Damage and accidents to your Elantra Options

[elantragt]

I guess it's happened to all of us...from parking lot dings to hail damage to (hopefully not) major accidents. Describe some of the ways your Elantra has gotten "banged up"


My only mishap so far was a serious bumper scrape that took off both paint & primer.... What about your Elantra?

[kmr327]

Well I'm back but after a pretty devastating crash that has left me without my Elantra.... as most of you probably know I moved from Orlando, Florida back north to New Hampshire.... Well i was used to driving in the snow and so on... i learned in it for crying out loud!!!! well in this situation it wasn't that my driving skill was bad but more so the fact that the BF Goodrich Traction T/A's that a spent near $300 for to be bought mounted balanced and an alleged allignment from a local tire company up there is what actually cost me my car, and near injury of me and one of my best friends!! i was driving to my friends house to go watch movies since the kids i knew that were still in High School had a snow day... by the way i am only 18 turning 19 in march... but anyways back to the story... i had been driving during this storm already for about 3-4 hours.. so i was very comfortable that day with driving and knew the limits of the roads and my car... but as i was driving to this persons house going around the last turn and only about 40-50 FT. away from their street was a very light and gradual turn and downhill... i was only doing about 15 mph at the top of the hill i began to very lightly turn the wheel to begin the turn in the road and lightly tapped my brakes... the car kept going straight... i left off the brake so the front tires would spin and help give traction in order to make the turn safely.... no luck.. still going straight... when i knew it was too late and no option other then hitting to tree not by choice of course... i slammed the brakes cut the wheel in hopse that the snow would build up in front of the tires and slow me down and the wheels would turn a bit with traction from the build up... and of course my car went smash right into a tree about 2 FT. diameter.... by the time i hit the tree the car was probably doing in the area of 20-25 mph..... luckily me and my friend both walked away perfectly fine... i had a light bruise from the seat belt.... light back pain for the next two days along with light neck pain... but overall we were okay....

Pics of the aftermath:

[Elantrick]

I got nailed by a bycycle in September. I was going through an uncontroled intersection when out of nowhere, she hit my driverside door. I was only going about 20mph.

Not sure what happened to her, she was taken away in an ambulance, she tried to get up but other bicyclist told her to stay down.

Anyway, I just got the car back. Replaced both door skins and pulled a small dent just behind the rear door.

[silet]

My GT got totaled on 12/22/04, but I replaced with a used 02 GT. I'm glad all of us are around to talk about our accidents...

[elantragt]

Kmr...that looks sad man.... glad you're ok. Did I mention I hate snow?

[Neurowave]

I uh "slipped on some ice" taking an onramp and went into one of them side ditches. The really cool thing is how quick my elantra turned around and climed back up that monster... with blown front tires and fooked wheels. Yay curb!

Amazingly, the wheels and tires were the only thing damaged. The suspension and everything was just fine.

[southpawboston]

i haven't had any accidents with my GT, but living in boston, i've suffered from a few rear bumper scrapes which have gone down through the primer to the plastic. and then there was the two truck driver who scraped my front bumper and mangled the license plate. but that's about it in terms of damage. i'm more worried about the effects of all this slush and salt plastered on my car, for which there is no option to remove any time soon.

[Jesse]

I was rear ended a few months ago, it wasn't that bad and it's been fixed since. I have a nice scratch on the passenger side near the bottom that was caused by someone giving me bad directions into a very tight area. In his defence, it was very dark outside.

And as of today my windshield needs to be replaced.

[silet]

Here's the outside visible damage to my car, which was totaled due to frame damage...

[stauf]

silet, is that the only visible damage? if so, i'm wondering how on earth the framing got tweaked..

[silet]

silet, is that the only visible damage?  if so, i'm wondering how on earth the framing got tweaked..

I'll try to take a picture of the trunk. It's kinda bent It'll make more sense when you see it.

[Gomez]

I got in an accident on September 11th 2004. I was sideswiped doing 45 mph when a car driving towards me, in the opposite direction, drifted into my lane. I swerved onto the shoulder but he still made contact.

Everything was fixed within a month and a half and I got my $500 deductable back just in time for Christmas, which was nice.

It was a '99 Olds Alero. The irony is that my girlfriend just bought the exact same car, but the one that hit me was 4 cylinder and hers is a V6.

Anyhow, the only bad part is that my new rim, to replaced the chipped one from the accident, sucks. It has a lot of imperfections and has a very rough surface. I plan on getting 16"s with my tax return though so I can deal with it.

Aside from that I got my first flat tire today. I guess 185/55 wasn't such a good idea. I don't really know for a fact that's why it's flat but that is the most obvious explanation. Oh well.

[truantics]

One year ago yesterday, I had a little accident. I was sitting in a parking lot, waiting to go into work, and just as I opened my door some lady pulls into the spot next to me and crunched my door in a bit. Oddly enough, she was driving a Sonata.

I always have my digital camera on me, so I took pictures of the damage and sent them to my insurance agent. The hit really only affected the outer door panel, so a new one of those, some paint, and I was all set. Her damage consisted of nothing more than a broken chrome piece around the fog light and a slight scratch.

My damage (Road salt is gross):


Her damage:


Nothing major, which is good.

[Biff]

I've got a couple door dings, one which really makes me mad. I also backed up into something that only a picture can described, and messed up my rear bumper, not horribly though. I will get some pics as soon as I get some batteries for my camera.

[Kim Park]

Reading these helped me feel a little better about my stupidity today. I parked my 5-speed in a fairly level parking lot today, and forget to set the parking brake and didn't leave the car in gear. When I got back to the car, it had rolled about 40 feet and hit a curb at the end of the parking lot. Didn't appear to affect the alignment, but man am I glad it didn't hit a car or roll into the street!

[silet]

Reading these helped me feel a little better about my stupidity today.  I parked my 5-speed in a fairly level parking lot today, and forget to set the parking brake and didn't leave the car in gear.  When I got back to the car, it had rolled about 40 feet and hit a curb at the end of the parking lot.  Didn't appear to affect the alignment, but man am I glad it didn't hit a car or roll into the street!

My friend and I were working on his car. We screwed up and jacked up the car with no chocks The car rolled into the garage and hit the siding in between the garage doors. He was lucky he had no damage to the car. The siding was a different story

[Jonas]

Had an accident in Aug of 03 where my front and back passenger side door panels where damaged; side mouldings and the panels were replaced... Other than that, nothing too major yet (knock on wood)

[Bigs]

Oh geez, where do I start. Only one year in and...

1.Major accident, t-boned a Precidia, totalled it and my GT had $2700.00can damage.

2. Sunroof leaking. While repairing it, they leaned on the rook with probably their elbows and dented my roof. They denied the whole thing.

3. I'm driving at 11:30pm, I'm behind an SUV and the SUV is behing an idiot. The idot decides to put his signal to turn right at a set of lights. The idiot decides to stop at the green light to drop off another idiot. The SUV jams the breaks and avoids him meanwhile my foot slips off my break pedal and I end up off roading the sidewalk to avoid the SUV and the idiot. I ended up with $300.00can of damage.

4. In Montreal Trudeau Airport, I come back from my trip to Guayabitos Mexico, get to my car in the lot and a nice big dent to the rear quarter panel. That is a fixer for srping.

5. Chips on my windsheild and paint.

I think that's it!

[cclngthr]

Here's the outside visible damage to my car, which was totaled due to frame damage...

Silet, is the frame damage primarily in the back?

I found an interesting tidbit about our frames when I installed my trailer hitch.. There is no rail going from the center section to the rear section as far as I can see and no apparent crossmembers in the back, leading me to believe the frame would rack easily. On my car, I saw no rear crossmember or structural steel members between the midsection ahead of the gas tank and right behind the rear wheels. Typically, there should be a crossmember connecting the two side rails at the back as well as in the middle. The front already has the crossmember.

[silet]

Silet, is the frame damage primarily in the back?

Well yes and no. It's from the center to the back. What happened is the floor between the struts and bumper was pulled down at the bumper. This caused the rear body to be pulled down the rest of the car from the sunroof/hatch. Now picture the area between the rear struts. The roof was lowered and the section between the strut tops moved apart. The hatch cover can't stay on and the rear door frames are bent If I had a rear strut bar, it would have held the body together, well somewhat kept it together. I just would have felt it more and it have probably still been totaled.

After your description of the lack of frame support, I'm not surprised at the amount of damage I have.

[stauf]

Hmm.. Are there places to put crossmembers in the rear even? Haven't had mine on a rack yet.

[cclngthr]

On the hatch, the structural support is minimal at best, because no support is there at the top of the strut tower, plus little support at that point on the bottom end as well, since there is no structural steel members crossing the area from the gas tank to the part just behind the rear wheel. That is what buckled. A rear strut bar probably would have prevented the strut towers from spreading and made the car more easily repaired. On the sedan, as my car is, the top of the rear strut towers does have a lot of support because there is the top of the trunk area that is welded in there; which prevents it from spreading. However, the bottom end would be problematic because there isn't the structural frame member to support it.

There is a way to add a crossmember right behind the rear wheel, which would support the back end better, but having a connecting frame rail between the back and mid sections might take some finesse to fabricate, but not impossible; which I might try to do.

[silet]

I think a 16 ga c cannel with cut outs for the floor contours would work if you can go in a direct line from the bumper mounts to the lower suspension crossmember. I haven't looked under the car to see if the tank, swaybar, muffler and spare tire well interfere. And yes, the hatch does have a weak rear end!!!

[cclngthr]

I would go with bent square tubing, which is used for the frame, and molded to the contours of the wheel area, against the undercarriage; rather than C channel. I would tie together the center section and rear sections by stitch welding everything together and TIGing the floor area to the square tubing.

I went with heavy gauge C channel on my truck because I wanted some flex, but stiff enough to hold up to the torque of the 572 I have for the engine. Square tubing IMO would break under the stress from the engine torque (which is over 1,000 hp)

[silet]

The trunk floor needs more support, because just having flat sheetmetal has totaled sedans also. Then again you don't know if it's really better or worse in a similar rear end collision. My truck, 1990 Mazda B2600 has a boxed frame. The original owner was rear ended and the frame held up, but the bed had to be replaced.

[ilanpro]

[cclngthr]

The trunk floor needs more support, because just having flat sheetmetal has totaled sedans also. Then again you don't know if it's really better or worse in a similar rear end collision. My truck, 1990 Mazda B2600 has a boxed frame. The original owner was rear ended and the frame held up, but the bed had to be replaced.

Actually, if you look at the trunk floor, there is the recessed "box" where the spare tire and jack are located, which gives some support, and the center tow hook is welded to that. If there is the center tow hook there, that does have some structure in order to support any stress by using the tow hook. However, what I see is the individual side framerails can easily be misaligned with each other (not parallel to each other) by not having a crossmember to prevent one side from being pushed forward. The problem I do see is this "box" is in the way; too close to the bumper, to put a cross member where it should be at the end of the frame rail. The hitch does tie both rails together and also connecting the center tow hook to it which prevents 1 side rail from being pushed forward.

What I would like to see is some pics of the undercarriage to see what happened, and try to explain to members not only what happened, but to show possible mods that can be done to keep the car intact in an accident (probably best left to the pro).

This post has been edited by cclngthr: Mar 5 2005, 12:55 AM

[Natef53]

Passenger Front
Driver Front

Probably the worst damage done to the car :-\

A few others to note though :

1. While putting on the spare tire. In the snow, rain and mud. After having DESTROYED my front drivers rim on a curb...still don't know how, I put a rather large dent above the tire from leaning into the car not thinking. Just a little more aggrivation to add to that day.

2. Still in school, and parking lots are hell with 300 teenagers so ive gotten a few dents and dings from there.

Probably the extent of the damage for me...nothing bad yet

This post has been edited by Natef53: Mar 6 2005, 06:32 PM

[silet]

Picture is too big.

[tmant]

Just got this yesterday.



Check this thread for more details.

[need4speed129]

well today, actually only about 2 hours ago, my girlfriend was backing out of the driveway and scraped the back bumper and rear drivers side panel on the fence. I was very surprised that I was able to stay some-what calm, used no swear words and overall did very good.

I'm guessing it will probably be like $1000 to fix it, I highly doubt it can be buffed out. It looks like it's all the way down to the metal. And I'm definitly not going to claim it on my car insurance because I started this policy just 5 months ago, so the rates will sky rocket.

Man this really sucks, I don't even have 10,000 miles on it yet!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gelicious]

Got you beat, this happend today, with only 6500 miles on it




Man this sucks,, sorry to hear about all your guy's bangs and bumps..

I guess im part of the club now

[elantraelite]

Natef53, what the hell happened to the interior?

do you own a RD Elantra?

[bugs27979]

While I was driving to work, on Wednesday 23 March 2005, it was raining really hard. I was going about 10MPH under the speed limit. A car cut into my lane on I-95. I tapped the brakes and did a 450 degree spin. I slid sideways while looking at the guard rail for about 200 feet. Then it happened. My front tires went down the incline of the median and directly into the guard rail. SMASH!!!

24 March I got the estimate done. $3500.00 so far. There might be some hidden damage by the radiator support. I drop it off on the 31st to get fixed. They said it should only take 10 days to fix.

Check it out.




Like it?

[gpagpa]

Bugs, wow thats a lot of damage, glad that you are OK. Did the airbag deploy, if not, should it have?

[bugs27979]

Did the airbag deploy, if not, should it have?

No and No. I hit the guardrail with the right front sorta going backwards. It actually pulled the bumper support away from the car. See pic below.

This is a pic showing how the bumper was pulled away from the mounting bracket.

[cclngthr]

Tmat:

That will need a lot of touch-up or a total repaint of the part (bumper?). It looks like you also got hit below the black molding as well. That will have to be sanded and filled in with fiberglass, which that is hard to patch and not crack on you. Most shops elect to replace the part even with that small of it damaged.

Bugs:

It looks as you might have bent the front subframe a little, which I would check to be sure it is squared up. I also suspect the front suspension could be tweaked from the looks of the rim.

On Gelicious's car, that is a fairly easy fix. Popping out the dent and smoothing out the bumper cover and painting the quarter and bumper cover is all that it needs (if the light isn't cracked.

[bugs27979]

Bugs:

It looks as you might have bent the front subframe a little, which I would check to be sure it is squared up. I also suspect the front suspension could be tweaked from the looks of the rim.

That's just dirt on the rim. The car still drives straight. I'm taking it to a collision center located at a dealership (newer equiptment and nicest facility)

[cclngthr]

That's just dirt on the rim. The car still drives straight. I'm taking it to a collision center located at a dealership (newer equiptment and nicest facility)

If that were mine, I be checking the alignment and front suspension aswell as fixing the tin work.

[bugs27979]

If that were mine, I be checking the alignment and front suspension aswell as fixing the tin work.

I agree. The frame check/pull is already included in the estimate if needed.