I was coming home from the city tonight (along the Schuylkill for those familiar with the area) when all of a sudden a length of mangled tire or plastic strip of some other nature the exact color of the road appeared in front of me, stretched across the middle of the lane and sticking into the air a good foot or so, too suddenly for me to avoid it.

So I ran over it. Then I pulled over and looked at the front and underneath the car. The grill was shattered, the lower part of the fascia was hanging down loosely, and various plastic bits underneath the car were hanging down and dragging against the road.

I was about 20 minutes from home, so I continued driving. Then the oil light started to come on intermittently and then full on. I pulled over again and checked the oil. Since there still seemed to be be some in there, I decided to drive the rest of the way home, keeping a careful eye on the gauges, and arrived home without incident (although the dragging noises were painful to listen to). *sigh*. Tomorrow I will call insurance and hope this is something that is covered.

I don't imagine it will cost less than several thousand dollars to fix, although please feel free to dispell that idea.

 

It is if you have comprehensive. You will just pay the deductible.

 

Probably sprung a leak in an oil cooler or something... bad juju.

I got hit with a flying (something) the other day, scratched the headlight cover and the top of the fender, and slightly dented it also.

Sounds like I got off easy compared to you though...

 

Got to watch out for everything when driving on the Schuylkill

 

Pics?

 

Jerry- my sympathies.. do you know who you are going to take it to? Someone answered a post of mine (I have to search for it) that owns an 8 and has a body shop in Ambler - and is going to have a look at mine after my repairs are done.
I hate to make you feel any worse, but brace yourself. The parts are slow in coming, and the repairs are going to take time. As far as the expense.. well.. most small incidents result in mega bucks. But if I were in your shoes I would have the body shop that you use give you a real estimate before calling your insurance company. The reason is two fold. First, if it isn't too much higher than your deductible, you may consider paying it out of pocket if you are worried about raising your rates. But more importantly, if you get them to provide you with an estimate up front, at least you will have a clear idea of what work is needed, and how long it will take. Having the insurance company do this for oyu takes much longer, in my experience. Rread my thread on this here:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...hreadid=26948&

And my other advice... stay away from the Schuylkill!!!!

 

Thanks for the replies. I just talked with State Farm, and they said it is covered, my deductible is only $100 (so I was probably paying too much in premiums, but at least it's useful now), and I have rental car coverage.

affenage - thanks for the advice. State Farm seems to be more reasonable than Nationwide. I can take it to the body shop of my choice that's in their "select service" program, and the one that my Mazda dealer recommended is in it.

If people are actually interested in pics, I'll post a couple later sometime today.

 

Well, I didn't have time to take pictures before the tow truck came to take it to the body shop, but I do have the estimate now.

Here's what has to be replaced:

Front bumper
foam insert
grill
fog light bracket
a shield of some sort
the condenser
wire to the oil light sensor
something in one of the wheel wells

Estimated time until it's fixed - 1 week, they said Mazda had all the parts they needed in stock
Estimated cost: $2100, not as bad as I feared.

Luckily there was no mechanical damage, except for the condenser.

 

Good excuse for a Mazdaspeed front bumper! :D

 

95 N and S through Philadelphia has been worse on my cars, but my heart goes out to you with Schuylkill Expressway woes. That road flat out sucks. Just be thankful it wasn't a torque converter coming through your window like happened to that poor woman on 95 a few years back.

 

I probably wouldn't have driven home. My old car..yes but not this car. Don't want to make things worse by driving this car when things are fu*ked up. I would have had it towed directly to Mazda, maybe even by Mazda

 

Yeah, I'm counting myself lucky the damage wasn't worse. As far as driving the car after the accident, yes, I was very conflicted about that and had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach the whole time, but I was checking the dipstick and it was looking ok. According to the body shop, the oil pan was fine and it was just the sensor wire that was damaged, so it turned out ok. But I agree, it was probably stupid to drive it. But if you know the Schuylkill, you know in some places those shoulders are not very wide at all, and it's not a place I wanted to sit around waiting, with the possibility of being hit by another car.

After I got it home, I was going to have it towed to Mazda (Brandywine Mazda in West Chester), but when I called them, they told me they don't do body work and referred me to Brandywine Coachworks, who have been very responsive so far. They'll be using genuine Mazda parts.

 

Sorry about the damage. Glad to hear that you are able to get it fixed pretty soon.

mm

 

Cool
Glad to hear that things are working out after all that

 

I got my car back Monday after two weeks - it turned out the oil sensor was part of a major wiring harness, which they had to special order. When that finally came, they took the one wire out of the $600 or $800 harness and spliced it into the old one. It didn't make sense to swap out the whole harness because it would have required dropping the engine, etc, etc.

Anyway, I have my 8 back now, and it looks good as new. C.J. at Brandwine Coachworks in West Chester did a great job. I wouldn't hesitate to bring my car back there if it should ever need work again.