. Suspect the impact on the quarterpanel screwed up the antilocks but don't really know. Told the wife, the next vehicle she gets is a Grand tho.
Sarge
New Years Eve day the wife and I are headed to one of the local casinos for lunch and fun. Up the 270 and over to the 70. This is an accident rich area so I usually try to avoid it but that day due to other things we had to do we had to use it. As we come up on the interchange (a overpass that goes up and sweeps left, angled nicely) I slow down and get at least 4 seconds distance. Some one always freaks on this overpass and does it at a crawl. It's drizzling, roads are wet. In front of me is a blue Grand with Colorado plates. I've got my foot still on the brakes and I see about 4-5 cars up hammer their brakes. Time slows down, I think "ANTILOCKS, DON'T PUMP". So I push the peddle the rest of the way down and start looking to go left into the clear area. Then it hits me, I feel nothing from the brakes at all. Just as I realize that, all four lock up and we start to slide, rear going to the right. Speed was around 40, maybe less.
Let me tell ya, that Grand had some good brakes. He got stopped fast. We didn't. Hammered right into his rear end, bumper under his and his trailer hitch chomping on the hood. Buckled the hood up into an upside down V, shattered the left front headlight. No air bag deployment, thankfully. Get pulled off. The Grand has no visible damage, a few pieces of the Mizti hanging off his trailer hitch. Car was driveable and we went ahead and finished our plans. The radiator or a hose gave out just as we pulled into the apartment parking lot. Back to the shop she goes.
Good part? The front end needed repainted thanks to some minor scrapes from the kid a year or so ago. Not the way I wanted to get it done but oh well. Suspect the impact on the quarterpanel screwed up the antilocks but don't really know. Told the wife, the next vehicle she gets is a Grand tho.
Sarge