[YaeJay]

who have you insured with? green ?

[bblost]

I had a similar looking accident in my M800 in 1995.

Was waiting for the signal to turn green, when a mini bus hit me in pretty much the same fashion as your car.

Suffered a stiff neck for a week.

The total cost of repairs was about 15k.
Insurance paid about 8k.

The impact was such that my car battery fell off, and the music system (detachable) flew into the rear seat.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by YaeJay

who have you insured with? green ?

as mentioned earlier

Originally Posted by greenhorn

... its new india.

@ bblost, at least the fault was because of the KSRTC dude entirely. This time the KSRTC guy is actually not to blame. Yes he was driving too fast, but he did manage to swerve and avoid banging me entirely. I'd blame this entirely on the alto guy. In fact, if I had rear ended him, I'd have avoided the bus crash, and given the alto's soft rear (compared to the KSRTC bus ) and the speeds at which we were travelling, it would have worked out much cheaper

[aaggoswami]

Very sad incident. But good thing is that you were able to control your car.

Originally Posted by greenhorn

. I've heard of such a thing called a chassis straightening machine.

Yes, machines are there, but I doubt that the original integrity of chassis will be retained. It has absorbed a good amount of shock.
The rear ends of cars are tough. When a scropio rear ended 800 I was driving ( I tried to avoid a biker coming on wrong side ), there was very very little damage. Just broken tail light and slight undulation on rear panel. All the things, hatch, rear door are working fine.

Here the Indica seems to have taken a high energy impact.

Originally Posted by YaeJay

Still feel the car took it quite well lookin at the 'dent' on that Bus!

Read above. The rear ends are generally tough.

[architect]

Ouch, car seems to have had a major hit, but thank goodnes your father and you are safe! There is a chassis straightening machine at one of the TASC in Delhi, but I don't know how they decide if they want to use it or not.

[unni.ak]

Just saw this thread. Sorry to hear about the accident, but glad that you and dad are fine.

[Sunilrj]

basically what they use for getting the vehicle back in shape is a machine called bodypuller. it is a tool for straightening metal of automobile bodies. has a heavy ring carrying a pair of arms with looped ends about the ring and L-shaped outer ends for insertion through one or more apertures formed in metal to be straightened whereby pulling of the ring automatically turns the outer ends of the arms into desired alignment.

So re alignment of the body shell should not be a problem. IMHO the repair estimate should be in the range of 30-35K since the rear quarter panel, rear hatch, rear floor need to be repaired / replaced along with realignment of the top, flattening of the top, repair of the rear bumper, replacement of the tail lamps and painting.

the dent on the bus indicates the force at which you were rear ended. hope your car is back on its wheels very soon!

[deepclutch]

Yes, machines are there, but I doubt that the original integrity of chassis will be retained. It has absorbed a good amount of shock

Will Someone Explain this term and what it meant to vehicles ?How they are unsafe after the impact which it "absorbed" ?

[GTO]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

swerved to avoid hitting a rogue alto guy, and got rear ended by a KSRTC super fast .
car was almost totalled. Thanks to gods grace, nothing happened to me or dad. The bus would have pushed us into a ditch, and it could have been much worse, but I somehow managed to recover control.

Damn, just read this. Glad to hear that you & your father are safe, Greenhorn! Being rear-ended by a bus can have disastrous consequences....your guardian angel must have been working overtime. Good luck with getting the car back in shape.

Originally Posted by deepclutch

Will Someone Explain this term and what it meant to vehicles ?How they are unsafe after the impact which it "absorbed" ?

In a nutshell, crumple zones are engineered into the car's monocoque to absorb impact in an accident, and thus, maximising safety to passengers. Look up pictures from the accidents in India thread. You'll see some cars where the front end has effectively folded up, yet the passenger compartment is left intact.

WRT to your second question, if a car has been in an accident that causes severe damage to the frame, it's impossible to get the chassis shape, balance & rigidity back. Its beyond the scope of an after-market job. Such cars are best sold off / scrapped.

Recommended read

[greenhorn]

it seems the rest of the chassis had not had much damage. Dad went and had a look at it while it was totally stripped. The damage (apart from the roof) is limited to the impact zones. They had a delay in waiting for some body panels to arrive
They have not given an estimate yet. Tentative date is the 20th...

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

it seems the rest of the chassis had not had much damage. Dad went and had a look at it while it was totally stripped. The damage (apart from the roof) is limited to the impact zones. They had a delay in waiting for some body panels to arrive
They have not given an estimate yet. Tentative date is the 20th...

Sept 20th ? Damn! its almost a month.

[greenhorn]

yup, we're not too happy with the long date ( they said something about folks going home due to onam in between).

There seemed to be some work going on, and dad didnt want to piss off the SA and the mechs by making a fuss of it now

[greenhorn]

got a call from the SA today. Apparently the bodywork is mostly done, puttwork starts tomorrow, and painting on monday. They have said that I'd have the car by the end of next week as they had said earlier.

he still has no idea about the amount , can comment only when it is done - is he telling the truth? I asked him if the surveyor had denied anything, and he said no, everything was approved

[janitha]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

got a call from the SA today. Apparently the bodywork is mostly done, puttwork starts tomorrow, and painting on monday. They have said that I'd have the car by the end of next week as they had said earlier.

he still has no idea about the amount , can comment only when it is done - is he telling the truth? I asked him if the surveyor had denied anything, and he said no, everything was approved

Don't they give an approximate estimation beforehand?

[greenhorn]

he had given a vague 20~25k figure after insurance beforehand