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My Kia Carens suffers severe damage despite low speed accident impact

31st March 2023, 11:26 by Dev Shah

To my utter shock, the driver side door would not open hence I could not even step out to see the extent of damage.

BHPian sidharthg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hello everybody.

I would like to narrate my experience recent unfortunate accident involving our 6 month old Kia Carens LP. I was travelling in a colony by-lane and trying to turn left however due to blinding sunlight hitting my eyes at the unfortunate time I could not react immediately and ended up rear ending another car in front.

Before I could understand what happened, I heard a fairly loud crumpling sound from the front right side of the car. To my utter shock the driver side door would not open hence I could not even step out to see the extent of damage.

Nevertheless the other person was obviously infuriated in this early morning crash but we both were gentlemen enough to not resort to any verbal arguments or exchanged any abuses. I simply accepted my mistake and we exchanged our numbers and insurance papers. This was the end of the ordeal on the road since I couldn’t get out of the car I immediately headed back home and jumped out of the passenger side of the car to assess the damage.

I was totally shocked to see the extent of damage to my car even though I had bumped at a measly speed of 10 to 15 kilometres per hour. As evident from the photos, the entire Bumper, Right Side Fender and Headlight were totally squashed and destroyed. After opening the bonnet, I also saw cracks on some of the plastic parts covering the headlights on the inside.

What was the most disappointing thing for me was that even in this such low-speed shunt the driver side door got blocked and wouldn't open since the Fender had also got squashed towards the A pillar of the car.

Following are some of my observations:

The sheet metal used is extremely thin and weak.
The collapse wall at front is very poor.
The drivers door shouldn’t have been blocked at all atleast till 60kmph as per NCAP.
A higher speed crash would have been a major disaster.
The insides of the bumper are totally hollow. Or insufficient support for the bumper.

By the way, other car was an Innova. Fortunately, The only thing that happened to it was a ding to the rear bumper and scratches.

Moreover, another eye opener was the apparent “3rd Party Claim” Insurance. We both thought that by simple exchanging the insurance papers, he would be able to get the claim amount from my insurance company. But it is not as easy as it sounds.

For this to work, following is required:

Personal injury to a 3rd Party.
FIR.
The case will goto court and then to an arbitrator.
Upon decision of above, the insurance company will appeal and then an amount for the same would be decided.
The whole process would take atleast 2-3 Months.
Hence, we both decided that it is big crazy to get in to all this and decided to solve the matter amicably.

So basically, the concept of 3rd Party Insurance is mostly for “Hospital” level accidents I guess.

Anyway, I am having thoughts about selling the car and get a decent value while I can and not risk any further incidents. I was hoping for a better result from a 3 star rated car. And most probably my last Kia or a last Non 5-star crash rated car.

Safe Driving!