GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: Stigger69 on 05 January 2016, 06:44
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Hi Everybody, well this is my first post and will probably be my last since starting to follow the site over 2.5 years ago, and having been a proud owner of a GTD for the last 2 years - however it all changed at the end of November when a car pulled out in front of me giving me no chance to avoid or the radar system time to react resulting in me hitting them square on at 40-50 mph. I thought I would share the photo's to bring to life how safe the Golf is, since I walked away with nothing more than a little winded and a minor scratch on my head, however my GTD has now been written off as £19k was the estimate to bring back to life - and at 2 years old with 50k on the clock that was never going to happen. The car did what it was designed to do - it saved me from injury and I owe my life to its design.
(http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y458/Simon_Franks/cf14f2b5-37bb-4180-a669-127d5720dec8_zpsxlxsj2rg.jpg) (http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/Simon_Franks/media/cf14f2b5-37bb-4180-a669-127d5720dec8_zpsxlxsj2rg.jpg.html)(http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y458/Simon_Franks/IMG_0460_zpssf4cw0pm.jpg) (http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/Simon_Franks/media/IMG_0460_zpssf4cw0pm.jpg.html)
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Ouch - glad you were OK, but such a shame to see such a nice motor being scrapped. I know we all get emotionally attached to our cars (me especially), but at the end of the day they are just steel boxes which can easily be replaced - people or limbs quite often can't !
This is about the third set of photos I've seen on various web sites of a GTD, GTI or an R involved in a serious collision recently, and in all cases the drivers (and passengers) walked away with just scratches or bruises. With so much crap begin levelled at VW at the moment (and perhaps rightly so), over the emissions scandal, it's good to see one area they are not playing around with is occupant safety. The safety cell looks like it did exactly what it was supposed to do, although with so many airbags in current cars (and it looks like both of your front ones deployed), the repair costs can quickly spiral out of control making even new cars unrepairable quite quickly (one of the downsides I guess).
Like I say, glad you were OK. Other parties fault ?
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Its all about the crumple on a modern car, which is why there is such catastrophic damage in these photos and equally why both passengers walked away (I assume at least two occupants - the passenger airbag won't fire unless the seat is being used).
£19k's of damage... soon adds up doesn't it.
Going to buy another or something else this time?
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£19k? All it needs is some t-cut and a mf cloth, it'll easily buff up...
Good to hear you came out mostly unscathed, very reassuring.
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Gutted pal. At least you're ok though.
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Glad you've come out unscathed - someone pulled out on me a couple of days back much as you describe but I managed to avoid hitting them :)
What's next car wise?
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Sorry to hear of your car's sad demise, but at least you are ok. As said, it seems to be the season for it. A few R's have suffered similar fates, some to a lesser degree, in the last few days.
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Has certainly stood up to that impact well.
No kidding, but I had a similar write off many years ago, only to see the car turn up for sale online a few years later, with the seller claiming he had repaired some minor damage. :laugh:
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Many years ago I had someone write to me as the former owner of a car that they were interested in buying that I was the last previous owner.
They were asking me about how the minor scuff to the front end happened... I wrote back saying that when I last saw it there wasn't a single straight panel on the entire thing after I had spun out and hit objects on both sides of the road...
No idea if it was repaired from the scrap yard or (more likely) a ringer with my old VIN plate stuck on it... I did inform the police but never heard jack back from either the person writing to me nor the cops.
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Sorry to hear of your car's sad demise, but at least you are ok. As said, it seems to be the season for it. A few R's have suffered similar fates, some to a lesser degree, in the last few days.
From the R forum? Maybe the first time they've found their Bridgestones lacking and pushed too far? Managed to get my R to tramp a bit with little effort today - a first for me! Next Monday can't come soon enough.
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All these crumple zones and airbags make cars more throwaway than they've ever been, doesn't seem to take a catastrophic amount of damage to write a car off. That's no bad thing - safety first and all that, better the car crumpled than limbs mangled. My cousin is still driving his Volvo 240 tank - 312k miles and still bombproof.
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With respect, a 25+ year old car, no matter how big/heavy is going to come off very badly in a crash with a more modern car, with injuries to the passengers
My wife learned to drive her dads 240, and always raved about it until she saw this (admittedly, the larger/newer 940) - the Volvo is mangled by the much smaller car.
https://youtu.be/qBDyeWofcLY
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Interesting video that phope. You'd of assumed the Volvo would obliterate the Modus.
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Writing a car off does not relate to the damage as such but it is down to whether or not the insurance company deems it economical for repair. If the cost of the parts for repair exceeds more than about 60% of the market value of the car then the insurance company will write it off.
Two examples...
A guy I play cricket with had an old Vauxhall Vectra and another one of the team reversed into the side of it... very little damage... dents to front and rear doors on the passenger side. It was written off as even though the damage was slight because the car was worth nothing.
Years ago I was talking to Nick Mason (drummer with Pink Floyd with a vast collection of historic cars) at the Silverstone Historic meeting where he was racing his Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage. I asked him if he was nervous racing it because it could be written off in an accident. He said no, because, the value of the car was so great that it would always be worth repairing even if he had to pay for the parts to be re-manufactured... He even added that racing it increased its value because it added to the car's history...
Having said all that, when an insurance company writes a car off it is required to categorise the damage A-D with A being the most severe and D the least... The guy with the Vectra got it back as a CAT D and drove it around un-repaired for another few months before be bought... a newer Vectra :rolleyes: