vehicle safety discussion

[heartlandcruisers]

well this april3rd me and the missus were ina really bad rollover accident on a back road due to bad weather.
we spun out lost control rolled 3 times flew right over a 5 foot fence and rolled another 4 times.
basically we should be dead. however we and our dog walked away with me and the missus just having some head bumps.
we were taken to er thanks to highway patrol insisting we go due to hitting our heads.
we lost our beloved cat out of it.
the vehicle was a 2001 ford escape.
where the vehicle was mangled beyond repair. we are both ok.
i swear we should have been killed but nope even our dog was not injured.
anyone else have a story to share.
i cannot get pics of our escape the insurance declared it a total loss.(estimated 11,500 damage) and itss only worth 2500.plus the drivers roof pillar is crushed.
so that's the topic and question.
anyone ever have an accident this major and walk away? if so tell us the make model and year of car and about the accident. just ida makes ya think yanno.
sean

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Glad you guys are ok! That is an amazing survival story!

Nothing like that has happened to me, but I did hit a full size water buffalo in my little green Daihatsu once while I was still living in Darwin, there were two crossing the road in the middle of the night, both far bigger than the car, both black as the moonless night, managed to see and swerve around the first one and started the swerve back in front of the second but it saw me and started running, ended up running straight into the side of the car, only $3000 in damage since I was almost stopped by then, but if I had not seen the first one and managed to miss it the car would have gone straight between its legs and taken the roof and my head straight off, scary experience.

Luke.

 

[mikeeebikey]

I barrel rolled the end of a drag strip once, fox body Mushstang with a Roll cage. Being prepared I was uninjured.
The second roll over I was in sucked. My friend fell asleep at the wheel, we ran out of road. We hit a curb, tree, and a rock, the car went end over end. I got whiplash, bruises, and a broken wrist. My friend waxed the steering wheel with his head, they sewed his scalp back on. ,2 broken arms, and collar bone.
That was a 1988 Buick gnx? gsx? Turbo 6 rocket car, it was fast, but that didn't contribute to the crash.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I know how you feel, I was in a 1991 Chevy Astro that slid off the road on patchy ice and went in the ditch and flipped. It was still running! I got 7 stitches but otherwise fine. I also flipped my 1987 Toyota MR2 with a roll cage due to my own stupidity and got a broken left thumb. Scary type of accident for sure. Glad you're ok.

 

[mikeeebikey]

My cousin learned the hard way about thumbs in the steering wheel!
Glad all of us are alive! I am staying out of the car crash games, they hurt!

 

[CCR]

I see lots of wrecks for work. After 13 years it's hard to get excited about anything. Often times you find the ones that look really bad, everyone will be okay. Others wont look bad at all and you find out they smacked their head on something and died.

My favorite over the years is finding airbags have popped while someone (usually the driver) was eating something. You'll find half eaten cheesburgers, pizza and exploded tacos all over the place. In cup holders, map pockets, stuck to headliners, sunvisors, instrument panels, on the dash ... my favorite occurance was someone in the passenger seat eating a bowl of frosted flakes. Flakes plastered all over the place lol. I've also seen a mustang convertible that smacked a cow at speed, there was cow poo all over the car and on both sides of the headrest lol

 

[outskirtscustoms]

Yeah I can still dislocate my thumb at will. Really freaks people out.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I see lots of wrecks for work. After 13 years it's hard to get excited about anything. Often times you find the ones that look really bad, everyone will be okay. Others wont look bad at all and you find out they smacked their head on something and died.

My favorite over the years is finding airbags have popped while someone (usually the driver) was eating something. You'll find half eaten cheesburgers, pizza and exploded tacos all over the place. In cup holders, map pockets, stuck to headliners, sunvisors, instrument panels, on the dash ... my favorite occurance was someone in the passenger seat eating a bowl of frosted flakes. Flakes plastered all over the place lol. I've also seen a mustang convertible that smacked a cow at speed, there was cow poo all over the car and on both sides of the headrest lol

When we flipped the van there was about a cubic yard of dirt inside it that got scooped up from the flip. dash was broken from the steering column being shoved upward, funny thing is it didn't bust the radiator, and it still ran great and drove onto a trailer to get it home. The 2.8 V6 made it's way into a blazer and is still going strong last I knew. Can't kill a Chevy.

 

[partsguy]

The reason that car flipped was because it was a FORD SUV. haha but safety has greatly improved in the last 50 years. "They don't build 'em like they used too!" Thank God they don't!

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

Sean, glad you're ok. Sorry to hear you lost your cat. Be well.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

The reason that car flipped was because it was a FORD SUV. haha but safety has greatly improved in the last 50 years. "They don't build 'em like they used too!" Thank God they don't!

It's not just Fords, anything with a high center of gravity gets thrown sideways and it can flip. As far as them not building them like they used to that can be a good or bad thing, the good part is you now have air bags, on-star can call emergency services for you, and all these wonderful things like anti lock brakes, seat belts that have a shoulder strap, and many more innovations to keep you safe. The down side is that all the old thick American steel has been replaced with tin foil, plastic, and fiberglass so the cars now days are designed to crush in around you to protect you but they are finished after a wreck whereas my van would drive home.

I still remember my first accident, I was driving my old 1966 International 1200 series pickup to work sitting at a stop sign waiting to turn and a Honda Civic rear ended me hard. Didn't even attempt to stop. I banged my head off the back window and the hard steel dash but I was ok. It put a 6 inch scratch on the bumper of the truck but the Honda was so bad they needed a flatbed to scrape it off the road.

Also depends on the car, the Ford Focus for example has a horrible crash test rating, I'd rather be in a Pinto.

 

[partsguy]

I was poking fun at the Ford Exploder, which had a higher tendency to roll over. my friends had a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer and...it got rolled. You are right though, any SUV can tip over. To be honest, it wasn't even Ford's fault; it was the Firestone tires they put on the cars from the factory! But Ford is the one that got burned out of the deal and the jokes still make me chuckle.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

Yeah it doesn't help the negative image Ford already has... Found on road dead... Fix or repair daily... faded out rebuilt Dodge... Forgotten on race day... the list goes on and on. Not to mention the whole Pinto controvercy from back in the day.

 

[partsguy]

Cheapest Heap Ever enVisioned Yet, General Mistake Corporation, etc. I drive a 2002 Taurus SES with V6 and overdrive daily. It's a nice daily driver but once a year or two it has a major mechanical failure. This year it was headgaskets, last year it was rusted out coolant lines that bust when I was on the highway but luckily I made it home, also last year or maybe in 2012 a coil spring broke as I was backing out of the driveway. I was going to Auto Zone to get parts for mom's Toyota Corolla (in for brakes and oil change). I am strongly considering a truck as my next daily vehicle and due to spark plugs stripping on Ford trucks (costing $1,000 to repair), I'm avoiding Ford like the plague. I am looking at GM, Dodge, and Toyota (IF I can afford one!)

 

[DJ Bill]

I had a spark plug blow out of my 08 Silverado.....and I would blame that on aluminum heads and extra long plug change intervals due to platinum plugs...(Truck has 320,000 on it right now and still going very strong..)
As far as wrecks, I have gone out to pick up wrecks off the highway in northern AZ, cows and horses in the highway can do crazy damage to a car...Never been in anything serious myself, have hit a few deer but never another car or a flip, thank heavens.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

I highly recommend Toyota trucks. I had an '87 king cab 4x4 that I bought for $500 with literally half a million miles on it just to haul junk with, by the time the truck was scrapped it had 650K+ miles on it, hit 3 deer, used as an off road rig... rolled twice, and broke a frame rail which was patched with a log and 3 rolls of duct tape holding the frame back together and it DROVE home from Moab, Utah and then drove itself to the scrapyard! Tough trucks! As a matter of fact Top Gear did an episode on trying to kill a Toyota truck.

 

[partsguy]

I'd love to have a classic 1985 truck customized like Marty McFly's, but then again I couldn't use it to haul with (it would get scratched, dented, etc. wouldn't be nice for long!)

I checked Craigslist and all I find are rusted out and used up trucks from the late 1980s or very early 1990s. There was a 2009 model that was nice but way out of my price range. The others that looked like they were falling apart were all in the $2,000-$3,000 range.

As for aluminum heads, that maybe a GM problem. Chrysler had aluminum heads on cast iron blocks and while the engines were reliable (2.2, 2.4, and 2.5 were Chrysler, 2.7 and 2.6 were Mitsubishi-designed garbage) they were known for head gasket failure early on. The reason was because it was a new way to design engines and it took sometime for a company to design gaskets that would match the rates of expansion and contraction between the two metals. The new gaskets came out in the late 1990's while the Cloud Cars were still in production.

But I'm unaware of any Dodge trucks with those 4-bangers besides the Rampage and Scamp, both of which are now very scarce collector's items and not practical for daily use. Though I would like one someday!

 

[heartlandcruisers]

I highly recommend Toyota trucks. I had an '87 king cab 4x4 that I bought for $500 with literally half a million miles on it just to haul junk with, by the time the truck was scrapped it had 650K+ miles on it, hit 3 deer, used as an off road rig... rolled twice, and broke a frame rail which was patched with a log and 3 rolls of duct tape holding the frame back together and it DROVE home from Moab, Utah and then drove itself to the scrapyard! Tough trucks! As a matter of fact Top Gear did an episode on trying to kill a Toyota truck.

thats funny i had a 1987 toyota 2wd pickup with 562k on it aand i drove it to the scrapyard when the ebd rotted off
bought it for 100 bucks the only problem it agve me was the alternator wire came loose.
had the 22r engine and 5 speed i loved that truck even when the ed fell off which made a few drivers yell at me and want to shoot me lol
theres 3 parts to this but heres the episode from top gear about the Toyota truck


sean

 

[Loosenuts]

A co-worker of mine rolled a 24' flatbed truck 8 times. It was fully loaded with 16,000 lbs of compressed gas cylinders. He had to kick the windshield out to get free but only had a small scratch. He grabbed his Bible and walked away. It was amazing to see him and then look at the totalled truck.
I got knocked off my Harley by a mattress doing 70mph on the freeway. I bounced and slid down the road for quite a ways. Went to get up and realized my right wrist was shattered. A nurse had stopped behind me to block traffic from running me over. She asked if my back hurt. I asked her why she was asking. I about passed out when I turned to look at my reflection in her side window. They wanted to do skin grafts due to the road rash I had but used some kind of special bandage instead. I was just getting better and fell off my work truck and broke my leg. I'm still healing up from all this stuff and feeling lucky to be alive.

 

[outskirtscustoms]

thats funny i had a 1987 toyota 2wd pickup with 562k on it aand i drove it to the scrapyard when the ebd rotted off
bought it for 100 bucks the only problem it agve me was the alternator wire came loose.
had the 22r engine and 5 speed i loved that truck even when the ed fell off which made a few drivers yell at me and want to shoot me lol
theres 3 parts to this but heres the episode from top gear about the Toyota truck


sean

Yeah mine had the 22R and 5 speed too. If you'd find a rust free one and rhino line it from day one I bet it'd be immortal. Only problems I ever had was I replaced the grill and added a bungee cord to hold the hood down after the deer strike, a new windshield and a tail light after rolling it off road, and a new instrument cluster after I submerged it in a mud bog up to the roof (Had a snorkel kit) Then of coarse the log and 4 rolls of duct tape after the frame broke.