A&Q about Lotus
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Lotus 0, Chevy Tahoe 1.
On the way to drop my daughter off at school this morning, I was t-boned by a Chevy Tahoe. I was passing through a congested intersection passing a stream of cars making left turns to the high school. At that time of the morning, it's near impossible to enter the flow of traffic from the side street that leads to and from the high school, but the driver of the Tahoe decided to give it a try anyway. She could not have seen me approach the intersection because that stream of traffic making the left onto the side street would have blocked her view. But she must have taken a guess that there was a break in traffic and she went for it. I saw her only in time to see she was going to hit us, and when that happened, she sent the Elise into a 180 degree turn. After the initial impact, the spin didn't feel any worse than a spin on an autocross course. She (the Elise) stopped when one of my rear wheels hit the curb--not much of a jolt.
I checked to see that my daughter was OK, and she was (I know all the warnings about injury that may not be immediately perceptible, and I'll keep an eye on this, but I think we're all ok).
The Tahoe driver parked, and an officer was on the scene in just a few seconds. The Tahoe driver stayed in the car, and I didn't want to talk to her because I was so pissed at her. Later she apologized for staying in her SUV--she was in her jammies.
I'm won't find out the extend of the real damage until Monday. The center of impact was between the drivers door and the rear wheel, so the door and the entire rear clam is shot. The only obvious change in the driving is that the steering wheel no longer rests true. I know that if there is any damage to the frame or suspension, the car should be declared totalled. But I hope that is not the case because even if it is declared totalled, I'll still need to kick in a bunch of bucks to get back into a Lotus. That does, though, bring up a question I never thought I'd be asking myself: Elise or Exige?
What I hope is that the damage is just external. Then I can do a Ronin and replace the damaged Elise clamshell with an Exige clamshell--with all that tantalizing extra space for a Tripoint intercooler. Oh yeah.
Monday it is to the adjuster's office for a preliminary look, and then a tow up to Speciality Sports Car in Los Angeles for the tear down.
But crap. I'd signed up for Pahrump next weekend. Hoped to go to the autocross this Sunday.
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David - so sorry! Sounds pretty scary, glad you're both OK. What time are you going over to SCC? I'll probably see you there.
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David, glad you and your daughter are okay. I bet you're glad the impact was on your side and not her's.
A t-bone accident is actually the only accident I have not seen documented. I have emperical data on front collision, rear collision, rollover, and front/corner collisions, but no t-bones.
Can you provide any pictures, and can you provide any details as to how protected you felt given the Elise's very strong chassis and high side sills? If you have any details like speeds, that would be helpful too.
Again glad you two are okay.
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Originally Posted by Serebo1
David - so sorry! Sounds pretty scary, glad you're both OK. What time are you going over to SCC? I'll probably see you there.
I don't know if I'll make it there in person on Monday--my students have papers coming in and I don't want to disappoint them by cancelling class and giving them another two days to procrastinate. If the Elise isn't totalled, I'll probably ask Steve make those improvement to the body that you had done.
Not to highjack my own thread--it's probably been discussed elsewhere--but it seems pretty weird for Schummi to retire on the same day he wins Monza. Does Ferrari think Schummi is weighing them down?
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Originally Posted by benles
David, glad you and your daughter are okay. I bet you're glad the impact was on your side and not her's.
That was my first thought.
Originally Posted by benles
A t-bone accident is actually the only accident I have not seen documented. I have emperical data on front collision, rear collision, rollover, and front/corner collisions, but no t-bones.
Can you provide any pictures, and can you provide any details as to how protected you felt given the Elise's very strong chassis and high side sills?
I'll take some pictures tomorrow--though I haven't figured out how to upload them into a thread.
I felt extremely protected. In this accident, the car's lightness worked in my favor since much of the force of the impact was spent in the car's spin. If I'd been hurled into another car, that would have been a much grimmer story. That aside, I felt no particular pain or discomfort. I've spun the Elise plenty of time on autocross courses, so, as I said before, it felt no worse than that after the impact. The impact itself was less jarring that I'd have imagined. There was a strong thump and the sound of crumpling fiberglass, but the impact felt more like a strong shove than anything else. The door was jammed (It can't be opened from the inside, but, oddly, I can open it from the outside.) The window won't extend more than half as high as it should. But that was it. If I'd been hit more squarely on the door, maybe that, too, would have been a different story. The airbags did not deploy, though the fuel cutoff switch was tripped. I see no damage to the driver's side rear wheel (I'm not saying there is no damage, just that I can't see any and the wheel looks to have remained true). So in this instance, the Elise fully protected my daughter and me.
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Crap, Dude! It sucks to be the victim. Glad you're both okay. This scares the bejeebers out of me, too. Wife sold the SUV today so now she gets my DD and Liz becomes my new DD. I drive in heavy traffic to and from work every day. I was thinking of maybe something like this for my new paint job:
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Originally Posted by WhitePlume
Crap, Dude! It sucks to be the victim. This scares the bejeebers out of me, too. Wife sold the SUV today so now she gets my DD and Liz becomes my new DD. I drive in heavy traffic to and from work every day. I was thinking of maybe something like this for my new paint job:
Attachment 36539
The irony is that all week I've been driving an old Tercel we inherited--so, of course, the day I get hit I'm driving the Elise. I definately was the guy with the bulls eye this morning.
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Originally Posted by David
I don't know if I'll make it there in person on Monday--my students have papers coming in and I don't want to disappoint them by cancelling class and giving them another two days to procrastinate. If the Elise isn't totalled, I'll probably ask Steve make those improvement to the body that you had done.
Not to highjack my own thread--it's probably been discussed elsewhere--but it seems pretty weird for Schummi to retire on the same day he wins Monza. Does Ferrari think Schummi is weighing them down?
Hopefully she isn't totaled. I'll be there at some point on Monday if you want to give me a call. The mesh kits rocks!
Yeah, I have a feeling that Luca and Co. forced Schumi out. I have some crazy idea that we could see Michael at McLaren one day... (just starting rumors)
You have a PM
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Originally Posted by Serebo1
Yeah, I have a feeling that Luca and Co. forced Schumi out. I have some crazy idea that we could see Michael at McLaren one day... (just starting rumors)
That would be cool.
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Sorry about your car but more and more reports are coming back of Lotuses getting hit, backed into, damaged by a moron trying to park and "not seeing" the lotus. When I called my insurance company they said that the Lotus Elise has an extremely high claim rate (almost like an escalade but for different reasons).
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Sorry to hear about your car David. Come comiserate (sp?) at the next dinner, it helped when mine was in the shop.
If there's anything I can do to help, just let me know. Glad to see you are sticking with a Lotus though.
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David, I'm very sad to hear this, glad to hear the two of you are O.K.,I'f I can
help in any way let me know.
All the best, Don.
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David, sorry for the trouble.
From your description the air bags did not trigger from the side impact. Does anyone know what it takes to trigger them?
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I'm going out on a limb here Craig:
Frontal impact that would create a situation where the airbags would have a chance of doing more good than harm.
That or backing your car off of ramps when changing its oil.
Either one should do it....
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CJ, good thing I wasn't sitting in the car at the time.
I'm married, so I have an excuse. Why are you on you computer at midnite on a Friday night?
I only asked about the airbags because of the lastest batch of VW commercials.
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Originally Posted by David
The center of impact was between the drivers door and the rear wheel, so the door and the entire rear cam is shot. The only obvious change in the driving is that the steering wheel no longer rests true. I know that if there is any damage to the frame or suspension, the car should be declared totalled. But I hope that is not the case because even if it is declared totalled, I'll still need to kick in a bunch of bucks to get back into a Lotus.
Glad you and your daughter are OK. You sure you would still want this car, you said you hope it is not declared totalled? If I were you I would not want anything to do with that car anymore. Sue the woman and her insurance company. Go after diminished value, you should get a new car as far as I'm concerned. I'm really sorry this happened, but I doubt the car will be a 100%, even with the best body shop. Reading this kind of stuff pisses me off too, I feel your pain.
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The wheel hitting the curb stopping the car from spinning, dunno, that coulda messed up the chassis to be sure.
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Originally Posted by zvezdah1
The wheel hitting the curb stopping the car from spinning, dunno, that coulda messed up the chassis to be sure.
Not necessarily - my car was shoved into the curb by a minivan see:
.. and the chassis was saved by the bolt on the toe link shearing as designed. So if all the suspension is still connected the bump may not have been that hard and the chassis may be OK.
Good luck with the repairs - its a PITA! but you have the right attitude - coming out of an incident with a vehicle that big without personal injury is the main thing
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I'm going to try to insert some picture of my Elise's damage here.
The contact area included the wheel, and that has me concerned
The diffuser was deformed: