77 Suburban vs. 2002 GTP

The 77 suburban won.









I was coming home from work and I saw a fire engine in my rear view mirror. I decided to pull over after the intersection. I looked down and HUD said I was going 47mph.

I look up again, yep light is green.

Next thing I know, I see the suburban coming from left to right. The kid ran the red light. Trying to think quickly I cranked the wheel clockwise, so the rear of my car would take the brunt (instead of my door). The force spun me 90 degrees, I slid about 50-100 feet, and ended up with one wheel on the sidewalk.

He ended up with a scratched bumper, I have minor whiplash according to the doctor.

So, how bad is it? Totalled? Dear God I hope not. This was my baby.

Rear drivers door needs to be replaced. Broken tail light. The rest is fender damage, but it's near the gas tank.... No broken glass (not even rear passenger. Trunk opens and closes fine.

I have to call insurance tomorrow, but I'm hoping it's not totalled. What are your thoughts?

Don't think it's totalled. That sucks bad. Your car was just looking sweet too. And I bet that suburban has little or no insurance policy. Did that fire truck swing back around to come to your scene?

very glad to hear that you're fine. Thats whats important. I think the car can be fixed. Good quick thinkin, BTW, you probably saved yourself quite a bit more soreness from a harder, more direct hit.

That hit, had it been to the door, could possibly have killed you. Very good thinking.

As for the damamge, I'm willing to bet it's replacable. I doubt there is any (important) frame damage and the rest is just quarter panels, doors, bumper, and trunk

Rear axle and suspension may need work too. And the gas tank will also need work.

I'm so glad you're ok though.

I think you should take that Burben from the kid and sell it for repair bills if he doesn't have insurance.

The kid has insurance. He actually works at that corner and was coming home from work. His coworker saw it all and said he ran the red light. She said I was not at fault at all.

The firefighters went to their fire, then came back and took my side too. They saw the whole thing happen. Very good witnesses to have on my side.

The kid didn't even dispute what happened, he was just in shock. His dad came to the scene and said that he had just watched his best friend die at the car track like a month ago, so this crash shook him up a bit. I reassured them I was fine, and it was probably the only thing that kept me from getting pissed off.

Sucks for sure, but cars can be fixed or replaced. You can't.

Glad to hear you're okay.

I agree that it probably will not be totalled. Being an '02 with low miles (less than 50k, right?) it's probably worth 10-12,000 or so in the eyes of insurance. I would estimate the damages at 4-5,000. Less than the 2/3 cutoff (in most cases). Doesn't look pretty though, that's for sure.

Good that your okay. I got hit in the same spot and I have a 2002 as well and the insurance company will not consider the gp a total loss but my repair was a little over 4,000 dollars in repairs.

And make sure that you gas guage is working properly because I got hit in the same spot as your car and my fuel sending unit was broken in two pieces from what the guy was telling me and be prepare to have money for your tire to replace if its not damage because I had to pay for a new tire becuase my insurance company does not cover that.

But let us know the outcome tommorow!

Hey man that sucks bad. Good to hear that your ok.

I was in your shoes not so long ago as well. Remember my black GP? I thought it wasn't totalled either and it ended up with a salvage title on it. Hey if they do total just find a Daytona and fix it up nice and purdy.

Good luck with everything.

That's really good to know.

I did the KBB value for Trade In since that's the lowest value...I didn't know if insurance uses the suggested retail trade in. The Trade In was about $9900, and I'm hoping that's low.

I'm wondering if the insurance will cover the body repair and paint, and just let me get a door and rear molding from a scrap yard and I can get it painted later on my own dime when I have the money.

It'll be ugly for a little, but at least I'd have MY car back.

Oh the things to think about when I should be sleeping...

The Daytonas look slick, but I need a ride ASAP. This is my main family car.

If they total it out, I'm thinking about maybe buying a high mileage GP and then doing an engine swap so I can have my low mileage power train. Then part out the rest of my car.

Guess it all depends on what the claims guy says.

It is good you are ok. Man I hope the best for you and the GP. Just as long as you can walk from the wreck the GP can be fixed or replaced unlike you. One good thing that is good is that you witness that can clear the accident and there not be a whole mess about that either. Good luck to you.

Wow, man, that really sucks...I'm glad you're ok though.

I wouldn't think the car is totaled...the damage doesn't look like it's anything serious, at least IMO.

But like some other people said, the car's fixable, you aren't.

I can not express how bad I feel for your car.
First, of course, I'm glad you are okay.

That sucks soo bad.
I hope the insurance company doesn't total it.

Doh!!

Looks reparible to me as well..price will be up there I am sure.

Its good that you have so many witnesses with good reputations as its very possible for the kid and his father and his coworker to change their mind in less time than you can think it about their story. Make sure to get peoples names as far as fire department witnesses.....

My jaw just dropped. i was ready to hear about a race. Im am so sorry man. I cant imagine what that feels like...

Seriously though, im really glad to hear that you are ok....but wow.

Good luck with everything, and for what its worth, we're here for you

So was I, and my brain stumbled a bit trying to put two and two together. That hurts just looking at it, especially since it's so similar to the wreck that I had.

If the Burb was low enough to manage hitting your wheel/tire, check the wheel bearing also. When I got hit like that, it toasted the bearing and I didn't know until after it left the body shop.

I don't think it's totalled, but its still not something anyone wants to see, is it?

Nice move I think that if you hadn't turned we probley would be wondering why we weren't hearing from you. The really lucky thing is that this didn't happen on a country road were the limit is like 80km/h or.....what like 45-50 mp/h. If ya look at it that way makes looking at your car less painful because it could have been alot worse lol.

Just a few hours ago as im going to pick-up my new plates at the DMV, this lady ina Silver BMW X5 didnt know that the light in front of me turned red. As I come to a stop I always look in my rearview mirror to make sure people behind me are stoppin as well. She wasnt until she finally looked up from her CELLPHONE and skid to a stop and to the right of my car. If she didnt jerk the wheel the rearend of my car would be gone, because I estimate she was doing around 45-50mph seeing that we were at the end of a freeway.

Well actually I was going 50 and I figure he was going about 30.

Yeah, all the witnesses said that swerving saved a bumper in my door/window, preventing major injuries.

I'm actually feeling pretty good today. I put an ice pack on and took two advil last night. That's it.

The kid's dad already called me today to check on me and give me his insurance claim number. It's only 8am here...

shi*, damn glad your ok, i think they can save it.

OUCH!!!! Good to hear you're doing alright.

Their insurance should pay for a rental until it's fixed or they total it. I'd say it's borderline as they may have to weld in a new quarter panel.

Still that hurts the eyes. I'm sorry man... That really sucks.


Btw, am I the only one who caught zerg's mention of a rear axle? What rear axle?!?

I called the tow company to get it released to a body shop for an estimate. I told him "2002 Grand Prix" and he immediately knew me.

He said "Oh that's a NICE car".

I said "Well, it WAS nice".

He said "Oh don't worry man, they can fix that".

I hope he's right. I've been preparing for the worst, but I figure the tow guy has seen more wrecks than me, maybe he knows better.

I will get the estimate today or tomorrow.

DAMN!!!!! I hope shes not added to the "Fallin GP list" It doesnt look totaled tho! Glad your OK, and take it easy, goto the DR on the insuanrce tab to make sure you were not injured badly... I know from experiance it doesnt hurt right away, but now I'm having major upper back/neck issues 2 years later from my rearending...

That sucks. Sorry to hear about the accident, but glad you're alright. Did any of your rims get messed up from the accident? I know you had been wanting those for some time. It would suck if they got trashed in the accident.

Nope! The impact was perfect! It spared the rims, brakes, etc. Though some of the suspension was broken because the wheel was crooked. I think the quarterpanel bucked and just threw everything out of whack.

But from what I could tell the rims were untouched.

Oh, one other thing:

When I got my subs, the guy asked if I wanted to pay $15 for the metal grill covers. I paid for them. Good move!

The sub box went for a ride in my trunk and the grills got bent/scraped but they saved my subs.

Good $15 investment.

Sorry to hear about your accident, UMfan. Glad to hear you're ok, and I hope everything works out for you. I had a similar accident with my first car against a Suburban; had to replace the passenger side quarter panel and rear axle.

ya that sux really bad glad to hear ur okay

Glad to hear your ok hopefully well c that purty GP on the road soon...

If it is totaled, I have found a red GTP near me for a good price.

Do I dare go bright red? Man...I just don't know...

It's good to hear that your ok! I'm shocked that truck didnt just go over the whole back end, being its so big! But I hope they can save your car.

whoooooo! yes... do it...do it

Alex and arc are saying "NO! DON'T DO IT!!"

I DARE you.

he aint got the, how do they say in Texas, the GUMPTION to go bright red!

Naw, we'd say he were yeller if he didn't go fer it.

Gumption is some very serious business.

Just one thing...

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

That is all.

lets wait and see if they are gonna DOA his car before we go shopping for another...geez Ihope not cuz that car was sweet! plus you have done so much work to it as well...if mine got hit like that I would be off my rocker.

I hope you dont have any complications down the road from this...my ex-wife had whiplash from a rear-ender we suffered and it bothered her for years (I'll stop cheering you up now)

Thumbs up for some quick reaction on your part...glad to hear youre feeling good on the day after and here's hoping they can fix your ride...but if not, red or no, its still a GP (or GXP )

you can buy the doors and panels from me to build your own

Any word from the insurance company?

Well, since my wife's truck won't start I couldn't go to the body shop. Since this kid's insurance is going to pay for it, I had to call and give them another statement. The kid is only 17, so he needs his parents present for any statements. So they are giving one tonight.

I'm meeting the adjuster at the body shop tomorrow AM. But I mentioned that I spent blood, sweat, and tears modding my car. I asked him what would happen if I bought another GTP...

He said they would allow me to remove my mods from my old car and put them on my new one as long as the OEM parts I'm putting on are in good condition!

Whoo hoo!

That means at the very worst, if they junk my car I will get another GTP will all my mods except my window tint.

The two GTPs I've been eying have 20k more miles than my car, but both have sunroofs (mine didn't) so it's almost a slight upgrade as far as I'm concerned.

I should know all the numbers tomorrow.

That's sweet that they will allow you to remove your headers and such if need be. Hopefully they will just fix it as is and there will be no need... but in any event, that's good to hear!

Update:

Went to the body shop and talked with the kid's insurance company. He's still going over figures but right now the damage is at $6k and still climbing. They are going to have to fix the whole back end of my car. They could slide a piece of paper between the rear pillar and my back glass. the guy said "THIS is how close you were to having your rear glass break out, and probably totaling the vehicle.

So, all the body work, new strut, new tire, my wheel has a scratch so they would send it up to Portland to get it fixed.

They will probably replace my car seat, and will give me money to fix my subwoofer that was damaged.

The insurance guy said "yeah, I was told this was a side impact but I wasn't prepared for how bad this was. It was a HARD impact". Yeah, tell me about it!

Both the insurance guy and body shop were surprised to learn my car was supercharged this morning. I assumed they knew this...guess not. So it added another good chunk to the value of my car.

Before I left I told the guy it would be nice to know if it was totaled or not by the end of today. With the three day weekend, that would give me a good time to go car shopping. He said "Well don't go buy a new car just yet, I think this one will get fixed, but don't hold me to it".

Looks like my car may live another day!

PS- My insurance put me up in a 2006 GP for 4 days. This kid's insurance said it will take about 3 weeks to fix my car, so in the mean time they will continue paying for this rental. Not a bad deal. So far I'm pleased with the way this has been handled.

I'm glad to hear the kid and his family have tried to rip you off.

Good to hear...

do you mean "haven't"?

They've been good. Kid accepted responsibility. He got cited and a $300 ticket (not to mention the insurance he's going to have to pay for the next several years).

His dad has called me pretty much every morning to make sure I'm feeling fine.

I hope the rest of the process with his insurance goes this smooth. If so, I might switch my insurance over to their company.

Who does he have? I've had fanstastic results with State Farm, they have extremely fast and helpful claim service

He has Progressive. I have State Farm.

Yesterday I tried to get info for my claim, and the entire claims team was at a company picnic. I know they had a prerecorded message the day before warning about this...but it's still poor customer service in my opinion. They should take shifts. You can't leave your customers out to dry like that...ALL DAY. Even Enterprise hesitated to give me the rental at the State Farm rate because they couldn't get through to the claims group either.

But there's also been a lot of miscommunication between the body shop, two insurance companies, and me. When I took SF out of the picture, the whole thing ran smoother.

I have Progressive, and couldnt be happier. Here soon, Im thinkin about changing to Allstate.

Just got word back: $6800 in damages. My car is worth almost twice that, so they will fix it all.



Expected to be complete by 9/25

What's really good luck is that my rear drivers door needed to be shimmed because it was crooked and wouldn't open all the way. Also the tailight on that side was getting moisture in it.

Now both are fixed on the insurance companies dime.

I guess that's the bright spot.

excellent...

woot! excellent news...very good to hear that things are going well both with you and your ride...I hope they repair it to your satisfaction and the "Crimson Wolverine" will soon be prowling the streets once again.

From the looks of it, the rear deck lid will need to be replaced. What about the spoiler?
I bet an SD spoiler will cost less or about the same as the oem spoiler.

I was thinking along the same lines as Bobby on this one... surely there's some way to get an aftermarket spoiler out of the deal

Yay!

I know how horrible that wait on the final word is.

No, actually the rear lid and spoiler don't even have a scratch. What you see in the photo is the piece of my tail light that the police officer laid on my trunk lid.

The lid actually opens and closes almost perfectly, it's just a little out of whack since the frame has shifted.

I'm already getting a number of cosmetic fixes at the expense of the insurance company. I'm not going to push it.

Nice... Congrats on the news! I've had to wait on that final word before and it's not fun.

Hey UMfan...since you have gotten good news I decided to celebrate not losing such a great looking car from the board...and since I've been on my graphic art kick lately...see what you think of this...

Yea, my bad. lol

The Crimson Wolverine will raise again!

Thanks Tbat.

I'm not one for naming cars or whatnot. But that's pretty good.

My sister in law called my car "sexy b*tch" the day I came home with it (as in "wow, that's a sexy b*tch).

So since I'm getting the car back, I playing the song "Sexy Back" for her.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt...too sexy for my car...so sexy it hurts"

May not ever been the same again, I guess we'll see. But I feel SO much better about the damage being in the back instead of the front where the engine and all the critical mechanical stuff is.

I'll second that for sure

Hey that's my birthday!

Good luck with everything man. I hope she gets fixed up well. Be picky and check up on it every once and a while

Well I knew everything would be okay because of the simular situation I was in plus I have nationwide and they were very good to me and paid for everything.

So did they say anything about paying for the damage tire and rim.

Yeah since they don't make my rims anymore, they are shipping my rim to a place in Portland that specializes in fixing alloy wheels. they can fill it in and buff it up nice.

The tire can be replaced real easily. But it's progressive's policy to only pay for a percent of the part if it's a part that "wears down". So on my tires for instance, they had like 90 or 95% tread on them. So I am going to have to pay 5 or 10% of the cost of that one tire out of my own pocket.

It sucks, but it's only like $5. That's all I have to pay out of this deal. So, all in all, not bad.

Went to the body shop today to check on it. They had my car ripped apart and were about to remove the rear suspension. Interior was all removed. Headliner removed, rear deck removed, trunk taken apart, rear glass was out.

They have a quarter panel off a silver donor GP. They are going to stretch the frame out best as they can, and then cut my car at the factory welds, and weld up the new quarter panel from the donor car.

He was joking that another guy in the shop loves GPs and he was secretly hoping insurance would total my car so he could buy it and fix it up. I took it as a compliment.

I was telling the guy the details about my accident and he showed me a crunched up Honda they had just gotten in. That driver was killed when an S-10 hit her door. So he was saying how lucky I was that I cranked my wheel to get the impact in the back...because my impact was faster and with a bigger truck.

I feel very fortunate tonight after seeing that Honda. It was a very humbling experience.

Another win for the GPS! Glad you did what you did. Hope that the car gets back to normal, but after most accident fixes, problems never go away. Good luck.

Honestly, the GP would hold up better than a honda if that happened, but i dont know if it would have made much of a difference.

I bet this kinda gives you a new outlook on life. You can consider every day you can wake up in the morning a blessing now.

I definitely have.

I'm also much more hesitant when entering an intersection blindly.

Glad to hear you're ok and that you will have your GP back!

Have you taken any pics of the rebuilding process?

No. I was kicking myself for not bringing a camera yesterday. Maybe I'll swing by Monday and take some photos. I don't want to annoy them by bothering them all the time though, but it's fascinating (to me) to see them fix it.

I wanna see pics too!