Loss of my elantra

[Jigga]

Hey everyone.. I am sorrry to tell you all this but I doubt I am going to be another elantra owner again or any other car owner for a while. On Tuesday 11/15/05 I was driving around a corner and the road was pretty wet but beginning to dry up from where it had been raining. I swerved to miss a deer(big mistake) and my car slid sideways and i overcorrected and then all hell broke loose because i did a 180 and slid backwards into a guard rail on a small bridge and the front of the car came around grazed a tree. Then next thing I know I am 20ft below the bridge in a creek bed. I walked away from the car with out a scratch or a bruise. What i couldnt understand was the sheer fact that the air bags didnt go off and the seat belt didnt lock. Every time I would back that car up my driveway the seat belt would lock. The steering wheel didnt even stay in place or the seat back. The steering wheel dropped down into my lap. I have a minor neck injury out of it. Alot of ppl that knew me stopped and were like where is the car because you couldnt see it from the road or anything.... Then the cop came after my uncle was there with his roll back. He was like how fast were you going and I was like I have no clue and he was like so you drive like me at a comfortable speed and I was like yeah he was like ok. So I had to explain what happened and the guy that was hunting up on the hill that flushed two deer out and he didnt know where they went. His story corobarated with mine and the cop didnt measure skid marks or anything because he couldnt find them. He put the accident down as a no fault accident and now the insurance company is trying to screw me over on the entire deal because they wont give me a straight answer. I simply asked if my 1200 dollar rims were covered and I was like if there not i am yanking them off the car and puting the stock steel wheels on. Then they gave me a bunch more bs. They wanted me to sign the car over to them so they can take it up to there salvage yard and go from there so they dont have to pay a towing fee. I was like I am not releasing that car to you until you give me an answer about my wheels because I am not going to drive 100 miles to get my ruined wheels when I can go 3 miles to get them. I think it is pretty damn pathetic when your paying them but heaven forbid its time to pay out they are gonna screw you no matter what. Oh yeah they asked me where I wanted my car to be fixed. I was like your not understanding me the car is a lemon, totaled, you know never gonna be able to drive again. The entire car is a twisted mess. The rear bumper smashed all the way to my subs in the trunk wich were against the back seats. The rear speaker panel under the window heh that thing popped on of my speakers out cuz it bent up. Not to mention that the right quarter it pushed outward and the doors are shoved into each other and u cant get them open. There is a dent that is 3.5 inches deep in the passenger rocker panel. the rear axle on the car is bent really bad on the right side because the wheel is where the door was. The front of the car is twisted out of shape and the hood is overlapping both fenders. The front bumper has a big chunck out of it while the rear bumper and tail lights where completely ripped off. Both front a arms are bent so all the wheels are in different directions. To my surprise no glass broke at all. Then where I went off the road if I would have been 6ft in any direction I wouldnt be going a rant like this because I wouldnt be here. So who thinks my insurance is going to sky rocket?

[evan938]

pics? sounds like a nasty accident. unfortunately, im going to say that unless your insurance knows about your rims, and you had them insured on your policy (which would entail them knowing you had them, and you sending in reciepts so they could insure them for that much), youre going to be SOL on that.

and a lemon and a totaled car are 2 different things. a lemon is a car that has multiple problems from the factory. a totaled car is something you f'ed up

[ericbeck]

hey man sorry to hear what happened

All insurance companies are asses when it comes to something like this. Couple years ago, I was involved in a car accident where a drunk driver hit me from the back... her car pushed mine to the other side of the road where i was hit by 3 other on-coming traffic cars... Thanksfully they all swirlved and missed directly hittng me. Thankfully, I walked out without a scratch... (actualy i had to climb out the window because the door wouldn't open, windows were already shattered) Even though it wasn't my fault at all, the insurance company took forever to reimburse me and only gave me a little money for the total'ed car. ($4500 for Mazda 626)

Anyways, im glad u are okay even when the airbags didnt deploy... it's very unfortunate that u won't be purchasing another Elantra. Good luck with everything and make sure you get ur rims~!

[Jigga]

I figured as much they told me about the receipt deal and what not and I found them but I spent 4 hours the night of the accident getting every bit of audio out of the car and putting it all back to stock. I just threw the stock shifter in the car so it doesnt shift now and i had to have my little cousing get the fogs out for my cuz it so smashed i couldnt get my hand under the bump to get them out.

[evan938]

can you post some pics that are bigger than the thumbnails?

[Jigga]

click on them and they are bigger but i took them with a cell phone and thats the biggest they are, i should have more when i get my scanner hooked up again

[ricerrx7]

It looks to me like there wasn't a frontal impact to set the front airbags off, and wasn't an impact on the doors to set the side airbags off.

[ericbeck]

on a side note, u must have a nice cellphone. that's high quality pic for a cellphone

[evan938]

i did click on it. they were just small on my work computer...i can see them now

[cclngthr]

It looks like the *** end frame members are bent real bad. Even if it could be fixed, the whole *** end would have to be replaced. The reason the airbags did not go off is there was not enough force on the front end by the hood to set them off.

[Doohickie]

And considering you walked away from it, I would say the airbags did exactly what they needed to: nothing at all.

[Jigga]

I just was in total shock cuz the bumper got broke all the way across. I didnt know my car had side air bags in it. I just couldnt believe the seatbelts didnt lock on it cuz i back up my drive way and they would always lock. The only way I am going to get another car is if the insurance company makes this right with me. Since the cop put the accident down at no fault and the car is totaled will my insurance go up? :confused:

[Doohickie]

No clue about the insurance; that varies state by state and depending on your driving record (age, previous accidents, tickets, etc.)

[paki]

seeing as how you are under 18.. yeah your insurance will most likely go up.

im sorry about the accident.. and damn that car is f-ed up. thankfully you're alright and didn't have to go to the hospital or anything.. im sure that was frightening though

[Jigga]

It was pretty frightening and I took some of the people who I know drive fast and on back roads and showed them what happened to my car and they couldnt beleive I was able to get out of it without a scratch on me.

[jeffv1970]

As long as that is how it is listed with the BMV you should be ok. It may go up a little but not a bunch. I use to work for a Insurance company. NO faults normally dont count against you. Get and and all reciepts from were you fixed up or modded the car, they will help with the final value of the car.
I have had 3 cars totaled and always had reciepts. On one of them they tried to only give me 900 but when i pulled out the reciepts totalling about 2500 done in just that year, they kicked the value up and i almost got all my money back.
Good luck, and from the pics you one lucky sob.

[Jigga]

Thanks...I hope I dont take to much of a beating on this deal

[korai9989]

They will try to increase your premium no matter what, especially if the money isn't coming from another insurance company (someone else's fault) good luck with all of that, mine is almost considered totalled, i wanna see how that goes

[BColeman]

Dude, you are very lucky.

As to your claim to Hyundai regarding air bags, I'm with you 100%.

I was in 6 accidents in my '02 Elantra, and in three of them the airbags should have gone off. (i.e., 65 mph on I-4 by Disney here in Orlando, women in a Saturn loses control, I t-bone here in the passenger side of the car, we slid across 5 lanes of traffic, we both drove the cars home.)

I feel Hyundai needs to take a good look at this. My '02 I took it in for an air bag light problem all the time. They never deployed in any of the accidents.

The best they could say for them not deploying was I was at the wrong speed or wrong angle for the sensor(s) to take effect.

I think that's bull****. You sell me a car with 4 air bags, by god they need to work.

In leue of this, I am replacing both my seats in my '05 to get rid of the side impact bags. I have a new steering wheel and momo hub on its way to replace that air bag. And I have a friend of mine who works for a custom auto shop mapping something out to replace the passenger one with either a pop-up TV screen, or pop-up gauge pod.

I seriously think we should ban together and give Hyundai a piece of our mind regarding the air bags.

Sorry to stray from the topic...

Jigga, i'm glad you were able to walk away from this. I'm sorry about you car and all the heartache you have to go through with the insurance company. As far as your rims, I'd take them off, and **** the steelies. Tell the company they can put them on themselves if they really want to. And I do believe they should total your car. Personally, I wouldn't drive it if it was fixed.

Good luck man...

[Jigga]

Thats pretty much what i told them on the phone. Then I left out one detail on Thursday Hyundai sent me a recall form on my airbags 2 days after I had my accident. The my seat belt didnt lock up, but whenever I'd back up my damn drive it sure the hell would lock up. I aint getting another hyundai unless the insurance company buys me one even then I'd sell it or trade it in cuz I think I am gonna buy a skyline or something. Plus those little koreans make the cars where you cant get ur hand in places to work on them cuz you have to take about 20 things apart just to change one simple thing.

[Mr. Dan]

On behalf of my wife, and the other yellow bastards, Screw you.

You put your car in a creekbed and walk away without a scratch, and you're complaining? Air bags cause as many injuries as they prevent and I bet the engineers at Hyundai know this. Air bags deploy when they are supposed to. When they deploy while you're just driving along for no reason, then you can start complaining.

Your description of the accident doesn't make sense. You said the seat belt didn't lock and you think that you hit your head on the dash and caused a neck injury? You'd think that would cause a bruise. And if the steering wheel dropped into your lap and the belt didn't lock you'd be spitting teeth. More likely the seat belt saved your *** so you could be here today to insult the people that saved it.

[Jigga]

sorry for the racist insult, my appologies i am just very very frustrated right now. Whenever I'd work on that car I couldnt hardly do it because of the small places.

[coco]

Whenever I'd work on that car I couldnt hardly do it because of the small places.

ive never had any problems working on mine.....try working on a LS1, hell try switching out the spark plugs...then ull know tight spaces. but hopefully the insurance company will do u right.... eventho when a lady in a Tahoe tore the front end off my tibby it took the insurance 3 months to pay me. but it was worth the wait i got $2000 more than it was worth. so just hang in there.

[menallychllngd]

my condolences on your loss.

[TheKoreanSaab]

Yeah I love my hyundai but I am going to majorily upgrade out of a Korean car. I will either get a Saab, Volvo, or someother foreign car. No more Korean cars. I hydroplane quite often in my car we have some bad standing water in Tennessee. I havent wrecked yet but it scares the **** out of me it doesnt matter how fast your going I hydroplane at 40mph sometimes. Unfortunately I did not get the elantra with ABS. Im sorry but I feel you.

Edit 12-03-06
I sound so retarded back then. I love my car and it has been good to me.

[korai9989]

The hydroplaning is a result of inadequate tires, not Korean automobile manufacturers. Hydroplaning can occur in any vehicle at speeds as low as 15mph. Unless you are willing to get better tires, get used to hydroplaning problems no matter what you drive.

As for tight spaces... I have a 1992 Ford Explorer and you have to take the passenger side wheel off in order to still barely reach the 3 spark plugs on that side of the engine. And I hope you know Ford is American.

As for the airbag deployment... the sensor is inside of the front bumper cover. If there is no frontal inpact, there is no need for your front airbags. This feature is designed as such so that in the event that your body isn't thrown forward, your airbags aren't given the chance to do more harm than good. This is a safety feature!!! As for side impact airbags... your door has to be smashed, and trust me... when the door is smashed, that airbag will already be there.

And for the Koreans that built my car... thank you!

[Leviathant]

Your description of the accident doesn't make sense. You said the seat belt didn't lock and you think that you hit your head on the dash and caused a neck injury? You'd think that would cause a bruise. And if the steering wheel dropped into your lap and the belt didn't lock you'd be spitting teeth. More likely the seat belt saved your *** so you could be here today to insult the people that saved it.

You know, that's exactly what I was thinking as I read that first post. The story has a lot of inconsistencies. I don't work for his insurance company, so I'm not going to press the issue, but I get a little weary of the people who come on here, flipped out angry and blaming all their problems on their car because it's Korean.

This was perfectly illustrated by the follow-up that TheKoreanSaab thinking that a Swedish car might hydroplane less than a Korean car. If you're buying the same cheap-*** tires, it doesn't make a difference.

Anyhow, Jigga, in your own best interest, get your story straight.