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The Contour is no more

D

DanMyers

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Feb 1, 2005
Messages
1,557
Location
Tunkhannock, PA
Well on my way to work on tuesday I was stopped behind a line of cars at a green light waiting for the guy in front to get an opening to turn left when an older woman pulled out of a small side street roughly 75ft behind me and proceeded to accelerate right into the back of the contour. She hit me so violently it pushed the front of my car underneath the rear of a Cherokee in front of me. She told the officer who came out that we were moving, but even he (who wasn't there at the time of the accident) knew we weren't and the accident report will reflect that.

While the Cherokee suffered no damage (thankfully since the part that took most of the punishment was the gas tank) and the woman behind me in the Volvo only got 2 smashed headlights and a broken grill, my car has extensive damage to the trunk, passenger side quarter panel, and the unibody in general, as well as a crushed and deformed hood, and the grill popped off. My claims adjuster came today and confirmed what I suspected, the car is a total loss. My claims adjuster is a friend of mine and luckily was able to get the value of the car up from 2,200 to 2,753 for me thanks to things like my leather seats and also advised me to remove my mods including headers and Y pipe.

I still have to apparently wait for the womans insurance company to come and appraise the car themselves and then offer me something for it, but I highly doubt they'll even come close to what my insurance offered. I get tomorrow and sunday off and that's it until the following sunday at least so it looks like I'll be spending tomorrow and sunday pulling mods off the car and getting a rental car.

I found a 2000 T Red on tan SVT fairly close to me for 3k that has 119,000 on it and only 1 owner and a clean carfax so hopefully soon I'll be able to go and look at the car and maybe pick it up. I'm really sad to see my car go as I've had it for 7 years, and in that time it's gotten me a reliable 30mpg and only broken a wheel bearing, a crank sensor, and a rack seal. She was reliable, I loved the color, and I will sorely miss my SE.:(

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Im sorry to hear :( . Accidents are tough with an older car like Contours. On the one hand, we grow close to them and on the other they total out easy, but I'm glad you are ok.

Your pics aren't working btw
 
Should work now, note the nice scrape from the tailpipe of the Cherokee.

Yeah, adjuster got to 3K with just the rear end damage.
 
Haha I would love to still drive the car if I could, but that wheel well is actually rubbing pretty bad on the rubber, Those are just 2 pics I grabbed when it happened. I am spending the day ripping mods off so I'll get you a pic of the back, though the only thing you can really see is maybe the bumper pushed up, trunk has really tight seams and I haven't tried to open it but the underside is crushed especially on passenger side.
 
Mine is worse though, unibody is destroyed in the rear, trunk is bulged up on the passenger side, you can kind of see it from the picture, but the door seams should not be that tight. It needs a new rear clip to ever drive straight again. I just can't afford it and as much as I love this car and don't want to get rid of it, it's just not fixable. Taking a second to rehydrate since it's so hot out there but I'll get some pics of how ruined the rear end is in a minute.

Showing how bowed out the body work is near the tire:
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Frame rail under the car buckled in on itself in a Z shape almost:
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Trunk floor buckled up, might be difficult to see thanks to the sun:
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This should be the well where the spare sits, now the spare is level with the rest of the floor on the passenger side:
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Hey sorry to see it smashed. Old farts should be banned lol.

If your seats are blue leather, i would be interested in the fronts ....G.
 
Haha, I don't know that it's old people so much as people who think of driving as a chore. While I'm vacuuming I don't really pay attention too much to what I'm doing which is common for anything that is a chore, though you can't kill someone easily while vacuuming. I think this woman was doing what I'm constantly yelling at my mom for, looking at everything but the road. Like I said she never even touched the brakes, just saw the girl in front of me and myself pass her, made her turn and then was looking at something else the entire way. I refuse to ride with my mom because of doing the same sort of thing and even use this as an example of what can easily happen but I doubt anything will make her or this woman change. In fact in December my brothers '09 328i was parked back and in between garage doors so that both my mom and I could get out around it, and my mom ended up smashing into the headlight and fender, when I asked what she was looking at while reversing she said: What I always look at, the garage door closing.:nonono:

Sorry man, seats are out of a Mystique and are gray leather. My claims adjuster sat in the drivers seat to take a pic of the odo and exclaimed: Wow these are really nice seats! Not bad for a $74 set from the junkyard, but will be going with the car.

Thanks for the kind words though guys, I thought I'd have this car until it rusted out from underneath me, unfortunately that will not be the case.
 
.. i remember reading on here or NECO about a young driver who mowed down a cyclist because he was texting. Unbelievably he had his girlfriend with him who could have been taking the messages. What a :censored:

The highways are only going to get more dangerous 'cos of poor concentration .... G.
 
Sorry to see that your Contour is a gonner , Dan :( . I went through the exact same BS with my (really nice) Jetta a few years back - sitting at a light and BLAM-O ... smashed car . At first I "manned-up" and didn't go to the hospital , but I ended up going to a doctor a short time later with all kinds of neck/back issues (not bull) . I did a couple months of rehab sessions & meds , but my neck still isn't quite right . My point ?? If you have ANY neck issues , go get checked out right away . Don't mess around .
I'd remove any/all mods you can & sell them to recoup the difference in $$$ upgrading to an SVT . You'll be sorry if you don't .
 
Thanks Allen, but the Contour has proven itself a very safe car with the many accidents on the site and mine was no different. Woke up the next day with a very very slightly sore neck that went away almost immediately and has been perfectly fine since.

I'm actually currently pulling stuff off, sound system is out, short shifter is out, SVT PCM is out and stock back in, next up either tonight (I just got off work) or tomorrow, my only day off this coming week, is dual exhaust going back to stock, tubular toe arms coming off, and headers/Y. Probably not going to be able to strip the SVT TB UIM and LIM that are on it since I've gotten rid of the stock pieces a while ago, but the K&N cone filter is coming with me. Can't take the leather out either so some are coming some are staying, and some I never got around to installing haha.

Want to go look at that SVT but was told to wait for the other insurance company to call me and set up an appraisal so they can offer me something on it and then choose between my insurance co. and theirs as far as the offer goes but I've yet to hear from the other company. Have to go get a rental tomorrow since I can't borrow my moms car all week, we work in different directions and work times overlap, looks like I'll be paying for the rental up front out of pocket and waiting to be reimbursed for that as well. Whole situation just sucks since I'll be without a car at least a week or two in addition to letting go of my favorite possession.
 
Damn, I knew about the accident from FB, but to see the pictures makes me sad. Sorry for your loss, hopefully you can find something to fill the void!
 
Ew yeah, the azz end of that got smashed :cry:. No saving it without some real body/frame work.
 
Yeah she's done, no real fixing her, woman's insurance company called finally yesterday tried to jerk me around telling me they haven't spoken to their client yet (yeah right, it's been a week, both her headlights were smashed out, and she told me that was her only car) then tried to tell me they wouldn't appraise the car until she talked to them and they figured out liability, which is also BS since I told them to take my statement (they definitely wanted to make it seem like I was at fault) from the accident report and they said they have it, and the cop at the scene told me she tried to tell him we were moving but he knew it was BS. Told me it might be 2 weeks before they could do an appraisal, made them schedule me one but I'm going to call them every day until it's done. They also asked how many impacts I felt, 1 or 2, I'm guessing trying to say I was moving, she hit me, then I applied my brakes and she hit me again. I told them I felt her hit me and then my car getting pushed under the Cherokee. Got a rental today and even though it's not covered under my current policy they are definitely going to be paying for it.

96Mystique: I will probably be selling the E1's and they are definitely not going with the car but I'll have to figure out what I'm actually getting first, when I do you have first pick of them, if I decide to buy it back and really strip it I'll also have an SVT PCM with key, UIM, LIM, TB, airbox and 19lb SVT injectors as well as a really low mileage (roughly 9K miles on it) SVT catback and maybe even the gray leather.

Car in MA sold, a black E1 in Old Forge FS 3k, and one in northern Jersey that's T-red/tan for 2,500 are what I'm looking at now but until this insurance company stops jerking me around I can't afford a new one.
 
More picts than you posted on FB... :(

Moving or not, their client rear-ended you and that makes the crash still HER fault. How in the hell are they trying to pin this on you? She was behind you. Simple.
Yep, be persistent with them until they come and see your car. They'll eventually get tired of you calling and come out.

I'm glad you weren't hurt!
 
Yeah I'm still pretty sad about it, got a job back with Advance about 3 weeks ago as "part time" and have been getting over 30 hours every week, 41.5 this week after lunch breaks. So I was expecting to be able to afford a full suspension refresh with KSports in about a month. I just want to get paid and get a car at this point so it's very frustrating trying to deal with what her insurance is doing to me, it's Nationwide BTW and they are definitely being shady.

Oh well, some good news is I just learned that after only 3 weeks my manager is seriously considering promoting me to a management position. Part time to management in 3 weeks is weird haha but I did put in over 2 years working at the one in East Burg, the guy who I'll be replacing has been pushing for me to get it as well, and it's reportedly a nice bump in pay so when I do get a new Contour I'll be able to upgrade the suspension quickly and even drop a 3L in in a reasonable amount of time then I'll be able to start saving for one of my dream cars as a toy.
 
It wont matter that you don't have the rental car option on your policy. Her insurance company will be forced to pay. Don't let them off the hook.
 
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