[spencernj]

Firstly, I am not proud of this at all. Due to a momentary lack of concentration on a icy road on the motorway/hiway (minius 2C) and the fact that I did not notice that the car in front had stopped until too late, I skidded into the back of the car in Front.

I was probably doing about 30Mph when I braked so I am not sure what speed I was doing when I hit the vehicle in front. But the airbags did not go off and no one was injured.

What surprised me is the lack of damage to the Patriot compared to the other vehicle. I have shown this in the photos. What you can't see is that the front driver’s side wing also has moved back slightly making opening the door difficult, and has a crease in it.

 

[niblips]

Darn, glad you're ok.
We were clobbered last month and the passengerside door wouldn't open... we were hit from the side though into the drivers side front tire. And our Patriot was written off.
We did pick up our new 2011 last night though.

What i really want to know though, after looking at the pics, is what are those square things on your head lights?!?!?!?!

 

[spencernj]

I travel back and forth between UK and France which mean swapping from RHD to LHD countries. In this case you have to fix a beam blocker that will stop the dipped RHD biased headlights from blinding a LHD driver. Generally you just block off a bit of the beam you can buy a sticker for a few pounds or use sticky tape of some sort once you know the location which is usually printed in the UL cards manuals. Both look ugly.

As far as I am aware only Volvo and the now defunct MG cars had an adjuster/blocker built in so that the sticky tape solution was not needed. At least things have improved until a few years ago you had to also tint your lenses yellow to drive a UK car in France with a special paint.

 

[niblips]

AHHH! makes sense now.
not googly eyes.... beam blockers.

 

[tiptronic]

My Daughter spends loads of time pack & forward driving through France to Switzerland & has never mentioned Yellow lenses ...I think was stopped about 20 yrs ago , even on their Domestic vehicles.

Anyway glad you are OK ----but bang goes my theory about the Americans tailgating & rear end shunts

 

[Dane]

Bad luck - could happen to anyone.

The Patriot came out of it pretty good by the looks of it.

 

[rocal]

Jayz, Spencer, whatever that one in front is, I don't want one!

Rocal

 

[Weatherman]

Glad to hear you're ok!

 

[tiptronic]

Rocal!! looks like an indestructible SAAB 9-5 to me !!

 

[spencernj]

Jayz, Spencer, whatever that one in front is, I don't want one!

Rocal

It was a Saab - I know I am surpised at the damage.

 

[tiptronic]

The trouble with those Saab's --they were just Vauxhall Vectras with a different body----GM badge engineering!!

 

[harold]

It was a Saab - I know I am surpised at the damage.

i think you might get a nasty shock when you see the $$$ damage to your riot...

 

[BWheeler]

Poor little car... I said don't mess with a jeep...
But its glad to know that no one got hurt...
Drive carefully next time...

 

[Pat]

It was very good that nobody was hurt.

 

[spencernj]

The repair cost is 5000 pounds + tax of 20% (about 7500 dollars+tax) which may just right it off even though its not yet 3 years old. I am waiting for aninsurance company engineer to assess the vehicle.

 

[Dane]

Did you get a breakdown of the parts and labour?

It looks like light damage in the photo but who knows, it might have knocked the chassis out of line or something.

 

[niblips]

The repair cost is 5000 pounds + tax of 20% (about 7500 dollars+tax) which may just right it off even though its not yet 3 years old. I am waiting for aninsurance company engineer to assess the vehicle.

OH MY.
The damage to our Jeep in November was $12,000 CAN and to buy a used Jeep of the same year and mileage would have been btwn $16,000 and $18,000. Our insurance company wrote it off though. We were lucky to have replacement value on our insurance policy so we got back what we paid for it last year.
my fingers are crossed for you...

i think front end damage is more likely to casue a write off then back end damage.

 

[spencernj]

The insurance company has agreed to the repair and the parts have been ordered so now its a case of waiting for them to arrive after which it will be another week before I get it back.

 

[spencernj]

Well the last post turned out to be a joke. The parts tool forever to come and in fact took so long that in the end the insurance company did a deal and the Jeep will go straight back to the leasing company and I will never see it again. Jeep UK took over 10 weeks to source an oil cooler and hose - pathetic. Apparently the excuse was it had to come from Germany, well I can get items from Germany in 24hrs. That's why I bought a KIA as a replacement. Jeep is dying on it's feet in the UK with my regular UK dealer now doing Fords and in France where I live there are no Jeep dealers left North of Paris.

 

[Kev]

You said that there was a crease to the side. I hate to be the one to point it out but there's a bit of a ding on the front too.

Glad everybody got out of it OK. From my understanding one of the bits about modern driving that few folk understand is that modern cars crumple. It's not a fault they are meant to do it. The problem is that accidents look a whole lot worse when a car crumples. The good news is that both drivers and passengers look so much better when a car crumples.