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Recently (about couple weeks after getting my new Baleno), I had a bit of a painful experience: collission with a dog on the outer ring-road in Bangalore.

I was doing around 60 on the right most lane - pretty close to the Intel office. There was a Sumo on my left (it was a little ahead of me). I heard the Sumo honk quite loud a few times and suddenly, dang, the stupid mangy creature leaps in front of my car..

It was about 5 feet away and from the last time I checked in the rear view mirror, I knew there was a BMTC bus not far behind me.. So, did not dare braking hard. And even while I was contemplating my options, with foot off the gas pedal, heard a thud - car collided with the dog.

I checked the rear-view mirror to find a large chunk of black plastic on the road. Realized something went seriously wrong :(. Managed pulling over in about 50 meters.

Got out of the car to find that a 1.5 feet chunk of the front bumper just broke off the car! Along with it, I could see some fluid gushing out of the bonnet.

First thing I did was walked back to the accident spot to gather the broken piece of the bumper and possibly a dead dog..

To my surprise, there was no dead dog. And in the 5 mins it took me to get there, some good samaritan even took the plastic off the road and dumped it on the side.

Figured that maybe the dog had an injury, but managed running off the road. Picked the remnants of my bumper, I sheepishly walked back to my car to evaluate the damage. I was feeling quite terrible.

Since I saw quite a bit of fluid gushing out the bonnet, I was prepared to accept the worst.. But tried starting the car.. everything seemed OK. On second check, found that the windshield wiper water tank also broke.. so, the fluid was really water..

That got me feeling a bit better. Went straight to Pratham to give them the car for fixing. (It was about 8:15 AM)

First, to my shock, the service reception was empty!!! Not a soul in site apart from the janitors. I used to give my old car for service at Solar (8AM seems like a bazar any day of the week at Solar!)
Anyways, waited my time till about 9 when some humanity started gathering in their offices. Only to find that they did not have bumpers in stock. So, the only choice I had was to drive the car that way for some time!

Interestingly, I was on my way to Pratham to get a bit of a tap-tap-tap kind of noise I heard from the engine while I was driving to work in the morning.

Having had no luck with a quick fix for the bumper (of course, it would have still taken couple days to paint it the same color and stuff.. ), I decided to have them check the tap-tap.. They opened the bonnet to find a dead rat about a foot from end - to - end. Of course, it was all mangled and beyond recognition! But, it caused some damage before dying. It chomped on the A/C and fan belts a bit. And the tapping noise was due to some loose fabric threads hanging off of the chomped parts.

Looks like in winters, they find some warmth in the engine compartmanent of cars.. that explains its presence in the car. And it must have dozed off nicely when I started the car in the morning, killing it...

Replacing the belts cost about 2 grand.. :(

Finally, I had the car ready by what seemed like eternity around 11.

I'd like to ask the rest of you guys - did you ever encounter a collission with a small animal (dog/pig/cat, etc) and see such damage?

I thought a dog may cause a crack in the bumper.. but having a chunk of it just break off like that.. either the dog was a super dog or do they equip these new age cars come equipped with toy-grade bumpers?

Anyways, I hope Maneka Gandhi is listening. The estimate for fixing the bumper back on is about 9K.

Will post my experience with the bumper replacement (got it done about couple days ago) later..

I was not sure what group to post this message to. I don't think it conforms to any of the already available post groups. Maybe miscellaneous experiences or something!

I dont know wether to laugh or cry at your predictament.
Rats have caused approx 10K of damages to my indica, contact speedsatya for effective rat fighting techniques :D.
As for dogs and pigs, I have not been unlucky to hit a pig but yes have hit a dog at high speed on a highway. Must be doing around 90. The only damage was blood all over the bonnet and bumper and a dead dog, but otherwise tata makes its cars pretty strong.
After reading about your case seems, the dog bar on ford is actually a nice touch.

A word of advise through, there are 80000+ dogs in bangalore so be careful. People have had broken collar bones due to dogs, you are lucky to get away with 9K.

We had a similar incident of collision with a dog on the highway some time back when we were in an 800 and we didn't have any damage on the car except for loose front bumper. So its surprising to see the bumper come off in a much bigger car like baleno:confused:

Nothin happened to an 800!!...if the bumper of the Baleno came off, then surely the 800 should have broken down rl:

heheh...its sad that your car got hurt as well ...but these are things that you cannot help...


abt tata making strong cars ..yeah i agree ...i had posted elsewehere also that i had once taught a dog in punjab some very nice lessons on crossing the road...and i am sure that henceforth that particular dog will always check twice before crossing ....rl:



abt rat busters ...yeah u can ask me on how to scratch the rats

You mean your dog in Punjab checks for an oncoming Indica before it crosses the road? ;) You sure this one that jumped in front was not the one? I mean, probably thought a Baleno is an ok bet, and from the looks of it the dog was right after all! haa haa haaa...

Oh! You scratch rats?! hee hee heeee... gotta know why SS bhai :D

hahahhaha..yeah i am sure that even now after 3 years that dog will be careful when crossing teh road..i braked the pre v2 indica from abt 120 to around 20 kph and even then when the dog did not move ..i made the indica spank the dogs back ..hahhahahhahahahha...and i heard a loud thud ...when i got down to check ...i saw the dog running away from the other side ..hahha running as if on NOS...hahahhahahahahhahahhaha.....



abt scratching rats ...if i dont they come and eat my all the wires in my car ....but bengalooru rats are smart ....they dont enter :p

Man.. there must be some way of dealing with these pests.. I haven't seen anyone stick an obscene bull bars/animal guards in front of a Baleno - Scorpio a la mode.

The thought did come across as quite appealing.. Would have got me a squashed dog instead of squashed bumper!

Anyways, I think they void warranty apart from making the car look like it belongs to a thug!

The rat problem is something of a pain. I think I will buy some of those mortein biscuits and dump them in the bonnet.

Rats caused me some grief in the past too - ate through a bunch of wires in my old car. I got the wires all fixed. And I left some poisoned rice in the basement of the building with a vengeance.

Over a week's time, we found 18 dead rats.. and hmm.. a dead cat!

That sorted out the problem for a while! :)

hey for rats ....will give u a permanent solution

http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img00127ih.jpg


this really helps .....now no more rats...

abt those crash guards ...they are not safe ...read your manual ...it will be mentioned ...if a crash does happen ...they might transfer the shock waves to teh passenger cell ...

also these bars tend to touch on some speedbreakers

Just a thought on a dog device to be fitted on the bumper -

There shud be 2 mechanised protusions like on a fork lift - when a dog is in front the protusions lift up the dog and when u flick a switch on ur dash flings the dog back over ur car backwards - :D only for the dog to land in front of the next car......and if all the cars have the same mechanism the dog will be enjoying the roller coaster in the same place while cars speed ahead .

Are these pics from a car that actually does its daily run on the roads!?
Does the plastic not melt? I see you've got them tightly twined around the engine..

Another question: How does this fend off the rats? Are they known to hate the feel of plastic bristles on their backs?

And in anycase, they enter from below.. so, do you have a similar setup on the underbody also??

I just hope I won't need to get down to this!!!

yes this is froma car that does its daily run and likes ghat roads ....and this set up is there since the last 1.5 years...these are tied using plastic tie wraps ....but u have to be careful so that its tied properly such that it doesnt fall off...or gets entangled in the fan ...i think we are talking of rats and not bats ....rats cannot hang from the underbody ...they will enter and eat all ur rubber n plastic parts ...and yeah i have them in between the fuel tank and the body ......;)

N_C thts a good one... :)) why dont you patent this? lol:

Yes... banged a dog ..which just stood still in front of the car doing at 60km/h..
It was an 800... ..

Damage
.. right side fender!
.. front indicator light
.. some metal bending behind the bumper!
.. bonnet came up a bit!

Not damaged
.. bumper
.. dog

it was an 800... so it did cost 2.5k...

Another one....

A Buffalo!!!!!!!!
No no.... I did not dare to hit it!...
The damn thing hit the car! from side...
Supposedly it was out of control and just came running and hit a car doing about 40km/h (again 800)....

Damage
.. left side fender looked like a potato chip
.. slight bend in the A pillar
.. Windscreen

Not damaged
.. the buffalo had fallen down, so stud up and walked away.

Reminds of something which happened a year back. My friend was driving back from coorg to bangalore in his Opel Astra. Cruising at about 100 kmph, he sees two cows by the side of the road. Although cautioned, he decided no breaking was required. And just when he was about the cross the animals, one of them comes charging into the other and pushes it into the cars path. The car tried to slow down and avoid a collision but collide they did' and the cow went flying, landing back on the hood of the car.

Surprisingly, the damage to the car was significantly lesser than what it could have been with any other car. My friends cousin, who was also in the car, was so impressed with the way the Astra took the impact that he bought the car from my friend a month later!!!

The cow lost its life.