Well today I had my first accident with my TF. I was looking back to check traffic in the right hand lane to pull across and when I looked back the car in front had stopped and after slamming on the brakes I ended up ploughing straight into the back of a Jeep. Luckily the Jeep had only minor damage (few deep scratches on the rear bar) because my car took all the force from the wheel on the back door of the jeep.

The left side guard is damaged, and the left headlight assembly has been pushed back in a fair way and the bonnet is crumpled and the grille is smashed, and looking under the bonnet the radiator looks to be pushed back a little bit too.

I let her run for about half an hour to see if the temp spiked and it didn't and the engine runs fine and there were no fluid leaks anywhere, so I'm thinking I escaped pretty lightly and it just looks far worse than it really is. I managed to drive her home and amazingly the headlight and indicator that got smashed in still work, there is just no glass on the front of it anymore. I'm thinking now that I need to replace the bonnet I may as well turn the front end into a TJ, and then eventually the rear into a TJ also.

I'll post pics up in the morning.

Well today I had my first accident with my TF. I was looking back to check traffic in the right hand lane to pull across and when I looked back the car in front had stopped and after slamming on the brakes I ended up ploughing straight into the back of a Jeep. Luckily the Jeep had only minor damage (few deep scratches on the rear bar) because my car took all the force from the wheel on the back door of the jeep.

The left side guard is damaged, and the left headlight assembly has been pushed back in a fair way and the bonnet is crumpled and the grille is smashed, and looking under the bonnet the radiator looks to be pushed back a little bit too.

I let her run for about half an hour to see if the temp spiked and it didn't and the engine runs fine and there were no fluid leaks anywhere, so I'm thinking I escaped pretty lightly and it just looks far worse than it really is. I managed to drive her home and amazingly the headlight and indicator that got smashed in still work, there is just no glass on the front of it anymore. I'm thinking now that I need to replace the bonnet I may as well turn the front end into a TJ, and then eventually the rear into a TJ also.

I'll post pics up in the morning.

Damn, bad news. Good time to put some parras and a verada grille in though :D

Tough luck mate :cry: - it happens to all of us at some point.

Tough luck mate :cry: - it happens to all of us at some point.
i wish it didn't happen to me when it did... i lost my 2nd gen because of it...

hard luck though mate, here's hoping that its not written off

Unlucky champ....
Yep happens to most of us...

Lucky no-one was hurt..

Good work putting a positive spin on the crash... nothing like getting motivated to turn her into a TJ!!!!

Steve

unlucky to hear mate hope it doesnt cost you to many $$$ to fix it

Bugger mate, sounds like you have got off lightly, as long as you haven't bent anything vital to the car you should be fine.

This is exactly why people need to be taught how to properly setup their mirrors so they don't have any blind spots, don't need to turn to look behind then and can always see whats happening up front.

That's no good man. TJ time!


Bugger mate, sounds like you have got off lightly, as long as you haven't bent anything vital to the car you should be fine.

This is exactly why people need to be taught how to properly setup their mirrors so they don't have any blind spots, don't need to turn to look behind then and can always see whats happening up front.
Setting up mirrors to eliminate blond spots is the best thing I have ever done.

Anyone know the name of that metal bar that goes across the front under the bonnet that the radiator and the top two bolts on the headlights bolt onto? That looks like it needs to be replaced or straightened out. Can these be picked up from a wrecker?

radiator support from memory probly wouldnt wana get 1 from a wreckers though go either genuine or aftermarket

Sorry to hear the bad news mate.

My whole Magna enthusiasm started because of accidents. I first bought a TF Executive in 2004, which was the first reasonably powerful car I had ever owned, but was otherwise a very dull family sedan.

However, I wrote that car off in 2006 with the assistance of a Commodore driver who went straight through a stop sign (see my profile pic). I walked away from that and, because it was the other bloke's fault, my insurance company coughed up at once. I had insured my stock 1998 Magna for $11,750.00. Seemed a bit much at the time but I was sure glad to write it off.

I used that money to upgrade to my current car, a 2000 TJ Magna, which led me to abandon any desire to own a boring family sedan. I most recently crashed that last weekend, in Canterbury Leagues Club's car park, however it was only a fender bender, nothing major.

In fact, now that I look back on it, I have not yet owned a car I haven't crashed. I have also crashed my parents' car - twice - and my mountain bike.

Anyone want to lend me their ride? :D

I don't think its a bolt in affair. Your best bet is to get a new (wreckers) bonnet, guard and light(s) and from the new parts work out where the radiator support should be. You may find that the mudguards no longer line up with the new bonnet, as pushing back in the radiator surround in the accident also pulls in the sides. Remove the fragile parts like the radiator then use minimal force - a crow bar works well, hammers don't - to move things back to their right spot. If you can't line things up because the bend is too deep, or the metal has stretched, a cut and weld on the panel will be needed.

Assemble sheet metal. Panel alignment will tell you when you have it right. Assemble and drive around crash repairers to get quotes for repainting any colour mismatches.
Good luck!

NZ_Tamago - engage brain before starting engine! LOL

No, you CAN'T borrow my car!

Here are a few pics of the damage. This morning I spent a couple of hours straightening a few things and cleaning it up a bit so it looks a hell of a lot better than it did last night, and looking at it now I'm thinking I have a pretty good chance of fixing it myself, which will give me a pretty massive sense of pride rather than putting it into a shop and getting it back all done.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6283/imgp0382zl6.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp0382zl6.jpg)http://img294.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

Here you can see how far in the radiator got pushed and the radiator support thing is straight on the left hand side.

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/995/imgp0381nb6.th.jpg

This is a shot looking from the side at the radiator support thing.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1993/imgp0380pu9.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp0380pu9.jpg)http://img294.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif (http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php)

A front on shot of it again


So far from what I can see I need a new bonnet, guard, headlight, radiator support thing, possibly new radiator (although that seems to be running fine and the car temp is still normal) and a new air conditioning fan as it's making a pretty bad noise when it's running and I'm not sure if thats because it's touching something or not.

Should be a bit of fun for a few weeks.

2nd pic not working for me

2nd pic not working for me


+1 here for that

thats a fair amount of damage really, need a new radiator support panel, radiator crossmember is prolly bent and damaged to require a new one, left hand and right hand front guards, will need major work (replace preferably) front bar cover and front bar Reo.

all up, if you brought it into work, we would charge you about 2500 at LEAST to fix that for you.

you will need to remove the radiator, washer bottle, aircon condensor as well - which will prolly requirea degas and a regas as well - to save the o-zone layer as well.

did the A pillars get pushed back or out of aligment at all?
for best results the car would need to go onto the Car-O-Liner too to get everything back into factory spec.

now is a good time to get paras!

trouble with working at a panel beaters, you start to learn whats needed in these sort of damages to repair and how much its going to cost.

its doable for yourself, but for best results i would recomend taking it to a shop - but if your going to do that, its prolly best you dont try to start works off yourself incase you make the damages and bends worse...

glad to hear that your ok of course - as it is the most important thing - metal can be bent back or replaced, human bodies cant.

EDIT - i would be replacing the radiator and aircond condensor as well - they appear bent/twisted, so now your on borrowed time till they rupture.

EDIT 2 - you will prolly need new headlight support panels if it is seperate to the top rad support - which most cars i see, they are

this is the 5th 3rd gen crash by an AMC member in the last 2 months that we have heard of on these forums. I'm not going to be driving mine for a while...

this is the 5th 3rd gen crash by an AMC member in the last 2 months that we have heard of on these forums. I'm not going to be driving mine for a while...

Have you read the marathon cruise thread in the SA section?

yes, unless there are 2 more that you have read on here i think 5 is about right....:nuts:

just makin sure... :thumbsup:

crap, two of those are mine as well :cry:

I was talking about these 2, the ones from the marathon cruise and yours = 5

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l232/Sair_Bear_1980/164.jpg

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2008/09/14/crash.jpg

is there another one crash you have had within the last 2 months??

EDIT: i just noticed that this one and the one from the cruise are both yours... nice work i think.

hmh you can add one more to that... My Mrs was driving behind a BA falcon ute when it lost its Ute hard tonneua cover and roll bars last tuesday:shock: 2200 dmage to front bar/spolier and l/h guard

should we start a crash thread or do you think it will be a liability issue??

Didn't trotty and wombat also have damage done...... that counts I suppose

this is the 5th 3rd gen crash by an AMC member in the last 2 months that we have heard of on these forums. I'm not going to be driving mine for a while...

umm not really, not counting them out or saying their crash's aren't important but i clearly said 3rd gen's. It's not a competition or anything i was just making a comment about the freqency of the 3rd bingles.

Oh oops! :redface:

should we start a crash thread or do you think it will be a liability issue??

Sounds emo.

ive had two in the last two months. (one at fault, one not)
add that to the list

im not sure how long ago BLKMAG had his crash in his TH, it was recentish, a truck hit him in the rear.
but now its in my hands 3.5L manual conversion :)
surprisingly the cars shell is still straight, and all the doors open fine, even when the crunch is right up to the door, just shows how strong the 3rd gen is
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn177/lowridermagna/GetAttachment.jpg

I'm tipping that last one was a write off? lol

I'm tipping that last one was a write off? lol
yep a repairable write off

yep a repairable write off
uhh.. not sure if u were joking or not, but i don't think that 3rd gen is a repairable write off...

if you put enugh effort into it, you might be able to, but it would just cost way too much
and the car would never be the same,
most write offs are repairable, it just depends if its economically viable or not

if you put enugh effort into it, you might be able to, but it would just cost way too much
and the car would never be the same,
most write offs are repairable, it just depends if its economically viable or not
hmm, fair enough... its just that rear left panel looks very bent, to the point of chassis damage- which i'm pretty sure would make it a stat write off...? i could be wrong about this though

it is very heavy pannel damage, but the car is still straight, so its repairable with a lot of time and money,
but you would be a compleate idiot to do it

Ok so I've worked out that the major damage has been done to the radiator support panel. Question I have is will one out of a TL fit into a TF seeing as most parts are interchangeable? They look pretty much identical. The other question is how do you remove it? I've unbolted both of the guard panels on each side, but the radiator support is still super firm and doesn't want to budge.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

i don't think that the front radiator panel will fit from a TL, as the design for the front end is completely different..

hmm, fair enough... its just that rear left panel looks very bent, to the point of chassis damage- which i'm pretty sure would make it a stat write off...? i could be wrong about this though

at work, we can repair / straighten a chassis that is up to 10mm out of alignment - which im told is a lot, i always thought that if it was moved in an accident, then its written off but no its not true.

was talking to one of the guys at work about this today, and he said that going by what i have said (i also logged into AMC to show him pics) he would write the car off as its an early model magna now and they arnt worth much at all. but it is repairable

it is worth more to sell it for parts

this is the 5th 3rd gen crash by an AMC member in the last 2 months that we have heard of on these forums. I'm not going to be driving mine for a while...


time to add me to that list - that makes it SIX...
i was PARKED as well, and well away from the car at work. details to follow later....
short story, looks relatively undamaged, but theres allready 3000bucks worth of damages under there, still have to add the parts prices too yet.. thankfully, the lady who hit me is insured and its coming off her insurance. :)

EDIT see here for number six in its own thread to keep this one cleaner (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?p=920906&posted=1#post920906)

:shock: